Pyrostar

Well, here is another starmine, this time I used my wn silver wave formula: 40g KNO3 30g Al, 45µ 10g Mg 8g S 8g Red gum 4g KClO4 30g of stars were used. I took much more lift powder this time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJY6G_1AXSc Greets Pyrostar

Hi I made my first D1 glitter stars, 50g in total. I replaced the dextrin with red gum to get it drying faster. It was a very nice star mine and I am quite happy about the result Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1511sbQsrFs I hope you all like it :P

Hello all I have made my first MgAl today, and I am very satisfied with the result. I used the blower I made, and when the coals were glowing, I added the blower put the crucible in the fire, add the aluminium and put a brick over the crucible. The aluminium melted in 10 minuts after I turned the blower on. Then I added the magnesium wearing leather gloves, gummi boots and safety glasses. This is a MUST! After 15 minutes the crucible was opened again to stir the melt. Because the MgAl ignited only a little I kept on stirring. Then the crucible was taken out of the fire to let it cool. While it cooled some very strange noises could be heared, I only needed a whack with the hammer to get the MgAl chunk out of the crucible. It is pretty amazing how brittle this alloy is. This is the blower: A larger batch has to be made, since the process is so fun and easy and I got awesome results. Thanks for all your advices, they helped me very much! Pyrostar

Hi Today I realized that my campingstove adapter cracked ( it looks like a bell and has a lot of holes, resulting in a flatter, and wider flame), I dont know the proper name for it. Anyway, I discarded it, and now I have a little pipe screwed on the gas-valve, with little vent holes. The stove is fueled with a 190g butane-cartridge. Can I attach a pipe to the stove to make a smaller, but very hot flame, similar to a bunsen burner? The main reason of my thought is that I go to the craft store tomorrow and buy some fireclay to make a furnace for meltng MgAl. I want to use the burner for the furnace if I can make it hotter burning This is the stove without the adapter and the pipe attached: ( the black notch is the gas-valve) So to cut the story short, I want to put the pipe on the burner, and take a steel pipe to make it longer, So I can fit into the furnace. I want to have a nice jet flame, but I dont how long the pipe should, as well as how much holes I should drill in the pipe. Pyrostar

Hi I started making MgAl the first time today and I was very disappointed. I took a camping stove, a metal pot and aluminium and magnesium to form the alloy. I turned on the camping stove, put the metal pot on it and covered the pot with a lid. Then I waited till the pot was red glowing, and dumped balls of aluminium foil in it and waited for 10 minutes to melt it. The pot was glowing bright red all the time, but the aluminium foil only got a weird colour, but it didnt melt, although the temperature must have been higher then 700°C. Then I to added magnesium, and that melted quite well, resulting in a bright fire. I ask myself why the aluminium didn´t melt, I am totally new to metal-alloying and I need a few tips how to get it right Which sort of gas burner should I buy, or do I need to take massive aluminium instead of aluminiumfoil balls? Pyrostar The anode where I got my Mg from:

Hi I pre-milled the charcoal,the charcoal is reduced from large chunks( 3cm) to airfloat in 20 minutes now, since I use bigger rollers, the jar does rotate faster now.Then I get the ball mill in my gardenhouse, connect the wires to the accumulator, and run it for one hour. The media I use are 1/2" lead balls, 200 balls for my jar. The jar is filled 1/3 with media, and then I use so much BP-mix to fill the spaces between the media( as usual, 100g of BP). Then I add one spray of water from a spraybottle, close the jar and let the ball mill run for 1 hour. I didn´t try to mill it for 2-3 hours yet, but I will do soon. And yea, it is very good black powder, and my mill is very efficient, that also shows that you dont need a very long milling time to get extremely fast BP ( for one hour its actually a very crazy speed). And it is good liftpowder, I made a 2" shell which weights 90g, and I used 7g of lift, I will fire it tonight. EDIT: The shell failed, the BP was way to powerfull, the mortar blew up and the shell shattered in thousand pieces. Maybe I should use less BP next time. I think I will use the meal powder for rockets or helicopters So far a waste of my very good silver wave stars I made. Pyrostar

Hi As nearly every one of you know that I have finished my ball mill, I have made some BP with it. The BP is very good and I am really satisfied with the ressults. All the BP batches were milled for roughly one hour. Here is plain meal powder: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZRO0COye04o And here is a 5g pile of corned BP: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ksGHxVNFJis it may sound odd, but to corn it, I added a bit of water to the BP, stick it to the walls of the jar, and ball milled it for 2 hours. Then I got a extremely hard chunk of the BP, and I needed to smack the BP-chunk with a hammer, because it was so hard. The BP grains were 2-3mm big. I would be glad about a few comments. Greets, Pyrostar

Hi I ball milled my first BP batch for 15 minutes, the charcoal was coarse, same as with the KNO3 (like cane sugar). The charcoal I used was willow. Now, the ball mill is turning for 30miutes, loaded with charcoal, the 1cm charcoal pieces were pulverized to a talc like powder, but I will mill it for 2-3 hours, depends on how long the accumulatorr will last. But I charged the accu for 10 hours, so it should be fine. I just love my ball mill I will mill another BP batch with the pre-milled charcoal and post the difference. Here is the first BP test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWjQixFb3V8 I hope you like the result Pyrostar

Hi Yea, maybe I should use a smaller jar with less leadballs. But I am only allowed to run it one time a week, a batch is limited to 100g and running is max.3 hours. It´s because of my parents. It is a shame, but, anyway still better then nothing I think will only mill the C+S mix together and then I will use the CIA-method. I think the result will be a very fast blackpowder Pyrostar

Hi I finished my ball mill yesterday and it works very good. I ball milled 1cm big charcoal to airfloat dust in roughly 1 1/2 hours. But the motor became very hot. The motor is a geared motor: 21W 11-15V DC/2,85 Ampere 3000g/cm torque 316rpm I added some hose to the rods to give it a bettr grip. The jar was geared up to 60rpm. I hope you like it! Pyrostar

Hi This forum has an english-section, the ONLY section where dutch is not spoken! And we are posting in the english-section(general talk) so the only language written here is english -.- Pyrostar

Hi Hello and welcome to the forum I hope you will learn something here about pyrotechnics. Just a few advices: I think reading about selling chemicals via the forum is not allowed here( I learned it the hard way). In general, english is the main language spoken in this section, there is also a dutch-section but no german-section. Come on, show us something of your stuff So far, a friendly welcome, Pyrostar

Hi The headers weren´t heavy, usually like 10g, because I used small stars ( they burn very slowly) in a tube.( 17mm ID, without a breakcharge to get a nice, soft burning of the stars). Pyrostar

Hi all I made nice and succesfull blackpowder rockets, filled with silver stars. A few dimensions: 10,5mm ID 2" long tube 1" deep core 2,5mm noozle ID Very fast blackpowder was used as a propellant. Silver stars consisted of: 40g KClO4 40g german dark Al 10g dextrin + blackpowder prime The videos: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ph1fOQasjQs http://youtube.com/watch?v=Kytl07AGjVM I hope you all enjoyed those rockets! Pyrostar

Hi I made a succesfull stinger rocket I used this tube: 16mm ID 4mm thick walls 2" long Fuel was slow meal. Here is the video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Iev-fXvTxmo Pyrostar

Hi Yes, Polyvinylacetate (PVA) glue is very good, but is vey expensive here. 600ml costs around 7.60€. But I stretch it with water in a 2/1 ratio. It has so many advantages compared to wheat paste: - If you roll the tube, the glue almost stick instantly to the paper, making it impossible to deroll the tube. - If the tube is rolled, it is hard enough to getting discarded of the dowels without smashing the casing/ forming telescopic ends( wheatpaste-rolled tubes are very sloppy after 5min the tube is rolled) - you can store PVA glue under all circumstances. - It makes rockhard tubes in 4 hours A very good information: The paper from grocery sacks is the best paper for rolling tubes, it is medium-thick and it can´t be torn very easy. Also, it is for free,just go to your local supermarket and collect them, I get 200 of them in a month for free. Cutting them into the desired size may be time consulting, but once you get it, it is very easy. I made tubes which are totally not able to dent with a 0,5mm wall thickness. Unbelieveable, but true. So, I stick to PVA glue. Pyrostar

Hi I had a very nice new years eve, all my homeade stuff went fine, especially my 10 rockets with my homemade silver stars. I also made some helicopters with salute headers and fountains and they all went fine. The king was a 2" star mine filled with homemade silver & tigertail stars. At the end before we went back home, I fired a 10g KClO4/Al salute-rocket with Ti-shavings in it, and my pretty good new years eve was finished. I was very happy. PS: Sorry for grabbing out the thread, I wasn´t able to post till this day. Pyrostar

Hi These german cubic firecracker contain roughly 6g of stretched crappy meal powder, KClO4/Al is forbidden in crackers, but you can get birdbangers illegal in weaponshops in germany. These cubic salutes are very expensive and produce a bang from just 75 decibel, whereas a birdbanger reaches 130 decibel in a distance of 8 metres. Pyrostar

Hi Tubes are also good but matchboxes can carry a bigger amount of flash, because I can´t roll big tubes my self. Also, they are very good looking Much like a cubic firecracker but you dont need to make a cube yourself, that saves time, thats important if you are in hurry ( 31th decembre is new years eve here) Pyrostar

Hi Last time a bought a couple of matches to light my devices. I collected a empty matchbox and I thought of making a very good salute with it. Anyway, they are very good for massproduction, require minimal equipment and are fun to make. You are going to need: A match box Tape Fuse KClO4/Al flashpowder Rope Nail Sodiumsilicate 1: Get a match box, poke a hole in the cover of the box open it and fill flashpowder in it ( 10g fits in them usualy). If you use a chlorate based flash powder, it is VERY important to cover the strike ends totally with tape. stick a match into the hole. Then start covering the box with rope. Do it very slowly to get a even confinement. Then add the fuse. Then dip it in sodiumsilicate, let it dry, then do the same process again for 2-3 times. The result will be a very good looking salute, it is very loud and very fast to make. For one salute you need 3-5 minutes, not more, but the drying time of the sodiumsilicate is annoying. Place on ground, light it, then step well back. I hope you all like my tutorial, Pyrostar

Hi I made a bunch of salutes using the KClO4/Al flashpowder. charge is around 1-3g per salute, most of them are polumnas, thumping thunder´s and nitraat crackers, and because I don´t want to fire them all at one day, I want to store them till new years eve ( 31th decembre). Is that possible or will the flashpowder become useless over time? I am using german dark Al, dont know the particle size, but it is darkgrey and clump together. Potassiumperchlorate is airfloat. I think around 20g Al-powder is left, is a BaNO3-flashpowder with this aluminiumpowder good? I have heard it is used as a substitute for perchlorate in pyrotechnic-industries. Thanks, Pyrostar

HI Hm, I didnt notice that. And I did these minicacker blaf made, 4mm ID and 2mm thick walls, and they were rock hard, too. I am rolling another batch of the tubes and will test them with my KClO4/Al flash powder. I think they will be chest-thumping at 2,0g Pyrostar

Hi Because I roll al the tubes myself, I needed a very good and cheap glue. And because my tubes are very thick ( 5,5cm in length, 10mm ID and 4mm thick walls) I need a lot of glue. My tubes are so thick because I got my KClO4 and Al, and I need very strong tubes. Yesterday, I made some dextrine, and touched it with the wet finger, I tried to smear it into a tissue paper, and then I realized that it is a very sticky glue. The materials you will need are: Dextrin Water Measuring cup An electric stirring machine Spoon A plasticjar to fill the glue in A scale 1: Start measuring out 100ml of water and pou that into your plasticjar. Then weigh out 50g of dextrine. Pour the dextrine into the water while stirring the water fast. Add more and more dextrine to the water, not all at once. If the paste gets thicker and thicker and caramell-brown, start stirring at the highest speed. That will remove any lumps out of the paste. Now you can start rolling, you need to use a brush to spread out the glue very thin. If you take too much glue, it wont stick to the paper, resulting in a big mess. If you do it right, your glue is very sticky and it will be very easy for you to roll your tubes. It is very cheap and strong. I rolled a 4mm thick walled tube, and it is rockhard, you can´t even crack with your hands, just with a plier, but that is very hard to do, too. Pyrostar

HI So I made fine BP, I took my shaking mill and shook a C+S mix together, until the ingredients were fine. Then I used the CIA-method. That is the dried BP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0BSqajgrCE Thats fast enough, isn´t it? Pyrostar

Hi The star-composition is listed in the PFP database. And yeah, the green was very bright and deep. I will make another one, Pyrostar