pyrochris732 Posted April 24, 2010 Share Posted April 24, 2010 (edited) hi everyone, I just made a 200 gram dry mix of d1 glitter. I would like to go pick up some boric acid to add to the water/al solution when i wet it. How much, in ML of boric acid, would you say to add to my water/al? Also, i have a screen that i passed everything through. I dont know the mesh.. I will screen it again before i dampen it but i was wondering if i can pick up (home depot, lowes) a super fine mesh screen. What mesh would i get for d1? Most of my ingredients came to me very powdered- KN03 is 325 mesh-airfloat is obvious- sulfur is very fine powder too. Would i need a specific mesh size to further reduce the size of each particle? Thanks, Chris *by the way the other glitter stars i made last night are already dry and they burn right up. I will wait until its dark to really see how they look. maybe ill make a starmine to get a good idea. Edited April 25, 2010 by pyrochris732 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_au Posted April 24, 2010 Share Posted April 24, 2010 (edited) D1 contains sodium bicarbonate which is a base. Adding an acid to it will cause a reaction and make a big mess. As long as you aren't trying to use dark Al you shouldn't have too many problems with nitrate/Al reactions. Just make sure you keep the stars out of the sun while drying, keep them away from anything flammable and check on them every now and then. If your ingredients are relatively fine then you won't need screens to grade them. You can just use your coarse screen for mixing. Note that screens don't reduce the size of the particles, they simply remove the bigger ones. So if you have already mixed everything and you did have large particles in the comp then screening them out now would just mess up your ratios. Edit:Also, boric acid is generally sold as a powder, so it would be measured in grams not mL (and in our hobby certainly not in ML). Edited April 24, 2010 by mike_au Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyrochris732 Posted April 25, 2010 Author Share Posted April 25, 2010 Thanks Mike... i will make a mental note... anyway. I lit my stars in a quick starmine i threw together. I cant believe they dried in 24 hours. Here is the video. MVI_2274.AVI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSidewinder Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 Not bad at all! (Next time, have someone else light it while you hold the video camera. ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted April 26, 2010 Share Posted April 26, 2010 Boric acid doesn't react with sodium bicarbonate. It isn't strong enough to protonate bicarbonate to carbonic acid (which makes it decompose). It also isn't strong enough to react with oxalic acid. The glitter looks really nice. I'm a little surprised it dried that fast, but it obviously works fine. If you're looking for a good screen, check the homewares section. They should sell a splatter screen for frying bacon or something like that. It's around 30 mesh, and usually a foot or so across. It makes a good screen. You'll want to screen the mix around 3 times to make sure it is very uniform. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyrochris732 Posted April 27, 2010 Author Share Posted April 27, 2010 Boric acid doesn't react with sodium bicarbonate. It isn't strong enough to protonate bicarbonate to carbonic acid (which makes it decompose). It also isn't strong enough to react with oxalic acid. The glitter looks really nice. I'm a little surprised it dried that fast, but it obviously works fine. If you're looking for a good screen, check the homewares section. They should sell a splatter screen for frying bacon or something like that. It's around 30 mesh, and usually a foot or so across. It makes a good screen. You'll want to screen the mix around 3 times to make sure it is very uniform. Mumbles, i do need boric acid for other stars. I found orthoboric acid at walgreens but its only 64% boric and the rest is other ingrediants that arent mentioned. Would this work? I want to get some pure boric acid that i dont have to order online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NightHawkInLight Posted April 27, 2010 Share Posted April 27, 2010 Mumbles, i do need boric acid for other stars. I found orthoboric acid at walgreens but its only 64% boric and the rest is other ingrediants that arent mentioned. Would this work? I want to get some pure boric acid that i dont have to order online.Look for it in the form of cockroach killer. It's quite cheap and carried just about everywhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyrochris732 Posted April 27, 2010 Author Share Posted April 27, 2010 Look for it in the form of cockroach killer. It's quite cheap and carried just about everywhere. I just got some from lowes. 4 bucks and it has 99% orthoboric acid. Weird though, its a blue color.. i guess the 1% is some coloring agent but im sure its inert. My question is, how much do i put in my alcohol/water solution?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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