Voryon Posted February 19, 2017 Share Posted February 19, 2017 (edited) Hello, I was having quite a pause from my pyrotechnic hobby, but I found my interest again. Made a small device and thought I´d share it with you. The idea was to create the rainbowcolors Red / Orange / Yellow / Green / "Aqua" / Blue / Purple in the same order as in the real one. Start and End contains a little bit of Buttered Popcorn Glitter. The Tube ID is 14 mm, overall length is app. 110 mm, composition was pressed using a 2t arbor press and an endburner tooling but without a clay nozzle. The green turned out not so great, not just an artifact of the camera and the blue was burning quite slow so this increment burned longer than the others. Still a nice little device that does not disturb your neighbors Prefusing pics and video attached. DSC%200687.mp4 Edited February 19, 2017 by Voryon 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldMarine Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 I've found it takes about half as much blue gerb comp as the others to get the same burn time. Last Independence Day I did a red/white/blue "wall" of gerbs with 6 of each color in groups. It took me quite a bit of adjusting to get them all to the same burn time.What formula were you using for the green? The comp from Skylighter in the colored gerb article gives a very brilliant green. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 How fast of a green are you looking for, Patrick? I have at least two. One is Shimizu's green lance, the other a green star. Of course, the first burns slowly, and the latter very fast. Both are very good greens. Lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldMarine Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 (edited) Lloyd, the OP's green was almost non-existent so I was wondering what he'd used. I use barium nitrate comps and have had excellent results. I'd love to add to my color collection though and I'm sure Voryon would appreciate it as well! Edited February 20, 2017 by OldMarine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 (edited) Here's a really good green lance: Chemical Percent Barium Nitrate 57parlon 18Dark Aluminum 9Red gum 4Boric Acid 2Dextrin 5Barium Sulfate 5 total ingredients 100.00 Edited February 20, 2017 by lloyd 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldMarine Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 Does the sulfate slow down the burn? I have some but haven't had a chance to use it. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voryon Posted February 20, 2017 Author Share Posted February 20, 2017 (edited) Thanks to y'all for your replys! I was wondering if such a small silent device would be interesting to anybody, but now I am very happy to see 2 great pyros reply! I've used a slightly modified KCNKICKTHECAT colorsystem, substituting 5% of the MgAl with Hexamine in the Base Mix and exchanging the NaNO3 with Cryolite in the yellow composition. I additionally simplified by omitting the orange "base" comp by a Mix of 20/80 yellow/red, which tourned out very good! As the blue in this system has not the best reputation I've changed it to one of my favorite deep blues: 61/13/13/13 KClO4/CuO/Hexamine/Parlon. Still the resulting comps remain compatible. Lloyd do you think the green comp you suggested would'nt overpower the other colors in terms of brightness? One of the reasons I lowered the metal content was to lower the light output to be able to look into the flame without being completely blinded. Are greens that dependent on high Temperatures? OM I'd bei very interested in the formulas you are using if you're willing to share! BR, V Edited February 20, 2017 by Voryon 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 Voryon,The green I recommended is a "lance (set piece) composition", and is therefore not terribly bright... It is designed to burn with a clean color, but somewhat slowly. It's "bright enough", but not like an aerial star. If you wish to brighten it some, you can add small percentages of Mg/Al to enhance it. Lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voryon Posted February 21, 2017 Author Share Posted February 21, 2017 (edited) Im normally avoiding boric acid, as it seems to be mildly reprotoxic and most of the time Al can be subtituted with MgAl in a nitrate based composition. Apart from that I must admit I do feel to have the virus to at least try to tweak (nearly) every composition that comes along, even though risking to waste a small amount of chemicals. Nevertheless I am always starting in small batches, also for safety reasons. Next time I´ll give something like this one a try based on your recommendation Lloyd: Barium Nitrate 57parlon 18MgAl 8Red gum 4Hexamine 3Dextrin 5Barium Sulfate 5 total ingredients 100.00 I Hope to be able to catch and share a video of the outcome. Btw I didn´t let you know that the buttered pocorn glitter composition is really great! Easy to work with, lights so easy and no extra dirty chemicals in it. I do have another glitter formula designed by me I do really like but this has a rather large amount of Fe2O3 in it. This red stuff is really a pain to work with, so I stay away from that formula most of the time. I´d put Fe2O3 right in the same category as Lampblack and Al fine bright flake for chems I do try to avoid mainly because of handling/dirt. I did not share that glitter up to now because of this disadvantage and I think there are already enough glitter formulas around! V Edited February 21, 2017 by Voryon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 "Btw I didn´t let you know that the buttered pocorn glitter composition is really great!"---------Thanks. I always love to hear that. Lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voryon Posted February 21, 2017 Author Share Posted February 21, 2017 Honor to whom honor is due 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldMarine Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 Voryon, these formulae from Skylighter are wonderful colored fountain comps and can be mixed to make more than just the rainbow! I keep plenty of the three basics around as my quick fix pyro:http://www.skylighter.com/fireworks/how-to-make/colored-firework-fountains.asp#new Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidh Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Lloyd, what's the origin of that green lance formula? Are there other formulas for matched colors? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 The early English firework "Traffic Lights" showed three colours from only two compounds. The boundary between the compounds was obliquely made using an oblique cut rammer tool. The "Traffic Lights" burned red, yellow, green but the yellow was an artifact of human eyesight that sees red + green light as yellow. Realistically, you could try red (yellow) green (aqua) blue with just three comps with an oblique ram face, the bracketed colours would show while the oblique portion burned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 (edited) David,They are Shimizu formulae, published either in F.A.S.T, or in Lancaster's Shimizu addition. They are red/green analogs, choosing barium nitrate or strontium nitrate for the color. And -- yes! My FAVORITE yellow is NOT a 'nasty' sodium yellow (which I personally hate), but a 'tuned' optical yellow by varying strontium and barium to match the exact shade of anywhere from a yellowish-green to a good orange, simply by changing the percentages. The basic formula is: Ba or Sr Nitrate 5Red Gum 1Parlon 2Mg/Al -200mesh 2Air Float charcoal 3.3 Use 55 parts green to 35 parts red (of course, by weight) AFTER granulating for a very pleasing optical yellow. Lloyd Edited February 22, 2017 by lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldMarine Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 I needed to point out that if you use the comps I posted from SL you need to use Kp burst as a prime since the blue contains ammonium perchlorate and it turns to goo if exposed to the KNO3 in BP.Yup, been there, done that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidh Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 Lloyd, I found this "Color Flame Compositions for Stars" formula in the Shimizu section of Lancaster: Green Flame:Potassium Perchlorate 10Barium Nitrate 50Accaroid Resin 7Magnesium/Aluminum Alloy (50/50) 13Parlon 15Soluble Glutinous Rice Starch 5 Was this your starting point? I'm asking because we tried the "basic formula" you listed above, and we had no success with it. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 No, my gerb/lance formula is the nitrate-only one. I don't remember which book it's in. David, it will NOT make good stars... it's just too slow. I've made gerbs and lance and line rockets with it successfully. What about it was 'unsuccessful' in your estimation? Lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidh Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 Lloyd, we were working with lances, not stars. We tried about 20 nitrate formulas, along with a number of adjustments. We have a good red, amber, orange, and white, all with good color and brightness balance. We worked on a purple, but just ended up bloodying up the red. Green, however, is maddening. Your formula at the top is good, but it chimneys, even swapping in saran. Your green at the bottom was yellow and sputtered and went out. I thought it was weird that the bottom one wasn't working at all, so I'm trying to figure out why. Frankly, if I had a working AP compatible dark lance, I would drop all this in a second and go AP all the way. AP makes everything else look like you just gave up! Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 Hmmm... I never had that problem with the green. HOWever... we bought all of our barium nitrate from Barium and Chemicals, and it was impeccably pure. Lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldMarine Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 I've used the Kosanke green lance formula several times with good results. I think you need a chem check! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidh Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 The only Kosanke formula I've seen is AP based. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldMarine Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 All of the lance formulas I've used were AP based and primed with KP prime. For gerbs the only AP formula I use is for blue and all the others are KP based. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidh Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 OldMarine, nitrate + AP = bad, chlorate + AP = extremely bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldMarine Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 (edited) I use no chlorates and only prime with KP prime. Plenty of good colors in lances without chlorates. Don't mean to seem rude but I never mentioned chlorates or priming with BP. Edited February 26, 2017 by OldMarine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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