Fireball fuel

[Scotty123]

For Cremoras, working on 55 gallon sawdust versions. Tips:

 

- When collecting sawdust from a dumpster outside a cabinet shop, goggles and a half-mask respirator (and some place to get a shower later) make this *much* more pleasant.

 

- Tell them it's for raku pottery.

 

- Put down a tarp (and have broom and dustpan) to avoid leaving a mess so they'll let you come back later.

 

- Scooping with a bucket is easier and faster than a shovel. Better ideas welcome!

 

- I am storing and transporting in 33 gallon garbage bags in big plastic totes, also fit well in the 55 gallon drums or garbage cans. Heavier plastic bags would be better.

 

- Trying a cardboard sabot for better lift, **UNDER DEVELOPMENT**, however it's very important to ensure that fire gets through for reliable ignition. With a sabot, 2/3 to 1 cup of commercial 2Fa under a (heavy wall) 55 gallon drum of sawdust gets me good lift (and I'm nervous about using much more in case of shrapnel), but having problems with ignition when using four 1" holes, newspaper and no BP on top of the sabot.

 

Planned changes: cut seven 2"? holes, spread some BP on top for ignition, use only tissue paper on top of the sabot as a separator to keep the fuel out of the BP. Maybe add some Al or Ti or even a comet as an ignition aid.

 

Pouring fuel can generate static. Important to use remote ignition that's *not* static sensitive, especially when leaning into a barrel! Using quickmatch from over the top edge of the drum to the bottom center (tape in a few places), set it all up, only insert an ematch **after** it's all in place.

 

- Best to sift the fuel in, to get a consistent, fluffy fuel charge. Clumpy gives a clumpy fuel / air cloud that won't carry fire well.

[MadMat]

Northeast MO, eh? We lived on a 300 acre place in Reynolds County, perfect for experimenting! Are you able to do that at your location, or must you travel to the boonies?

I AM in the boonies on a farm, so as long as I'm far enough away from the house, barn, or any sheds, I'm good to go!

[Boophoenix]

Scotty, get and share video if ya wouldn’t mind. You’ve put a fair amount of thought it seems into this and planned a couple of things well in my opinion.

 

I suspect the lift will be lite only blowing about a 1/3 of the sawdust from the drum, but that’s just an opinion. I have no real evidence to back that up so give your plan a try. I do think ignition aids will deffinately be required as you have this planned though. I think I’ve mentioned using Al in creamoras here to be clear my reference was mixing the Al with the fuel not the lift. Sponge Ti makes a better ignition aid I believe when added to the lift.

 

I think I’d uses scab wire for the Ematch instead of using quick match down the side though. I think in this design quickmatxh will just cause issues.

 

I’m a little confused by your mention of one inch or two inch holes? Also not quite sure what you actually mean by sabot here or how you might plan to use it?

 

Something I’ve found that so far that works for me personally with liquid and powdered flame effects is that they scale. If you design it scaled down for a bucket and it works well your chances in a drum should be better. I’ve done from 1.5 inch to 5 gallon bucket creamoras. I’ve also done pint to almost 30 gallon liquid fuel mines in single tubes. Scaling seemed to work in each scenario.

 

To be clear I’m not trying to knock your idea down and have no concrete evidence to support any or my thoughts at this scale with powdered fuels.

 

Be safe and let us know how it turns out.