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Red Gum Substitute


DaMounty

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wow thats a awsome idea im trying to figure out how they get such small bb sized stars in 1" shells. I cant find much info on making micro stars other than dragon eggs

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Most pharmaceutical and recreational drug tablets are simply pressed -sometimes they add cornflour or starch to mixes for tableting. Any ebay search for "Tablet Press" will show you the machine. There is certaainly one prox pyro firm in the UK using a tablet press to make millions of small identical stars.

Arthur,

 

surely that has to be le maître ? can you confirm ?

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Phenolic resin is a great substitute for red gum.

So I could just straight up use Phenolic resin instead of red gum in just about any comp?

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I've worked at a facility that used a tablet press to make stars. The composition still got dampened, at that location at least. I never thought to ask about dry pressing.

 

I can't off hand think of any compositions where RG is required and phenolic wouldn't work.

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Phenolic resin I found this - Phenolic Microballoons filler for epoxy and polyester resins

 

I'm just not sure about the microballoons part.

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The concept of phenolic microballoons is very interesting. It looks expensive though. The problem I see is the low density of the material.

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No! -well they may have but I don't know, Another location was my thought. Can't be more specific.

 

arthur,

how about skyhigh fx at sittingoburne.............come on pm me ;)

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I have been able to source some orange shellac flakes. Wondering if anyone has some experience in powdering them? Coffee grinder?

 

DaM

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for pressing stars with no binder, I remember reading somewhere that you need to press at 10k psi on the comp. Insanely high pressure.

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Not pressing the stars, looking for a sub for red gum. the stars will be bound with dextrin

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Is there just something you don't like about the red gum? Or can you not get any there..

If it's the latter, I have some nice fluffy Red Gum and ship to Canada all the time.

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Really? PM coming your way

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As far as powdering shellac, colder is better. It heats up when you blend it due to friction and impacts. If it gets too warm, it gets gummy and starts sticking back together. There was some talk on fireworking about powdering phenolic resin, which has many similarities. Most people grind it with a coffee grinder or blender. You can also try to ball mill it, again colder is better. When talking about getting the residue off the blades and ball milling balls, it was brought up that adding ice and running it will cool everything off and basically make it fragile and it will come right off.

 

I was wondering about adding ice from the get go, and just drying out the powder at the end. I brought it up, but never really got any feedback on it, or if it'd be viable.

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Some liquid nitrogen would work well for freezing a compound like that and grinding it quickly to a powder.

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I don't think milling with dry ice is such a good idea, all that gas has got to go somewhere.
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I'd say the same about liquid nitrogen as well...

Freeze it, blade mill it, watch it shatter to dust. No need to include the liquid nitrogen in the mill.

To same extent i suppose the same would work in a ball mill, but it will heat up over time. And ball-milling takes a lot more time then blades...

B!

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Really, and you call yourselves rocket scientists..................You freeze the material, remove it from the liquid nitrogen and then mill the material. If you freeze a banana in liquid nitrogen you can shatter it with a hammer, most materials will shatter if cryogenically frozen. Rubber tires are cry-froze and processed into any size of material easily. Many metals will shatter when cryogenically frozen, however there are several metals including copper which do not show this characteristic.

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  • 1 year later...
You can mix it with potassium nitrate 50:50 and ball mill that, when it's powdered mix in enough water to dissolve the potassium nitrate, decant/filter and dry. You should end up with nice powdered shellac
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Not to mention that you can also re-dry that KNO3 solution to a 'rough' aggregate of crystals and re-mill it again and again. I wouldn't use it for any other purpose, except perhaps for BP, because SOME shellac will get through, but for that purpose, it will be almost continually reusable.

 

Lloyd

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