Matchbox Salute

[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

Edited November 6, 2007 by Pyrostar

[mr.stijntje]

What's the point in using a tube and hot melt glue or bentonite?
I can see no reason for using matchboxes..

[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

[Oscar]

I saw the same device on the website of Chaz, an APC forum member.

Poke a hole in hole in the cover of the box. Fill it ¾ with BP, glue the sides and the front en back. Add fuse. A little drop of glue around the fuse. And add one layer of tape

I used rope once for a cubic salute. It was a german design. It was called a Korderboller, it contained for almost 40 gram of flash powder.

[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

[Duvel]

The most of the heavy (illegal) crackers do have a mixture of potassiumperchlorate and aluminium.

[Keesthemad]

I must correct you on that duvel, most illegal crackers have potassiumCHLORATE sulfur and aluminium as you can read in this document.

http://www.vrom.nl/docs/milieu/deskundigen...werkmetlont.pdf

Hmm, I used to have another document in that stated that almost 80% of all illegal fireworks in Holland used the chlorate flash.

Edited November 9, 2007 by Keesthemad

[Duvel]

Kees you are right.. but there are also perchlorate-based crackers, so it ain't fully forbidden.
If I would make the rules, I should forbid the chlorate-based ones (because of the reaction with the acid of sulfur), makes more sense to me.. what do you think ?

[Keesthemad]

Why should you, it works perfectly allright as long as you don't induce it with to much friction as would never happen inside a shell. Shock resistance is okay on the other hand. They're solde for years and years and you never hear of vlinders and other chlorate based fireworks that explode without reason.