insutama Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I was wanting to make d1 glitter stars however i dont have atomized aluminum however i do have atomized mgal if this would work could someone please post the formula ? this is the chems i have to work with kno3kclo4230 mesh mgatomized mgalSulfurCharcoal airfloatDextrinblackhead pyro aluminumiron filings i have a few more chems but none that would be any use in making stars. So other than charcoal tiger stars what stars could i make with what i have.Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparx88 Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 (edited) You sure can use mgnal for glitter. I use Winokur 19 and it rocks with mgnal. It's designed for magnal. here's the link to pyrodata's listing of it. http://pyrodata.com/compositions/Winokur-19 It is a nice glitter recipe, you gotta give it a try. Just make a 10 gram sample and either roll or cut the stars.I'm using 100-200 mesh magnal and have tried 325 mesh and it works good as well. 325 mesh makes smaller glitter flashes and is more dense but I prefer 100-200 mesh for the larger flashes. It's not that it's better, it's just my pref. Edited June 16, 2015 by Sparx88 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insutama Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 awsome thanks i like that site im gonna save that its got lots of star comps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insutama Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 when making star comps do i just mix water with all the ingredients to make a dough then pump my stars with my star pump or am i supposed to use a water/alcohol mix ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Are you familiar with the acronym UTFSE? I'll assume no. This article may be of help. http://www.skylighter.com/fireworks/how-to-make/pumped-stars.asp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregh Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Where's Dag with the "let me Google that for you" link when you need him??? You have enough chemicals that you could spend years just playing with all the charcoal and metal star variations. There are literally hundreds of formulas out there. Research, research, research. And then when you are done with that, experiment. Just like Sparx said, make small batches. Then you can make changes and tweak it to your tastes from there (or scrap it). How do you know what to do to tweak it? Research!!!! This hobby is like marriage, a lot of had work and effort goes into a few seconds of fun... In all seriousness (I know that's hard for me), this is very rewarding and a great hobby, but there is a learning curve and things you MUST learn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insutama Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 trust me i am using google lots i dont just come on here and ask without looking but i have read so many different ways of making stars and some use just water and some use both alcohol and water so i was just asking for this comp if its just water or both sorry that i seem to always offend you by asking questions i kinda thought that was the idea of this forum to ask questions. thanks for the link mumbles that answers my question. i tried searching what do i use alcohol or water when dampening star mix and nothing came up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregh Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I am seriously not trying to pick on you. Another way of looking at your question is, "what is the purpose of mixing the alcohol in with the water? If understand that, then you could probably answer your question. The alcohol reduces surface tension of the water, making it "wetter," which is helpful in charcoal comps. It also evaporates more quickly than water. In other cases, it can be used as a solvent for some of the gums and resins. Some comps will use straight alcohol for binding. For glitters, I would do the 75/25 water/alcohol. This may sound strange, but almost any question you can come up with has been asked before. It might take a little digging, but chances are it has been discussed here before. Many times the google gods will direct you back here to conversation that might even be five years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insutama Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 i was more or less talking about UTFSE (use the fucken search engine) its frustrated because i do. I really do appreciate all the help i get from here id be lost without this site i will do my best to just read other posts its just so hard not to ask questions when i cant find the ancwers im looking for. thanks again guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
memo Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 yup, i had to google it. memo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I'm not intentionally trying to pick on you, but you do need to put in some degree of effort. Very frequently you ask questions which display or give the impression that you've put zero effort into trying to answer the question yourself. No one here is adverse to answering questions, and are usually more than happy enough to talk about pyro. However, some members can be dissuaded from continuing to help, when the person asking seems to be a lost cause. It's difficult to remain motivated to help, when there is no apparent improvement or motivation from the individual to help themselves. As some tips, do try to demonstrated that you have actually done some work. In this thread for instance you state that you want to make D1, but don't have atomized aluminum, but do have MgAl Fine, that is what it is. We don't always have the materials available to make every composition. Up to here we're fine. Then you ask if MgAl works in glitters, and if so could someone give you a formula. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insutama Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 this is all new to me I have been playing around with this hobby for less than 5 months and I am basically always at work (I work for the railway and spend 80 hrs a week away from home ) so I'm sorry if I don't seem to be progressing as fast as the average person on here but I spend many hours reading here everyday I can and then when I get questions I can't find I ask on here to help speed up the process it takes someone 30 seconds to post a link to point me in the right direction and maybe it took them 30 minutes of searching previously to find that after all isn't that what this fourm is for I mean isn't that what the Internets for to help people research faster? As soon as I can I will gladly help someone out that's new to the hobby anyway this is your fourm and I understand what ur saying so I will try my best to look at older forums for my answers rather than asking on a new thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I didn't get a chance to finish that last post, and didn't realize it posted. I'll try to finish it up here. As some tips, do try to demonstrate that you have actually done some work. In this thread for instance you state that you want to make D1, but don't have atomized aluminum, but do have MgAl Fine, that is what it is. We don't always have the materials available to make every composition. Up to here we're fine. Then you ask if MgAl works in glitters, and if so could someone give you a formula. This demonstrates #1 that you have no idea if MgAl works in glitters. #2 You're not willing to spend even 30 seconds to google "MgAl glitter" to see if there is any information about it (which gives 5,000+ results by the way). #3 That because you didn't spend that 30 seconds, you're not finding the dozens and dozens of documented and proven formulas. Instead of posting what you did, you could have mentioned that you have MgAl and have seen some MgAl based glitters (something you would have found with even the most minimal of effort). Then asked for recommendations on a good formula, or if MgAl can be substituted for the atomized Al (it might work), or for something that resembles D1, or some video, or some description of the effect. It's the little things like that which make a difference. As an aside, your posting style makes you come off as lazy and immature. You may want to try using some punctuation and capital letters, and spell checking your posts. If you want people to spend their time helping, you can certainly spend an extra few minutes making your posts coherent and readable. This forum is for helping each other improve. Not spoon feeding people unwilling to do any work on their own. You can claim you search and do research all you want, but when you ask questions like "what's spiking?" or "what do I wet comp with to pump stars" it makes some of us wonder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaMounty Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I admit I had to laugh when I googled "UTFSE" Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insutama Posted June 17, 2015 Author Share Posted June 17, 2015 (edited) Like I said I will do my best to not offend you anymore and I'll watch my spelling that seems to be a sour spot with you as I have seen you comment to a few people about there grammar sorry for the inconveniance to all of you Edited June 17, 2015 by insutama Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Spelling is important, especially on the fringes of real chemistry, for example Sarin is a war gas but Saran is a food wrapping material of good repute. Asking a supplier for sarin may get your door knocked by the men in boots, wherever you live. There are hundreds of text books on various aspects of pyrotechnics, most of which publish formulae and methods of manufacture. Read several before you make things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregh Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Yeah, I probably shouldn't have told everyone I had mustard gas either.... after eating the spicy brown kind! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts