Wiley's Shells

[Wiley]

The color breaks all used a 1/2" canulle filled with hot 2FA. The brocade and red single break had a gram of whistle in there too. Personally, I liked the effect of using more spiking as opposed to adding a booster. The gold glitter and purple single break that went low used 18 verticals and close-laid horizontal spiking. I'm using doubled up 20# hemp twine.

 

Also, I noticed that there's not much difference between the 2:1:1 "slow flash" and the hot flash with filler in it, which itselft wasn't much different from straight 70:30. Sure, using uncut hot flash is the loudest, but why waste the chems if its only a little bit louder? Bulking 70:30 4:1 with bran means I'm putting around 15g of comp in a casing as opposed to the 25g that would be in there if no filler was used.

 

Interestingly, when I was tearing down afterward, I noticed that my rack was completely covered with bran, a little singed looking, but in otherwise nearly new condition. I guess flash is just that fast.

[gregh]

I loved the angry willow!!! I can picture firing a volley of those and everybody watching the beautiful willow all peaceful and then those bottom shots scaring the crap out of them. My seven year old son jumped each time we replayed it.

[Wiley]

Haha, I had planned on making at least three to be fired at once for the 4th or 5th of July. Just need to get everything burned in the air.

[Wiley]

About how small should I cut willow stars for the height I'm shooting these? I'm using the 35% nitrate formula from one of Ned Gorski's articles. I ball milled it for an hour too.

 

Would it maybe make more sense to use tiger willow rather than the "real thing" and keep my standard star size ( roughly 1/4" or a hair larger)?

[FlaMtnBkr]

I would go with 3/8" charcoal stars for a 3" shell. You could probably even go a little bigger but the break will start looking sparse if too big. I'm also thinking cut stars. If rolling them you may want to go a little bigger.

[Wiley]

FlaMtnBkr, my shells are 1.75" nominal and all my stars are cut.

 

Has anyone tried Tiger Willow? I want the stars to droop and come a good ways back down, but reliably burn out above the ground

[FlaMtnBkr]

I didn't realize they were that size. You probably do want to stick with 1/4"-5/16" so you can fit enough stars in. Charcoal stars that size aren't going to be very bright but will be closer to the ground so should look pretty good. Might take a bit of trial and error as charcoal stars are usually a bit bigger than color stars for a given size shell.

 

I think you chose a pretty good formula with less nitrate and more charcoal. I think I would be inclined to add a little aluminum or titanium to brighten them up but that might not be the effect you are looking for if you want a delicate charcoal star. If that is the effect I would probably add some coarse charcoal that has been soaked in a saturated nitrate solution and allowed to dry. This should give a bushier charcoal tail that will burn a bit faster with the nitrate so it (hopefully) doesn't hit the ground. I would also try to use a charcoal more known for sparks like yellow pine if you have it available. But these things can be done down the road if you want to work on the effect. Right now probably just cut them and see how you like it. Can always experiment later.

 

Good luck and let us know how they look in person since charcoal doesn't always show up very well on video.

[Wiley]

Those stars were made with airfloat charcoal and they seemed very pretty in person. Of course, I haven't seen what happens when I use a better charcoal.

 

These shells are so small that they aren't taking full advantage of my lift powder, which is 2FA, but I still think this shell needs more height. I believe that with a combination of some smaller stars and better altitude, I can get a nice drooping willow and a bottom shot that isn't so low it makes your ears ring. Some spherical Ti in the stars would certainly liven them up a bit.

 

EDIT: I hope to build another of these shells tonight, using the stars I have on hand, but I will lengthen the TF on the first break slightly, and use something like 18g of lift instead of the 12 that it originally had.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Wiley

[Mumbles]

The willow with 35% is actually from Shimizu, just to give proper credit where it's due. Some people have reported problems with this formula. You may need to adjust the nitrate to charcoal a percent or two. Sometimes it's too close to the limit of combustion to maintain a flame.

 

I try not to use too long of hanging sparks for small shells. The stars may not burn overly long, but the sparks hang the same amount of time no matter what the size it. You may want to look into using lampblack. The stars may not burn much longer, but the tail will hang longer. I really like the lampblack effect personally over just charcoal. You don't need a lot, 1-5% will make a big difference. It will hang and float a while longer than just charcoal.

[enanthate]

Just noticed your starmines, well done! The N1 looks nice to me, and the other one was a nice combination of colors (i like your purple).

[braddsn]

Wiley... Tiger Willow... like this??

[Wiley]

Yes Brad, exactly! Those are Ned's 40% nitrate formula, right? How big were they?

 

That's a good point on the lampblack, Mumbles. I might give that a try.

 

Also, I roll my cut star patties out to 1/4" thick, so regardless of how large the rectangles are, they will still burn about like 1/4" stars.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Wiley

[Wiley]

So, I have a question about Yankie's Purple. I've heard a lot of good things about it, and I'd like to try it when I order some MgAl. I am wondering if the CuO can be replaced with copper carbonate without damaging the color. I have a pound of the carbonate on hand, so if someone has tried it and had good results, I'd be willing to give it a go. Otherwise, I'll just get a pound of CuO as well.

[Wiley]

Got a few more logs built. The 4 break is my first of that size.

 

http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/gallery/image/3185-pasted-shells-ready-to-finish/

 

 

I also made a 1.75" star mine with a mix of all the stars that are in the 4 break. The diadem is beautiful, but it completely overpowers the other effects. Good thing there's just one star type in each break of the shell.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glsnsYsRBVg

[coogan1997]

I thought of posting this in the comments of one of my pictures but since there are a couple thing I wanted to ask, i think in here is better.

1) what do you use as a reference to build these shells? Is it the fulcanelli papers?

2) what mesh screen do you use to granulate your 2FA bp?

3) on the multi break shells, how do you attach the other shells to the first? Or do you roll the paper casing over the completed shell like with the bottom shot?

 

I know its a lot but i would really appreciate it,

 

thanks

[Wiley]

Coogan, check your PM.

[Wiley]

I decided to move up to 2.5" shells, chiefly because I wanted to make colored inserts. It looks like four approximately 7/8" OD inserts will fit in a ring, so I'll be testing some of those in the near future. A brocade hammer shell is the next project on my list.

 

I rolled a hard core for a 2.5" bottom shot: 1.375" ID, 2" OD. I made it from very thin posterboard (.01" thick) just to see if I could. I took what seemed like a couple miles of it, but it the tube turned out very solid and strong nonetheless. I put two approximately 1/8" thick disks on the bottom, and one on top, just like I do with my smaller bottom shots. Filled with 50g of 2:1:1 nitrate report comp, both because it's orders of magnitude cheaper than perc flash, and I want to see how it performs noise-wise. The stuff is really not all that slow, or quiet for that matter. Single fire reports made with 2:1:1 sounded similar to identical ones made with bulked 70:30.

 

I spiked the report with 12 verticals of doubled up 20# hemp twine, which is what I use on everything. I boiled my own wheat paste and pasted it in with 4 turns of masking kraft, which is very thin. Measured with a micrometer, it's about 2.5 thousandths of an inch thick, so that makes it roughly "25#" paper.

 

One thing I noticed right away was that the 1/2" long time fuse was too short to apply a heavy crown to the top of the shell. From now on I will be gluing my TF into a 1/4" tube to give me some more length.

[coogan1997]

Sounds like fun! But why not go ahead a make 3" shells? Its what i will do when i get decent results from the 1.75" shells.

 

About the bottom shot cores; a couple day ago at my local grocery store i found a perfectly sized 1.5" id, 2" od with 1/4" walls, hard paper tube that came of the spools of produce bags. I got a bunch of them for FREE!...

Edited April 29, 2015 by coogan1997

[Wiley]

The short answer is that I already have the 2.5" guns. I could make 3", but I already have what I need to make the smaller size. They are still MUCH larger than a 1.75" shell.

 

Way to score on those tubes! The 1.5" ones should be just right for bottom shots in 1.75" nominal shells.

[Wiley]

Finally got the shells in the air I've been blathering about. Let me know what you think about the color breaks; I thought they were kind of small, but you can see how far away the mortars are. Be sure to turn up your volume to appreciate the awesome echos that this shoot site affords

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuAlnWB458w

[braddsn]

Outstanding man! All of em were great. I strongly suggest you try some slow gold! They are cheap to make and one of the most beautiful stars I have ever seen. Maybe even my favorite. When you first test a shell with SG, do it after a rain, just until you get the timing down.

[enanthate]

Love the way you abuse FP

Awesome final!

[Wiley]

Abuse? Naw, I use it the way Italy intended

 

Thanks for the kind words! I may try slow gold, but the priorities for the 4th are willow stars that burn out above ground and C6 for use in spiderweb shells. There will be many more draw-outs, 3 and 4 breaks, and angry willows once I get the stars figured out. I plan on doing a flight of six angry willows at the end of the "show."

 

Edit: So, Brad, did the color breaks look ok to you? I know the spread wasn't nearly as large as the Chinese stuff the other pyros were lighting.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Wiley

[Sparx88]

I think they all were good. Shells don't always have to be a perfect sphere, variety or something like that comes to mind:) All the timed reports and the shots were great. Stuff hitting the ground is'nt intended but shit happens. Heck I'm sure yall had a good time checking out the crater. Wish I was there. But ya, anyway, nice work, I know those cans are'nt easy or cheap to make.

[Wiley]

Sparx, I was thinking more in terms of spread, not symmetry. These can and do break symmetrically, but it's in more of a ring shape, so the orientation matters.

 

Believe it or not, I forgot to look for the grass that bottom shot mowed. The reason for that was because I started making 3FA and foolishly assumed that I could use less of it than the 2FA I've used to lift my shells in the past. I had used the "ounce per pound" rule on all of those shells. Needless to say, that wasn't working. I had to cut the lift wraps open on all of my shells and add enough powder to reach the 10:1 I've used before. Then they all lifted fine, unless they destroyed the tube

 

These are actually fairly cheap to make; that's why I'm sticking with these small ones.