screentoppers Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Sorry to hear of any accidents but they are going to happen that you can count on! Minimize minimize!!!!!!!!!!! Gloves leather,shield; holding only the rammer not the tube what so ever. If you cut any step kaboom...! I make my rammers from "delrin" and they give enough to satisfy me of course one never knows this is why outside only NO holding of the tube rammer is drilled all the way out so no bottoming is possible this is all you can do.This is for BP only.Pressing is more dangerous do to pressures and slipage of rammer on spindle.I have rammed hundreds in fact I only ram.You cant get tails that can't beat rammed motors. I'm closer than anyone to the next explosion its a matter of percentages.Praise the Lord! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deer Posted July 26, 2015 Share Posted July 26, 2015 There is a saying, there are lies, big lies and then there are statistics. Just because some careless person steps on the same rake several times, doesn't mean you cant learn from him avoid the rake all together. So your hundreds of motors is more of affirmation of safe practices, than progress towards disaster. IMHO your main risk might be getting careless and forgetting to apply some of your measures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redrocketman Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 Hmm. It doesn't seem like my being constantly earthed is overkill after all. Static is my biggest personal worry. I screen mix a lot of KCIO4/S mix for igniters, flash for some custom bird-scaring headers ( we won't do into that again!!! ) so I did put a lot of time & effort into ensuring all work spaces & floors are grounded. This includes a fully grounded body strap. Until recently I really did think I was being a dickhead, but really, you can never be too safe. Never Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paradise Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 How would I go about grounding work spaces and floors? Forgive me if I sound ignorant. My work space is on a cement slab. There are some wooden shelves (free standing), a collapsible banquet table with steel legs and a couple plastic file cabinet type units. I'm curious about the grounded body strap too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldMarine Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 Don't worry about the wooden objects, they're horrible static conductors. As to the table, find a reliable ground such as a ground rod, metal water or drain line and run a ground wire that's connected to the legs and surface of your table to one of those. To help ensure safety, don't mix static sensitive comps in times of low humidity or near static generating devices such as fans, compressors and vacuum cleaners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paradise Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 Can and will do! The humid weather I would not have considered. Makes sense to me now. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 I have had an accident with explosives before. The accident was not with fireworks but rather a rifle cartridge that malfunctioned. You see when they are in the rifles chamber the explosive gases only can expand down and out of the barrel but this one did not. The accident was caused by a "detonation out of battery" and instead of the gases being forced down the barrel it swelled inside of the case and blew up. It put me out of work for two months while the burns and cuts healed. shrapnel still bubbles up out of my skin years later. I am thankful for this accident as I have much more respect for explosives than I did before. I believe you must learn from your own accidents and the ones of others too prevent more and to me this reinforces the idea that smacking explosives with metal tooling is not something to take lightly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sitas Posted February 7, 2017 Share Posted February 7, 2017 I'm sorry guys ,I don't know any better place to ask,so, is it true that pvc won't show on exray? I've heard otherwise. I'm a complete noobie here but ,Ive handled black powder most of my adult life,74 and counting yet, as a shooter and ---.I have a great respect for this stuff and i'm wondering about the real cause of the start of this thread. I might have missed it but, could this have happened from shear compression? Sorry for all the questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagabu Posted February 7, 2017 Share Posted February 7, 2017 I'm sorry guys ,I don't know any better place to ask,so, is it true that pvc won't show on exray? I've heard otherwise. I'm a complete noobie here but ,Ive handled black powder most of my adult life,74 and counting yet, as a shooter and ---.I have a great respect for this stuff and i'm wondering about the real cause of the start of this thread. I might have missed it but, could this have happened from shear compression? Sorry for all the questions. It does show up in x rays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 7, 2017 Share Posted February 7, 2017 Dave, Even 'pure' PVC resin shows up with normal contrast methods. But plumbing PVC is loaded with mineral pigments (calcium carbonate, titanium dioxide, etc) that make it darned-near as opaque as bone for radiology methods. In a prior life, I worked for 22 years inside hospital and clinic settingss with radiologists, radiology techs, and radiation therapy folks. I was a pyro back then, too, so the question came up several times. I got to see actual films of folks who had bits of PVC pipe in them, and even to a NON radiologist, it's quite easily discernible. LLoyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starxplor Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 Llyod, I currently work in a radiology dept. of a hospital (as IT), and the radiologists always call me to come take a look when a pyro related injury shows up. I was surprised we only had one major injury over the 4th of July holiday period. One of the radiologists is also a member of my small group buy, so we get to talk about pyro every time he is on shift, heh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 Neat! My company did patient records, patient billing, and (oddly-enough) iso-dose calculations for radiation therapy. (so you can figure out how long ago THAT was! <grin>) Lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sitas Posted February 9, 2017 Share Posted February 9, 2017 (edited) At the on set off this thread it sounded like he was ramming a bp motor.If by chance he gathered enough loose powder in the female part of the ram that it bottomed out on the guide pin, could the heavy compression of the hammer striking the ram have caused ignition. I don't know if this is possible or not. I'd rather take some ones word for it than to try a test myself. I't easier to ask. Edited February 9, 2017 by sitas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 9, 2017 Share Posted February 9, 2017 Shrug... I guess it could. You can't account for all the bad things that can happen from 'casual' use of tools. When using a hollow rammer, two things should be the case: 1) the rammer should have a 'relief hole' at the top of its bore, to help prevent that very sort of thing, and2) the operator should be inspecting the tool EVERY time before it's inserted in the mold. Lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sitas Posted February 9, 2017 Share Posted February 9, 2017 Lloyd , thank you for the come back. The very fact that it could be possible will make me approach things with more thought. As an older guy ,I can see where complacency creeps in . The old saying, familiarity breeds contempt," I crossed those tracks a million times and never seen a train ", Oh ya. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 9, 2017 Share Posted February 9, 2017 (edited) FWIW, a relief hole just drilled it diametrically at the top of the bore helps a LOT, but one drilled at about a 45-degree angle from vertical (high on the outside of the rod, lowest where it intersects the bore) will do a lot more to keep the bore of the rod clean. With the angled hole (larger than the pintle bore), any powder forced up into the relief tends to remain loose, rather than being compacted. It then usually tends to just drop back out when the rod is removed from the mold. We pressed dozens of different tube-items at the shop, including some 'cored' devices, like what are being discussed. The angled hole allowed some of that to be automated with NO (zero!) failures due to the press-rod clogging-up. We had a very few damaged core pintles (but no explosions, thank goodness!) when we were using a diametral hole, which is why we changed to the angled one. Lloyd Edited February 9, 2017 by lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simoski Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 (edited) This taken from the "Safety Study of Chlorate Firecrackers" by QIAN Xinming1, ZANG Na1,2, FU Zhimin2 & JIANG Huiling2. It shows the relative impact and friction sensitivity of chlorate, nitrate and perchlorate firecracker mixes with aluminum and sulfur as fuels, ratios are 70 oxidizer, 20 Al, 10 S. You might be surprised...... !!!!!!!! Edited May 28, 2018 by Simoski Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 I would suggest to anyone to read the source of that data, and use some critical thinking to determine how reliable you believe it to be before taking the results at face value. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frebbe Posted March 6, 2019 Share Posted March 6, 2019 Good read, been experimenting a lot over the years, luckily nothing bad has happened to me thus far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piccaso Posted March 16, 2019 Share Posted March 16, 2019 You can never be to safe. I have to remind myself to slow down there is no hurry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImjustAmatuer Posted November 22, 2021 Share Posted November 22, 2021 i could not se3e the photo any help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saintsslav Posted October 23, 2023 Share Posted October 23, 2023 Usefull info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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