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Ground Bloom Flowers


Yus

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hey patrick, you guys talkin got me thinkin and here ima go an do a damn fool thing like...

 

post-19283-0-97113700-1498575032_thumb.jpg

 

now ima shove a bunch o' these in some shells...mixed n matched with various comets...ya!

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Roger, they got me too!, I have 2 3" cylinder shells, drying right now, each one with 10 GBF's as inserts. Hopefully gonna see what happens with em this weekend.
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I've shot a few 'GBF' shells for fun before. In FPAG, we can't use 'commercial inserts' in competition shells, but we can shoot the heck out of them for fun! They WERE fun!

 

Lloyd

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It's funny you mention line rockets Lloyd, I need to pick your brain on those soon!

My favorite effect I have seen in a show was John Sagaria at the 2012 Convention. He had a flight of rockets out in the field, but with 2 line rockets strung up to fly into and above the PGI seating for the show. The effect what appeared to be 2 errant rockets coming at a crowd of pyro enthusiasts was just genius. You have to tip your hit to a show designer who gives that crowd a good, fun scare.

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My family was sitting right below that line rocket when it came right at the stands and stop nearly right over our heads! Scared the crap out of us we thought there was a rocket headed for us!
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I tried a 3" shell with ground bloom flowers and had no problems with ignition, as some have talked about on this thread. I put a good sized dollop of thick n/c lacquer at the base of the fuses and dusted that with some mill dust. After the n/c dried I trimmed the fuses down and it worked great. The BIG problem I had with them is that they didn't flitter about in the sky at all, but rather acted like minirockets, taking a straight trajectory, about half of which headed straight for the ground. I was somewhat worried about this and fired off the shell in a safe place (farm field that was wet). I am wondering what could be done to prevent this... orientation of the inserts? reworking the hole in the side of the flower?

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I gave these a second try recently after learning why I'd had failure to light before and I tried pushing a little rubber star comp in the empty end of those I used. Definitely flew like drunk bats. I need to dial the amount of color comp back a bit or find a faster one because some hit the ground still spewing.I think the thrust from 2 directions makes a difference in the flight for sure!

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  • 3 weeks later...

i just picked up some of these try, mmy buddy happened ot have a few bricks of them and gave me a few to try out , also going to try whistling bottle rockets

Edited by RiderX
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they didnt work like expected , which i belive is due to the fact i removed the factory fuse and installed larger 3mm visco since i was worried about ignition , in order to do so i had to carefully use an awl to slighlt enlarge the hole for the fuse

 

u could see them when the shell burst but it seems like they burnt super fast and didnt spin

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I ended up just cutting the factory fuse very close to the tube and priming with NC lacquer and BP. Press an energetic comp into the empty end of the tube to get more action. I just pressed damp rubber star comp in with my thumb and let it dry for a couple of hours then primed it same as the fuse. I'm currently experimenting with hummers and go-getters which are definitely more active in the air (and on the ground!) :blink:

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I ended up just cutting the factory fuse very close to the tube and priming with NC lacquer and BP. Press an energetic comp into the empty end of the tube to get more action. I just pressed damp rubber star comp in with my thumb and let it dry for a couple of hours then primed it same as the fuse. I'm currently experimenting with hummers and go-getters which are definitely more active in the air (and on the groundi dont have have

i dont have any NC lacquer so i figured my best bet was to swap the fuse entirely, since the 3mm visco i have lights reliably as long as i cut it on a sharp angle , was a fun lil experiment though , i can only fit 3 in a 3 inch ball shell so ill revist this once i get a handle on these glitter stars and start making cyl shells.

 

 

even though they didnt work as i thought , my buddy his wife and kid loved them

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Find a pound of shotshell reloading powder and some acetone and you'll have years of NC lacquer! The double based version contains nitro-glycerin as well as nitrocellulose and works even better.

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Or you could make a B P slurry and dip them then dip them in Polvorines or fines.

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Or you could make a B P slurry and dip them then dip them in Polvorines or fines.

not sure if i can do that with the redgum bp im using

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I got a brick of these at a discount stand and dropped 12 along with two shells this last 4th. Made for a nice show. I think the fallout is significant though as the tubes don't burn up much.
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not sure if i can do that with the redgum bp im using

 

Rider, you're using the SL kit, the one that screen mixes and binds with red gum/alcohol? You can still prime with a water based 'slurry'.
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i dont have any NC lacquer so i figured my best bet was to swap the fuse entirely, since the 3mm visco i have lights reliably as long as i cut it on a sharp angle , was a fun lil experiment though , i can only fit 3 in a 3 inch ball shell so ill revist this once i get a handle on these glitter stars and start making cyl shells.

As a substitute for NC Lacquer, you can (in most cases) make a thick slurry of Red Gum/BP wetted with alcohol.

 

Though, when doing this, you need to think about what composition your fuse (or star) is made of. If it contains chlorates and are bound with Red Gum, then this method is not applicable.

Edited by Ubehage
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  • 2 weeks later...

thanks guys i didnt even relize there were replys

 

3inch ball shell is just to small for these as i can only fit 2 in it , so instead im going to try a bunch of small whistling bottle rockets next time

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  • 6 months later...
  • 5 years later...

Sorry for digging this Topic back up but I though it better than starting a new thread.

  I have read the replies to the original question asked (composition used in Ground bloom spinners) and a lot of good suggestions. However, it remains a mystery as to what the actual composition of these spinners are.

  I have in the past taken them apart to see better what it might be. it seems in both the small firecracker sized ones to the large ones, to be a metallic based fuel. I kind of assumed at the time that maybe a metallic star formula was used in it. the thought here is that a packed star comp with the fire front burning down the tube would have next to the ideal pressure coming out the little hole.

  anyway, my interest in this is to make some of the old fashioned jumping jacks or bloomers. Surely you all remember those jumping jacks from the late 80's early 90's from shogun that were just a little bigger in size than a firecracker and had colored stripped wrap on each one (how i miss those) and started red and turned green or the bloomers that had yellow, red, and green and each emitted the flame color as they were colored. And both of these had burn rates of 7-10 seconds with fantastic force. That what i loved about the old style, they could launch into the air like a zinger.

  is there a practicality to making these? no but... For trying to make something similar to what we had back then and perhaps just for kicks, I still want to make some dangnabbit.

some of the questions I have is still on the commercial comp... what is the formula? and also the hole size and more importantly, the direction? I remember on the oldies they actually had two holes and assumed that maybe the second hole was like a back up in case one or the other failed. They were also directional (not just a hole straight in) which gave it the spinning effect. On that note, I suppose one could punch directional holes in such a way to make it condusive to get air borne (which is what i wanted in the first place) and for those who were talking about packing aerial shells with them, these would probably give the best effect.

PS: I just turn 50 back in October and realized it's been over 30 years since I had those gems.

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