ST1DinOH Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 just wondering if anyone has had any sucsess with just a short length of colored flying fish fuse or even colored crackling fish fuse for a time fuse on (1/8 inch dia fuse hole) plastic hemi's to produce a tailed effect? or if it's possible to hot glue short lengths of either fuse to the underside of the shells so as to catch passfire from the lift...giving you a colored/crackling tail? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hst45 Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 I haven't tried them for time fuse, but I have used various flying fish fuses as a rising comet effect on small shells. In 2" and 2-1/2" ball shell I put three lengths of flying fuse in my last pasting layer on the bottom of the shell. I don't think it would work with hot glue on plastic shells, I bet they'd drop off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 In general, I think they're too small to be used as stand alone lift effects. Even spolettes don't provide a great tail. Not quite the same, but you may want to look into pressing comets, or meteor shells with shells this small. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ST1DinOH Posted November 9, 2007 Author Share Posted November 9, 2007 I haven't tried them for time fuse, but I have used various flying fish fuses as a rising comet effect on small shells. In 2" and 2-1/2" ball shell I put three lengths of flying fuse in my last pasting layer on the bottom of the shell. I don't think it would work with hot glue on plastic shells, I bet they'd drop off. yeah now that i think about it the lift might knock that blob of hot glue loose...then again if i scuffed the craft paper where i put that dab of glue it might stand a better chance of sticking to the shell... gonna have to give it a try but i like your idea of applying them during the last pasting, thats gotta yeild much better results. did you prime the ends of the fuse or just angle cut them? and did they give you a good tail or was it not much better than the standard time fuses's spark trail? In general, I think they're too small to be used as stand alone lift effects. Even spolettes don't provide a great tail. Not quite the same, but you may want to look into pressing comets, or meteor shells with shells this small. i'm currently without a ball mill, or any chems at all other than some different grades of BP. not to mention i'm lacking the knowledge to do anything like that at all. i'm assuming just using a single length of special effects fuse for the time fuse on a 1.75 shell wouldn't give that much effect...but what about multiple pieces? or perhaps some of this fuse from pyrocreations:http://www.pyrocreations.com/inc/sdetail/5174 an inch of this would burn just a hair under 4 seconds... 3 or 4 1 inch long lengths attached to the underside of a shell should be quite a neat effect. i know this may be considered cheating to a pureist but as i stated i'm a little light on the chems and the know-how to make my own tails the "real" way. just wanted some opinions before i go and purchase any more fuse, i've already got so many different rolls of various visco's it's boardering on the obsessive. my friends think i have OCD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 This is obviously not my area of expertise. That thicker fuse you link to may do the trick though, at least in smaller shells for a crackling rising tail. Should the time come and you get some chemicals, we could definatly help you out to make rising tails. It's actually one of the easier things to do. Far easier than getting a good spherical break. A bit off topic, but I had an idea the other day, and it's actually kind of related. What would happen if you embedded some flying fish type fuse in a matrix comet? Say I passivated one end with glue or something. Do you think one could create an animated matrix comet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ST1DinOH Posted November 9, 2007 Author Share Posted November 9, 2007 This is obviously not my area of expertise. That thicker fuse you link to may do the trick though, at least in smaller shells for a crackling rising tail. Should the time come and you get some chemicals, we could definatly help you out to make rising tails. It's actually one of the easier things to do. Far easier than getting a good spherical break. A bit off topic, but I had an idea the other day, and it's actually kind of related. What would happen if you embedded some flying fish type fuse in a matrix comet? Say I passivated one end with glue or something. Do you think one could create an animated matrix comet? my god man i have no idea what a matrix comet is but i'd love to know...care to enlighten me? also what do you mean by "passivated one end" you mean like coating one end so it wouldn't catch passfire? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrKoNaLeaSh1010 Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 I can understand using small pieces of flying fish or falling leaves fuse in a matrix comet however I am unclear to if you are suggesting running a piece or two through the entire comet. I think you would have a better chance using small cut pieces and then pressing the comet. I would deffinitely block off one end so it only burns on one however I think it would be much easier and form a better comet if you were to just use micro stars or dragons eggs for your desired effects rather than pieces of fuse because you wont get the typical flyin fish design if the pieces are imbedded into the comet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ST1DinOH Posted November 9, 2007 Author Share Posted November 9, 2007 I can understand using small pieces of flying fish or falling leaves fuse in a matrix comet however I am unclear to if you are suggesting running a piece or two through the entire comet. I think you would have a better chance using small cut pieces and then pressing the comet. I would deffinitely block off one end so it only burns on one however I think it would be much easier and form a better comet if you were to just use micro stars or dragons eggs for your desired effects rather than pieces of fuse because you wont get the typical flyin fish design if the pieces are imbedded into the comet. OHHH now i see well here's a thought... a few months back (quite a few actually) there as a skylighter newsletter that had a progect for making flying fish mines. in there there is something that my work... basicly you take a large quantity of foot long lengths of visco and then put them tightly into a tube (like a paper towel roll) and push them through to the desired length. lets say you want a bunch of flying fish fuse cut at one inch. you push out a few inches, allign the ends on a flat surface, and then tightly tape the end to hold it together. then you use a razor blade witha rocking motion to slice off the taped segment of 1 inch fish. now assuming you left the bundle taped in place you could ram a comet into one of the ends, the comp would kinda squeeze into the nooks and crannies around the fuses and hopefully secure them into the top of the comet. then you could coat the opposing exposed ends of these fuses in something to prevent them from catching passfire from the lift. or just top the fish fuse with a paper disk and tape it to the comet to enclose the fish. that tape would burn away with the comet... the result would be a comet with flying fish "hair" coming out of the top. i'd assume if done correctly the comet would fly upwards burning from the bottom twords the fish untill the comet was consumed then passing fire to the fish fuse. they'd then take off in every direction. comet to fish with no break...a nice semi-quiet effect. for that matter you could even use the falling leaves fuse. is that possible? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 Yeah, I was talking about using small pieces in the comet. A matrix comet is a comet with small inserts such as other stars or dragon eggs, or in my case fuse, embedded within. Think of it kind of like the pebbles and such you mix into concrete (or cement, I forget which is which). The main desire to use the fuse over micro stars is the animated effect. You can't tell me a nice bushy silver tail with various colored "stars" flying out in every direction would not be cool looking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ST1DinOH Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 Yeah, I was talking about using small pieces in the comet. A matrix comet is a comet with small inserts such as other stars or dragon eggs, or in my case fuse, embedded within. Think of it kind of like the pebbles and such you mix into concrete (or cement, I forget which is which). The main desire to use the fuse over micro stars is the animated effect. You can't tell me a nice bushy silver tail with various colored "stars" flying out in every direction would not be cool looking. oh yeah...that would look nice... so forgive me if i'm waaaayyyy off here but when pumping these comets out do you try to line the outter edges of the caseing with the stars and then jam the comp into the center? or do you just mix it all up and hope for the best? i'm guessing it doesn't much matter but i haven't made a star one so i gotta ask...i'm soaking up as much knowledge as i can untill ya'll get sick of my questions also...can you arrange scrambeling comet stars (fuses in) around the inside of a comet pump to give you the same effect? the end result would almost look like a pine cone with a center core of comet comp. and the comet would be chucking scrambeling comets the whole way up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 Just mix it all together and pump away. I've never tried to allign anything, and would imagine it would be rather difficult to get them to stay in place. You'd probably end up crushing most of the stars doing it that way as the composition is literally compressed into a pellet. When mixed together, the comp acts as a cushioning of sorts. What might be best is to pump in layers. Put down an increment of comet comp, and compress by hand, and lay a layer of the fuse down, repeat a few times. That way you ensure the fuse lays horizontal and doesn't get trapped in the comet and be mostly consumed. It may give an interesting burst of color effect. I'm pressing some comets after christmas, perhaps I'll give them a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hst45 Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 concrete (or cement, I forget which is which).Cement is the active ingredient, concrete is the finished product. Substitute "flour" for cement and "bread" for concrete and you get the idea. Thanks for knowing that there's a difference; I don't know why I care, but as a militant literate it makes me happy. Jesus, I have no life. I think that the flying-fish-embedded-in comet-matrix idea is worth pursuing. Perhaps you could layer the comet with, say, red flying fish in the core, let that dry, and then you might add another layer of another color so that you'd have a color change as the comet burned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrKoNaLeaSh1010 Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 The way I made my matrix comets where by using a normal charcoal streamer for the base formula such as chrysanthemum 8 or tigertail and then I just mixed in some small hand rolled microstars I pressed them in increments and it worked nicely. I deffinitely like the effect more than a normal single comp comet. The only problem I had was with binding issues. I would suggest reinforcing the sides and top or something cause I had a couple blow apart and turn into a ghetto star mine instead of a single comet going up. Then again I was using metal fueled stars with charcoal fueled comet mix so the difference in density of the microstars might have been what cause the instability of the comet...or uneven pressing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caramanos2000 Posted December 6, 2007 Share Posted December 6, 2007 I have done this with flying fish and its ok, you really need a few sections at the same time though. Will Falling leaves ignite with the lift charge? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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