built a star roller & made my 1st batch

[jakespeed]

was able to scrounge up all the scrap parts i needed from my shop without having to leave the house saturday

 

started off with an old vacuum pump motor but rpm's were way too high

 

when i went to return it where i found it, i found an old jeep power window motor i didn't remember having

 

this served its purpose but i wouldn't recommend it as it's doubtfully rated for continuous duty & gets a bit hot

 

i powered the motor with a battery charger, the 10A setting was a little fast but 2A worked great

 

after construction i cut open a couple of #7 12guage shells & emptied the pellets for cores

 

i started with the toro method for the 2 sessions but ended up with many raspberries needing to be broken up

 

i switched to spray-n-sprinkle for the remaining sessions & rolling went much smoother

 

the 1st several sessions resulted in having to clean quite a bit off the bucket walls

 

after the 4th session i found my groove & needed no more cleanings as everything adhered to the stars

 

i later had trouble with the stars sliding & not rolling so i added 2 strips of masking tape to the inside of my bucket

 

every session seemed different in what it took to make stars happy

 

for anyone who hasn't tried rolling i'd say this is a task you got to get a feel for as opposed to just reading/watching instructions

 

since i was nearly out of mg/al i stuck with the blue/violet/indigo formulas from skylighter's rubber star formulas & layered the 3 colors

 

i botched the 1st 3 sessions by completely replacing parlon with dextrin. i eventually read postings here that said keep parlon & add 5% dextrin

 

the stars still burned through all the way w/o the parlon

 

i enjoyed creating the roller & learning the rolling process, but it seemed quite time consuming compared to cutting rubber stars

 

i don't have the stringiness issues i've read so many others complain about so i'll probably stick with cutting

 

http://i.imgur.com/Z5vnuyA.jpg?1

 

http://i.imgur.com/imRXQ6B.jpg?1

 

http://i.imgur.com/oi50N6S.jpg?1

 

primed & ready

 

http://i.imgur.com/Zj6IDp4.jpg?1

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/FJmZfln.jpg?1

Edited July 8, 2016 by jakespeed

[Seymour]

Looks great!

 

Both the set up and the resulting stars

 

 

 

every session seemed different in what it took to make stars happy

for anyone who hasn't tried rolling i'd say this is a task you got to get a feel for as opposed to just reading/watching instructions

 

 

So true! You can get a good picture of what to do by reading descriptions, but I don't feel like it is possible to learn to roll stars without trial and error. It's not until you've added too much water for a particular star composition that you know how much too much is, for example.

 

 

i botched the 1st 3 sessions by completely replacing parlon with dextrin. i eventually read postings here that said keep parlon & add 5% dextrin

the stars still burned through all the way w/o the parlon

i enjoyed creating the roller & learning the rolling process, but it seemed quite time consuming compared to cutting rubber stars

i don't have the stringiness issues i've read so many others complain about so i'll probably stick with cutting

 

 

How was the colour without the parlon? I have no doubt they would be solid stars that burn as cleanly or more so than the formula as it should be, but I don't feel like you'll get much or any blue without the chlorine donor and purples might be pink.

 

Stars are really time consuming to roll, but not much more time consuming to scale up. What I'm trying to say is that in the time it would take to roll 2kg of stars you could almost roll 10kgs, as long as your equipment allows it. If you are making 25kgs I believe that rolling would not only produce nicer stars than cutting, but less effort too, and I know I'd way rather roll 100kg than cut it.

 

But I'd way rather cut 2kg than roll.

 

My opinion is that when making small star batches, the real value of rolled stars is the uniform size (if well screened like your ones) and a shape that minimises erratic trajectories, and also in making colour or effect changing stars.

 

Most of my small batches of colour changing stars have been made by cutting small (often pardon bound) cores (perhaps 3mm) and then rolling them with dextrin bound composition, often of the same composition until round and screened to an even size and then start layering other effects. By far the most tedious part of rolling stars is the earlier stages with infant cores. My experience is that by using small cut cores you cut down the overall work required quite a lot.

 

I love the Toro technique but do usually use the sprinkle spray method for rolling. However in the case of rolling using cut stars as cores I find that doing a few layers with Toro initially is easier. Cut stars do stick together quite badly at first, as the flat faces just can't get enough of each other and regardless of what method you use you have to break them up by hand.

 

I feel that with Toro this is easier. I mix the stars and slurry by hand and while mixing them, and then while I start adding the dry powder I'll be constantly breaking up couples and groups of stars, but once the dry powder is in there it becomes much less of a problem. One layer of Toro and dry powder, and good tumbling rounds the stars off more than might be expected, and so even on the second layer the issue of sticking together is much less of a problem.

 

I find it amazing how few layers of Toro are needed to turn a cube in to a sphere, how the diameter does not increase that much and how few layers are needed to do it. So long as the slurry is quite thin, and only enough is used to paint the surface, no more, and that similarly not too much dry powder ( causes the raspberries), Toro will quickly erase imperfections from the surface.

 

Anyway I'm rambling now. I hope you are happy with your stars because you should be.

 

What size screens do you have for sizing?

[MeowMix]

How many KG/LBs did you make in one batch? And would you mind explaining the "Sprinkle and Spray" method? I'm planning to build my star roller tomorrow, so seeing as you're just starting, it'd be nice to know a few of the things you found out for yourself. Thanks

[pyrokid]

How many KG/LBs did you make in one batch? And would you mind explaining the "Sprinkle and Spray" method? I'm planning to build my star roller tomorrow, so seeing as you're just starting, it'd be nice to know a few of the things you found out for yourself. Thanks

That method consists of alternating between spraying with solvent and applying dry composition to the stars. This is one of the places where "getting a feel for it" really comes into play.

[jakespeed]

How was the colour without the parlon? I have no doubt they would be solid stars that burn as cleanly or more so than the formula as it should be, but I don't feel like you'll get much or any blue without the chlorine donor and purples might be pink.

 

the pre-parlon stars were a little white washed

 

What size screens do you have for sizing?

 

i initially screened out the runts with a 4mesh & built them up some more, then repeated with 3mesh & 2mesh

 

 

How many KG/LBs did you make in one batch? And would you mind explaining the "Sprinkle and Spray" method? I'm planning to build my star roller tomorrow, so seeing as you're just starting, it'd be nice to know a few of the things you found out for yourself. Thanks

 

i rolled pellets from 2 #7 shotgun shells into 700 grams of stars

 

don't believe spray & sprinkle is the name of any method, just a label i used to describe spritzing the stars with a fine mist to wet them & then sprinkling on some magic stardust

 

 

 

 

 

having trouble with ignition now, stars have only dried 24hrs, but they were in my shop @ 55% humidity so expected them to work better

 

only got 3 out of 10 to ignite, below are 5 recoveries

 

any recommendation for a better prime on rubber stars ?

 

it looked like some flakes of prime burned off, but perhaps that was just from the stars falling on my concrete driveway

 

i primed with black powder, but it was an older container which may have been mixed before i got my ball mill

 

after initial prime i rolled on some meal that fell through 40mesh screen while corning bp

 

http://i.imgur.com/lNTLCBF.jpg

Edited July 9, 2016 by jakespeed

[MeowMix]

It's recommended that you prime parlon stars with a hot prime, I like to use Monocapa Prime, never had issues with that.

[dagabu]

+1 Monocapa Prime

[jakespeed]

had to order some black iron oxide for monocapa, so went ahead & ordered some diatomaceous earth & silicon to test fencepost while i was at it

 

initially just dipped some stars under faucet & dipped in the individual star containers

 

monocapa lit better that fencepost so i rolled ~70g of monocapa onto my ~700g of starts

 

getting ignition now, but still getting blowouts

 

pretty sure blue was the last color i rolled on & have since read of difficulties with it

 

how thick can i coat with monocapa & will thicker eliminate blowouts &/or cause other issues ?

[Mumbles]

Blue is a sort of special case. They're normally fairly easy to light. It's staying lit that is the issue. I'm not sure anyone understands why, but blue stars seem particularly prone to blowing out if they're flying through the air at high speeds.

 

You can roll a healthy amount of prime on. I don't have any experience with monocapa, but I've used similar primes. With 1 to 1.5mm of prime on a star, I haven't had nearly the amount of priming issues I had before. This was usually around 20-30% prime by mass.