deadman

I'm not sure what the red letters are but before answering your question I think I should say a little search can help a lot. Anyways, fireball effects are usually achieved with a highly flammable materials that will spread well sitting on top of a lift charge in a general mortar tube. In the lift powder are either chunks of charcoal or metal to send fire into the flammable material to ensure ignition once it has been lifted. The secondary fuel (fireball) can be very fine powders (flour, non-dairy creamer) or liquid (hydrocarbon alcohols). If a ghost mine is desired it is best to use methanol (methyl alcohol) and a coloring agent. The easiest and cheapest is adding boric acid for a green ghost mine. Side note: boric acid + methanol = methylene borate. It is no longer a fuel with a coloring agent, only a fuel with wavelength in the green region thanks to the boron in it's structure.

Of course I am very interested, but can only offer what the internet already has to offer. At least this author is generous with pictures and thinks clearly. http://www.vk2zay.net/article.php/85 I guarantee it makes you want to try it on your own.

I really hate bringing up old topics, but I also really hate low forum activity. I really wanted to ask a few questions. First: I know you use everything from your "spare parts box", but if you had to buy everything new or slightly used how much do you think it would cost to make one of these? Second: How much time did you put into this. With my expert mathematical calculatory I will be able to tell how long it would take myself. In case you were wondering the formula goes- x³(42) -3 and there you have it. X being the amount of hours you spent on it. Third: I'm sure you could get a buyer easily for one of those, why don't you manufacture for sale? Ebay even?

Great pic I love the blue in that one. Thanks a lot on that website. I believe it gave me everything I need. My first thought was denatured alcohol so I guess that has some contamination that makes the flame a yellowish. Maybe sodium contaminate. Well the gasoline additive for removing water and keeping gas lines from freezing is supposed to be Methonal. Does anyone know the accuracy on this. I won't name the brand to keep kewls away, but if you need the brand name pm me. Or if you know what I'm talking about please reply. Boric acid works great with it, and the skylighter file said boric wouldn't work in ethyl alcohol so maybe I have the right stuff. Wow that blue is awesome.

Thought a new topic wouldn't hurt. Ghost mines are large colored fireballs. I'm not very sure on everything about them. As far as I can tell lift powder is at the bottom of a mortar tube and instead of a mortar is a small plastic baggy thin enough to be destroyed with the lift and filled with a flammable liquid. Obviously the two easiest colors will be that yellow/orange that gasoline/petrol gives and green that boric acid dissolved in ethonal, methonal , or denatured alcohol. It wouldn't be much of a thread if I knew it all so here are my questions. What can I do to make a good sized fireball? How is the tube setup? What other solvents make what colors? How do I resize the image? Look carefully for the purple fireball.

Red gum also known as acaroids resin is a binding agent. It costs about 3 times as much as dextrin and is alcohol soluble, not water. It is for resin comps like strontium nitrate where dextrin I believe works better with hot burning stars like Mg, Ti, and Al. I think if you use copper oxide which is supposed to be a good blue coloring agent dextrin should work. You might have to tinker and make small batches. Good luck. Blue is difficult.

I've been doing quite a bit of searching and it turns out that commercially stars are made in a star rolling machine. It is shaped what I can only closeley described as a hollowed out pumpkin. it would be like a squashed ball, but there is a major section cut out of the top and it is at what looks like between a 30-45 degree tilt. I'm sure a automatic dryer motor would work well for this. It looks amazingly simple also. I can't believe I've never thought to look for this. I credit my looking for a machine to Blaf so thanks. Blaf are you able to make that green star formula I posted earlier?

Wow I just realized that you were a moderator. It just struck me because back when I first joined you weren't. No I don't have any of my own, I am in the middle of a move right now and don't have the time, but I definitely will be making some soon as the 4th is coming up and should have the time to edit and post them shortly after the 4th. So if anybody is willing to wait for mine then it will be here in about 2 weeks maybe 3. Maybe a copper salt. I personally have never tried that formula but did find it on a reputable site. I only posted it for simplicity and availabilty. I have a 1.5 megabyte wordpad file on quite a bit of pyro related things. Just putting it out there. Not compiled by myself but is informational.

Well the link to the page that showed me how to do it has many picture for step by step. I basically roll in a circular motion, like when you have a bottle of water and make that little whirlpool inside. C'mon you know you do it. Just I do it from the handle of the wok. I have to pick it up and slam it to the ground and to the side to get some of the balls to the middle. The best part about the lead shot is the weight though. It's not very big. The reason I said #9 is because it's the smallest I know of: 2 mm. It burns away with the star comp. You can't get a hold of any colored star material? Wow that is very unfair. I don't know what all is available in Croatia, but a very easy to find (chem wise) green star formula is as follows by weight: Potassium nitrate.................................15 Sulfur-----------------------------------------2 Airfloat charcoal....................................1 Copper powder------------------------------4 Red gum...............................................1 Dextrin ---------------------------------------1 I alternated periods with dashes so the numbers would hopefully be easier to follow. To get copper powder grind a few feet of soft copper tubing with an angle grinder into a bucket and ball mill. Cu is a soft metal and should be easibly powdered. If it is not green enough for you add 1 part chlorine donor. PVC works. Please do check out the other website for instructions. I don't believe I could explain it better than them so sorry. As for the core if you want to use pumped stars go for it as it sureley works and may save you the trouble of lumping at the beginning. Other things know to be used as cores are: small pasta rice various seeds couscous I'm not sure what that last one is. I'm sure a google search of couscous would find it but after searching for alternative cores I'm tired of google for now. I also found an alternative method of rolling stars than United Nuclear offers. It actually starts with pumped stars. Here's the link: http://www.wfvisser.dds.nl/EN/stars_round_EN.html I believe his website is orginally written in dutch (I may be wrong) and then rewritten in english. Great material there also. I feel like an advertiser. If a mod has any problems with me naming other sites please delete them. Sorry if I'm stepping on anyones toes. EDIT: Forgot to mention to use a 25% alcohol with this mixture as red gum is soluble in alcohol and the alcohol makes the comp "wetter". Rubbing/ispropyl alcohol is fine. Never let compositions have direct exposure to sunlight

Now I know that there is already a star thread, but this is a whole different kind of star so I hope no one minds. If it is a problem I will be glad to repost in the stars thread. Round stars are my favorite kind of star. After some experience they are very easy and fast to make. Overall I love the fact of changing color comps half way or sometimes 3 times through flight. Things you need other than you know a scale and comps and what not are: a wok, some cores to roll the stars around (pumped or cut stars work, but I prefer lead shot for simplicity), a spray bottle, and fine wire strainer. I actually found this at a favorite website of mine. united nuclear The link to the picture guided tutorial is: http://www.unitednuclear.com/stars.htm BTW if you absolutley can not find a chem they most likely have it all be it overpriced. If you are going to use lead shot, do not buy it from them. Buy it at a gun shop as lead shot #9.

Not trying to bring up an old topic, but I have made dextrin. Blaf I'm not real up to date on euros but that seams life an aweful lot to pay for dextrin. In America you can buy 1 pound (453g) for around 1 US dollar. So very inexpensive. When baking corn starch to reach dextrin you are trying to break it down from its long polymers into a more simple structure. The heat acts as a catalyst. When I make mine I leave it in at 425 degrees F. Which is around 218 centigrade. Everyone says 400-450 F is recommended so 200-225 C would work fine. It only takes me about 1-2 hours to achieve wanted results. It will slowly turn brown. Make sure to mix every 20 to thirty minutes. If you really want to find out if it is a bon-a-fide dextrin use iodine solution and figure out if it is still a starch. Just thought this would be useful and cheaper.

I don't believe it would be the same if you used a blender. Because the ball mill smashes it over and over actually making the foil even thinner than before. Which gives it an airfloat effect. If you were to blend it then it would still be the same thickness and most likely not burn as bright or as easy.

Well I had grinded my chem's in a coffee grinder first and when I crushed the balls with a spoon they were powder all the way through. Maybe it was just moisture, but I had tried a dry mix. Living in a california desert the climate is very weird. When summer hits the air will be much dryer, and hopefully I'll have figured out making charcoal by then.

I just recently tried making my first batch of bp in a 3 pound ball mill. It has a rubber barrel and lead media. It is identical to the 3 pound mills sold at united nuclear. I must say I didn't make my own charcoal. I bought a bag of scott's charcoal. The ingrediants said 100% charcoal. So I figured It couldn't be that bad. After 15 hours of milling my media was covered in a thin coating of the powder and every ball was polished to a hematite jewelry look. There were two large sphere-like objects. I figured were just balls caked with bp. They were solid bp through. And there was very little powder at the bottom of the jar. The powder burned poorly and I was very disappointed at the whole thing. Any idea of why it balled up? And any other tips are much appreciated.

Black powder doesn't detonate to begin with. Atleast not in small amounts. Detonate means for the gasses released faster than the speed of sound. Making it a high explosive. Low explosives such as black powder and (according to the scientific community) flash powder deflagrate. I don't believe I've heard of BP igniting from static electricty, but if you are worried about it, just buy some anti-static aerosol spray. I think it's sold as computer and electronic cleaner or something like that.

Very true Gamekeeper. I always seam to forget about the small amount of fools who lose privelages for thousands. Here in california we can't have anything with flash powder. Not even the small 50 mg of flash found in commercial firecrackers across the us. Biggest brand I know of is Black Cats. Anyways. Thanx for the bienvenue Blaf. I will try to bring up new topics as well. I see you are the main contributor to new topics. That was just a side note by the way. But enough with the digression and sorry about the supplies thread.

Where do people get there supplies from. I am having a lot of trouble finding a place to pick them up. Mail order is out of the question. I can't seam to find a nursery that carries fertilizer KNO3. And the only source of Mg I can find is brand new sacrificial anodes for 9 dollars and it's not a decent amount for the price. Thanks.

Washing machine motor? that is a great idea. And in his tutorial I believe he mentions using the spinning part of the machine to use as the grinding barrell or whatever it is called. Has anyone tried grinding with an angle grinder supposably you can get 100's of grams for 20 minutes grinding out of aluminum blocks, and it requires under 4 hours of ball milling to be used in flash powders.

thanks a lot. I also found a bottle labeled: boric acid roach killer. At a store called Floyd's General Store. That should work well too I'm guessing. Another question instead of another post. Has anyone made this and what kind of motor did they use. I've tooken a part quite a few fans looking for one that will work, but they all seam to have the same dinky motor which I end up shorting out while tinkering with it. I know thats's my fault but none of these seam to be able to keep spinning when adding pressure with my fingers. I know pulleys should help, but what would be a good motor for handling a 40+ weight load on the grinding barrel?

There is an thread at ukrocketry.com or is it net. Well on their forum there is a completed visco making machine. It looks very well. I don't know how people feel on allowing other forums to be mentioned, but knowledge is knowledge. Here's the link. http://www.ukrocketry.co.uk/forum/index.ph...opic=1571&st=15 It's really quite interesting.

Alright so boric acid is not that hard to get a hold of for me. Now what would the concentration need to be? At school we've got a 2 gallon jar with crystals labeled boric acid. Is that the right stuff?

Wow those pictures tell almost even more than the entire tutorial. Thank you a lot for the link. Unfortunatley I don't speak Dutch. Wow it would be great if I did though. Three questions: Is water used to catch the dust? Isn't there oxidization of aluminum if it is left in water especially with as much surface area as exposed in powder? I saw the author of that post used a "brick" of Al foil. Is aluminum foil good enough to use in stars? Or flash powders?

Hey there everyone. I found this little guide a while ago and was very impressed. Now I'm ready to make one, but I am having a lot of trouble on deciding how worth it is. I really don't know all the aspects of it. And was wondering if anyone could help me. The author and original website are impossible for me to find right now. If anyone could get a hold of the author that would be great. My regards. Edit: Link to the tool is http://www.members.pyroforum.nl/gamekeeper/metal_grindi...ng_machine.html Sorry about that