Go to white star mix?

[CityPigeonPyro]

What is your go to mix for making white stars? Don't want to bright or a twinkle. I am trying to find one to use.

 

 

[kingkama]

I like

50 kp

15 MgAl

05 Mg

10 phenolic resin

10 pvc

10 dextrine

 

Bond with alcohol 90 pure at least

[davidh]

A balanced white is tough to make. The best formulas use realgar. Other formulas tend to be brighter than colored stars.

[rellim]

Is it feasible to make an RGB white?

[davidh]

If you are hell bent to make a balanced white, just use realgar and eat the cost.

 

Otherwise, make white with antimony and be happy (although antimony isn't necessarily much cheaper than realgar...).

Edited December 24, 2020 by davidh

[davidh]

Buy Pyrotechics by Hardt to read the notes.

[Mumbles]

It might be possible to make a RGB white, but I've never tried. My experience with blending chemicals, sometimes called "optical colors" is mostly with strontium and barium nitrate or carbonate to make a range of colors from red through oranges and yellows, back into green. Adding some copper would be the most reasonable way to start. I'd start with a good yellow and add copper to see what happens.

 

Given that copper chloride tends to be a more sensitive color emitter due to it's lower temperature stability, it may be harder than it seems. If this is something you're interested in, it would be a fun project though It's not unreasonable or seemingly impossible. You can add copper to some red-related comps to make pinks/magentas, and copper to greens to make teal/turquoise/aquas, so there is some merit.

 

I'm happy to share some ideas if you'd like. Respond or send me a pm if you'd like to talk.

[sora]

Just wondering if anybody tried this white formula( or variation thereof) using metallic Antimony, as mentioned in Weingart ? Though kind of archaic it seems to be.

Edited December 26, 2020 by sora

[SharkWhisperer]

Have never used it but there's plenty for sale on Ebay in the US (and, of course from China, where almost all in the world is mined). Generally seems kinda expensive on that forum--I'm sure there's cheaper routes if you look, given its uses in brake pads and bullets, among other things.

 

Is about the same hardness as Cu (3 on Moh's scale vs 1.5 for lead), so probably could be milled to a fine powder with SS media.

 

I'd play around with a couple of grams, but prolly don't need a whole pound/kilo sitting around ignored and getting old on my shelf of lonely esoteric chems...

[sora]

I've used metallic antimony in an archaic fountain composition but not in any stars though . The metal (or metalloid as you may prefer to call it) is brittle and can be ground to a powder. I used an iron mortar/pestle. It imparts a bluish white flame otherwise I found nothing else to be very remarkable. I guess these formulations were used before Aluminium was introduced.

I also tried to substitute it for Antimony Sulfide in one of the Winokur's Glitter compositions out of curiosity, and it didn't work at all.

[rellim]

It might be possible to make a RGB white, but I've never tried. My experience with blending chemicals, sometimes called "optical colors" is mostly with strontium and barium nitrate or carbonate to make a range of colors from red through oranges and yellows, back into green. Adding some copper would be the most reasonable way to start. I'd start with a good yellow and add copper to see what happens.

 

Given that copper chloride tends to be a more sensitive color emitter due to it's lower temperature stability, it may be harder than it seems. If this is something you're interested in, it would be a fun project though It's not unreasonable or seemingly impossible. You can add copper to some red-related comps to make pinks/magentas, and copper to greens to make teal/turquoise/aquas, so there is some merit.

 

I'm happy to share some ideas if you'd like. Respond or send me a pm if you'd like to talk.

.

I have some left over Veline magenta so I made a little Spanish green #2 and tried various mixtures. At around .85 to 1 green to magenta it burns white to my eye and not excessively bright. The high amount of green needed is surprising and brings the MgAl percentage from 5.76 to 9.55.

 

Barium perchlorate is deliquescent so a composition containing barium nitrate and potassium perchlorate might not be suitable for rolling. Maybe barium carbonate alone for the green component will work but I don't have any at the moment.

[Mumbles]

Barium nitrate and potassium perchlorate are fine to use together. There's no concern of making barium perchlorate. It wants to stay as potassium perchlorate.

 

To make things a little simpler, you may want to start with a red/green base that's the same just with barium or strontium nitrate swapped. This way everything is compatible and can make dialing things in easier since there are fewer variables. This is what I do when making optical yellows or oranges. I included links to a couple of colored stars that should be suitable. There are some links below those two to some modifications to the red to make it more magenta.

 

https://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/2192-ruby-red-and-emerald-green/

https://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/12808-independance-red

https://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/8922-pink-star-formula/

https://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/12596-srno32-purple-star-compositions/