Blaf

Here's the latest report... As expected, this one took off in a snap but did not go too high. It stayed at some 5 meters (like having some secret mission there...) and floated downwind some 15 meters away. At the end of its short life it even increased its altitude for a few meters and then suddenly died and landed. I suspect that slightly wider axhaust hole is to be blamed for this moderate success...if it had been narrower, spinning would have been quicker thus taking it higher. Or perhaps quicker burning mixture... Blaf

Another nice device to play with... I recently made a short starmine - a small tube (15mm inner dia) of some 7cm in lenght with bentonite plug 6-7mm thick. First I drilled a small hole almost touching the plug and pushed a short piece of fuse through it. Little spoon of granulated BP is then added and a few cylindrical stars, then some more BP to cover them and so on. All in all, there was no more than 8 stars of mixed size inside. Last ones are topped with plug of tissue paper and that's it. This one was fired successfully and sprinkled stars in hand-fan shaped burst flying up to no more than 7 meters. Small is beautiful, isn't it? Blaf

Of course you can use a craft paper tube but it should be wound paralelly and glued with wood glue. Thickness should be (so they say...) at least 3mm...but if you make larger diameter tube the thickness should increase accordingly. To my knowledge, those cardboard tubes used for aluminium foil are convolutely (spirally) wound and have no strenght to withstand the pressure. If you look at the picture of big BP rocket I posted here last time...well, that one is made of sprally wound paper and when I fired it, it just pufffed and leaked the flame through nozzle and additional crack on tube body. Conclusion: rocket engines should always be made of paralelly wound paper. Ignition of stars depends much of their composition. Charcoal fueled stars ignite quite easy while metal fueled stars ignite harder and need priming...some of them even several layers of prime. My Reeper Silver stars needed two layers to ignite. They could have ignited even with one layer but I implemented the second one just in case. Hope this helps Lord of Dark. Blaf

I'm talking about craftsmanship here...wish I had a lathe and grinder...I would do miracles then. Blaf

Here is the moment of truth... This Roman Candle I made was a moderate success. I mean – it did not shoot all of five stars simultaneously. They came out one by one in more or less well timed intervals of some 2-3 seconds each. As for the height, the first star reached the lowest height (some 6-7 meters) eventhough I used the largest BP lift charge to shoot it out. Short lenght of the tube and its inner diameter should be blamed for this. But consecutive lower positioned stars had lesser amount of lift charge and they actually shot well. Quicker burning BP would be handy here because ½ of the star burns out until flame front reaches the lift charge underneath...yes, I was using the classic Candle construction without long piece of fuse laying along inner side of the tube. But all in all, this was pleasant surprise...even the delay composition was giving a nice volcano efect of a kind so that waiting for a shot was not boring at all. Next one will be pictured for sure... Blaf

Hi Exhile! To be frank with you, no I haven't tried flash core stars yet. As a matter of fact, all my stars are pumped so far because I'm trying to build a small star roller and I don't like to mess around without one. But what I tried are two-staged pumped stars. First you press some flash (KNO3 based) comp in your syringe...say, 5mm thick and then you press 10mm thick star comp over it. When you finally depress the piston, a beautiful cylinder comes out with a siver tip. These are made one by one unfortunately. When the're dry I paint the flash portion of the star with a layer of nail-polish so that it lights last. And It works in most cases...of course, these cylindrical two-staged stars are definitely suitable for Roman Candles...never tried them in shells so far. That's it... Blaf

Ah, Duvel...there you are again! Thanks for flattering about my greatness..and other stuff. But the truth is - I never played with this type of fireworks as much as you might think. And if you ask me, I'm still beginner in this field so do not praise me too much because I could stick my nose to the clouds one day and never see the Earth again. Just kidin'...glad to hear your comments, though. Blaf

Well, well, well....how many of you got hooked, he,he... You're right, I mean all of you - it's a real shooter. It shoots small salutes, (crackers) of domestic design and make. Blame me, of course. And again, yes, it has a small hole at the rear portion of the barrel where I stick a tiny piece of fuse while the cannon is loaded with a small amount of BP through the muzzle. By its look it resembles an American M150 or something similar - a field cannon from WWII and it's made of dfferently originated pieces but mostly (again) from leftovers of several old photo-copy machines. Looks really cool taken from this perspective, doesn't it? A few words about ballistics...it shoots those crackers (which snuggly fit into the barrel) at considerable distance, between 15 and 20 meters before the cracker goes off depending of fuse lenght. In my friends opinion it's quite impressive for this small toy-cannon. I never tried to shoot stars from this but I intend to very soon! Thanks for comments guys! Blaf

Finally, you can see a narrow fuse cake of some 1,5mm thickness...and a few already cut pieces. Note the fibres glued on top side – they're parallel...these pieces were cut along those fibres for additional strenght. href> Blaf

I've just taken this image of pumped stars I made recently. On your left – Gold and Silver Rain stars and on your right – two Reeper Silver stars. Latter are pretty dificult to ignite and I just dipped those two in meal slurry and then sprinkled some dry meal over it...these should be fired from single shot Roman Candle or so. ' alt='' class='ipsImage' width="1000px" height="750px"> target=_blank>' alt='' class='ipsImage' width="1000px" height="750px"> width=360 border=0>href> REEPER SILVER (Reeper relates to author I believe): KNO3 64 Sulphur 8,5 Charcoal 12 Aluminium Bronze 10 Dextrin 5 Blaf

Ahhh, there is an image you could be interested to see guys. This is my hand-work of course from some 15 years back in history. I don't know if this one fits under Pyro umbrella or not...but it does for me. C'mon, what do you say about it? Blaf

Ah, there you are Nick! Huh, unfortunately I can't understand anything you said here - could you write it in English? Blaf

Here we go again! Yesterday I assembled a 5 shot candle. OK, I just assembled it! No firing yet...it should be done in a few days somewhere next to the sea. Why? Cause something tells me it's not perfect. Here are some details: The body (tube) is 20cm in lenght while inner dia is 15mm. Bentonite plug on the bottom end and there come 5 identical layers: BP, pumped star, some more BP - slightly pressed, delay - pressed again. Piece of my fuse goes down the top to the first layer of delay. In fact, delay I used is not quite delay - it's Gold and Silver rain formulation for stars. But one thing I'm certain of - I'll fix the tube on the beach, light it and retreat. Blaf

Here is another look at almost finished device with container tube (shell) on top. There's no sharp point on this rocket...I've got suitable plastic tip, though. The top of tube is just folded and fixed with a hot-melt glue. href> Unfortunately, I had no chance to fire it yet! Blaf

Exhile, don't be soo rigorous about the issue... Lord of Dark, yes, meal that I mention here is 75:15:10 mixture of (of course, what else...) KNO3, C, S ball-milled for two hours. The powder is consistency of talc powder after that. I took two small spoons of it, tossed into a coffee cup and wetted with fair amount of water. No alcohol was used this time. And so, I got a thick slurry that's usually used to make a black-match with addition of Dextrin...which is in this case omitted. So, Dextrin is not present here. It is basically a quick-match, just bent to make separate curved chambers. You can apply two layers of this meal slurry if you intend to make thicker tube. Oscar, my devices were made of moderately sized paper strip (6-7cm X 25-30cm) as I didn't want to make a lot of noise...but if you ask me, 16 X 30cm sounds too much for this type of stuff. Anyhow, I wish you luck guys! Blaf

OK, I would very much like to see the outcome. Keep me informed about progress of your work. Blaf

The rope is tightened but not too strong Oscar. But if you leave it to dry enough it shouldn't be a problem...the blody stuff should burn through anyway. As for flash powder, I don't really know what to expect. Maybe it's too fast for this type of gadget so that all segments would burn in a snap. Heh, Visco - no, I did not try at all...but still collecting various parts to assemble my own simple Visco machine - I picked idea elsewhere on the Net. I'm running to aassemble my latest BP rocket, sorry! Blaf

Yesterday I made another BP engine, but this time much bigger. It's made of convolutely wound paper, 3mm thick with inner dia of some 15mm...if not even more. You maybe don't see it but nozzle hole is slightly out of center so that I should use longer stick to stabilize its flight. href> Second image shows the Passfire hole (it's filled by rammed BP so that it acts like time fuse) on top so that flames could be transfered to the charge...I haven't decided what to put on top yet. href> Looks nice to me! (God knows where this one is going to end up...) Blaf

And, there's another attempt to fly this type of fireworks. As you'll clearly see from the image, this time proportions are changed in favour of propeller. ' alt='' class='ipsImage' > target=_blank>' alt='' class='ipsImage' > width=360 border=0>href> Hope this one flies... Blaf

Hi guys! I don't know how you call this type of the cracker...the most appropriate name in my opinion would be the jumping cracker. It is made of craft paper strip 6cm wide and some 25cm in lenght...more lenght, more cracks (or jumps, heh!). ' alt='' class='ipsImage' > target=_blank>' alt='' class='ipsImage' > width=360 border=0>href> The secret is a line of wetted meal (I applied it with a small paint brush) which goes along longer edge of the strip which is then wound several times and glued. ' alt='' class='ipsImage' > target=_blank>' alt='' class='ipsImage' > width=360 border=0>href> It looks pretty much like quick match tube. One end is then bent, thus making an end chamber. ' alt='' class='ipsImage' > target=_blank>' alt='' class='ipsImage' > width=360 border=0>href> Whole tube is now zig-zagged as many times as the lenght allowes and a piece of fuse sticked into oposite open end. ' alt='' class='ipsImage' > target=_blank>' alt='' class='ipsImage' > width=360 border=0>href> A piece of yarn or thin rope is then tightly wound around centre and cris-crossed around each segment of the snake-looking device. It is then left to dry for a day or so. ' alt='' class='ipsImage' width="1000px" height="750px"> target=_blank>' alt='' class='ipsImage' width="1000px" height="750px"> width=360 border=0> When lit (and thrown), each segment loudly pops (or bangs, depending on how much paper is used) and has a nasty habit to impredictably jump around (hence the name) changing direction with each bang. Very nice effect I would say, eventhoug you never know where to hide! But this feature just gives a slice of charm to it, doesn't it? You can't miss with this one, believe me... Blaf

Ahhh, Lord of Dark again... Well, the fuse is of my own design which is described in Home Made Fuse topic. And I have to dissappoint you - this one did not fly! I'm so angry at myself, huh. Read the thread before the image is posted for details of construction. Blaf

Hi Nick! For details of constructon read my previous post. But again, yes you're right - that's hot-melt glue and why two sticks - because sticks I had were rather short and I used two of them for better stabilization. Thanks for your nice opinion! Blaf

Here comes the image... href> This one flies for sure! Blaf

Here you are guys! Beauty in practice.... ' alt='' class='ipsImage' width="1000px" height="750px"> target=_blank>' alt='' class='ipsImage' width="1000px" height="750px"> width=360 border=0>href> It doesn't fly but looks damn professional, doesn't it? Blaf

At the same time with latest tourbillion, a small plastic BP rocket was made carrying a modest payload of microstars. Nothing special, plastic tube of some 7cm lenght, 10mm inner dia, bentonite end plug which later become a 3mm nozzle (drilling required). The propellant (newest batch of geranulated BP) was rammed in with appropriate wooden dowel. No spindle or core forming were used this time, just a plain flat ramming. Well, I used 2mm drill-bit and drilled a core of 15mm in the grain through the nozzle. After the propellant reached 1cm from the top I ended it up with a tissue paper rammed as well. A small passfire hole was drilled with 2mm drill-bit through paper plug all the way to BP propellant. Slow drill speed was used....you never know. The plastic tube was then topped by craft-paper tube 3cm in lenght with inner dia matching outher dia of the plastic tube. Inside you could see my granulated BP mixed with some pillbox stars made much earlier...nothing much, just to spice it a bit. The rocket was then equipped with two wooden stabilizers opposing each other. They were pretty short and I wanted to avoid erratic flight. And there I was, lighting my device in front of my nieces hungry eyes. This time we had a nice and quick take off, loud plain hiss and inevitably PLOP and spread of stars some 30m above the ground. The stars were too small to make an impressive display but it worked!!! Conclusion - it's possible. Blaf