Poor Man's Quickmatch

[pyrochris]

Ok, here is a little something i made up since you legally need a permit to buy quick match. This is a very simple and easy way to make quick match using safety 3mm visco (5mm may vary in burn time).

 

What you need for this project:

3mm safety visco (aka: cannon fuse, non waterproof ONLY, waterproof does not work)

box cutter replacement blade (or a box cutter if you have one)

kraft paper (printing paper is fine, but kraft looks professional)

transparent tape ( any is fine, i just dont like seeing tape covering it)

 

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c137/marauderrt10/DSCF0582.jpg

 

First, you take the desired length of visco you want. (i usually do 16" lengths for shells) Lay down the desired length of visco fuse and tape off points to hold it down.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c137/marauderrt10/DSCF0585.jpg

 

Now with your box cutter (or blade) cut the visco directly down the middle so it splits open.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c137/marauderrt10/DSCF0587.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c137/marauderrt10/DSCF0588.jpg

 

Now get the desired length of Kraft paper (or printing paper) and cut it with either a scissor or the blade used for cutting the visco.

Now, pick up the split visco (dont worry if some powder comes out, it is going to happen) and put it on the kraft paper. make sure the fuse is straight so it doesnt fall out while folding the paper. Next fold the kraft paper over the fuse.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c137/marauderrt10/DSCF0589.jpg

 

Now, fold the other end over, tape in the desired places, and your done! Now you have one high quality homemade quick match!

 

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c137/marauderrt10/DSCF0592.jpg

 

I did a little test with it, and did atleast five or six trials with it. It burns at approximately half a second per foot (burned 4 ft in about 2 seconds). All worked flawlessly and burned up instantly. Enjoy!

[TheSidewinder]

Interesting! Slower than QM, but looks acceptably fast to do the job. Good experimentation.

 

M

[pyrochris]

Interesting! Slower than QM, but looks acceptably fast to do the job. Good experimentation.

 

M

yea, its a little slower, but for its purpose, it does its job. I fired a few shells last 4th with this and they worked great. Here is 4 ft burning instantly with 2 pieces of visco attached, to see how they work, as you can see, i nearly got beaned in the head with a visco rocketing towards me LOL

http://s26.photobucket.com/albums/c137/mar...gAnch=imgAnch42

[Ozzy]

Looks nice, ill have to try it later.

[weknowpyro]

Looks good and its a good way of making quickmatch. The only reason i couldn't afford to make this is because with my longer lengh mortars i can't afford to cut off one big piece of fuse thats about 40 - 50cm in lengh.

But i expect this would be ok for small distances i.e cakes.

[Mardec]

Nice job experimenting.

 

I only have uncoated visco. In my tries to coat it I tried many things like putting it in a small plastic cable and puting duct tape aroud it. These 2 yielded a same super fast visco like yours. I didnt even had to cut it.

 

Afterwards I coated it with NC laquer and it lost this QM feature.

 

 

But one question: Didn't you mean Rich man's quickmatch..

My only acces to visco is kinda expensive. It cost me the same price as quickmatch. 70 eurocents / meter

The visco is kinda shitty stuff for this amount of money but the quickmatch is first class stuff. 5 layers of blackmatch in a plastic coated paper tubing.

 

So poor man's quickmatch would be home made quickmatch, no?

Unless you probably have acces to cheap visco?

 

Anyway this kind of quickmatch does have atvantages.

: You can bend it without the fear of to much damage to the blackmatch and it would be very small. Accelent for in small devices and cakes though.

[h0lx]

Wouldn't it be easier and 20 times cheaper to just make blackmatch and make quickmatch, I mean if you need quickmatch, you have some proper meal anyway...

[pyrochris]

Wouldn't it be easier and 20 times cheaper to just make blackmatch and make quickmatch, I mean if you need quickmatch, you have some proper meal anyway...

yea, but you need a permit for quickmatch, this is just as good, and totally legal.

[justanotherpyro]

I can complement you on experimenting and finding an alternative, but honestly, way to much trouble, money, and effort. Seeing as how most ( if not all ) of us make our own BP then buying some cotton string yields hundreds of feet of black match. In 10 seconds I can roll a quickmatch pipe long enough for my 4" mortar.

 

I used to think QM pipe was a difficult process, and with all the turorials on the internet it seemed like it really was. Then I found a super simple way of rolling it that works flawlessly. I'll try and post my idea when I actually have some free time.

 

You stress the "legal" aspect of it. So its worth it to use a completely "legal " leader on a 3" aerial salute that is going to sound and feel like lightning struck a mile away?

[pyrochris]

I can complement you on experimenting and finding an alternative, but honestly, way to much trouble, money, and effort. Seeing as how most ( if not all ) of us make our own BP then buying some cotton string yields hundreds of feet of black match. In 10 seconds I can roll a quickmatch pipe long enough for my 4" mortar.

 

I used to think QM pipe was a difficult process, and with all the turorials on the internet it seemed like it really was. Then I found a super simple way of rolling it that works flawlessly. I'll try and post my idea when I actually have some free time.

 

You stress the "legal" aspect of it. So its worth it to use a completely "legal " leader on a 3" aerial salute that is going to sound and feel like lightning struck a mile away?

this doesnt have to be used for lighting off illegal items (if you dont have a permit) this is used for consumer fireworks and id rather not have the batf (only an example) knocking on my door for using illegal quickmatch. As i hear what your saying, this is by far less money, time and little effort than buying all the chemicals, ball mill the chemicals for 6 hours , add the BP to the string, let it dry, and make leaders just to make quickmatch. When i can make this with 8$ worth of fuse and a 1$ set of blades within minutes is highly recommended if you have absolutely no time and $ for expensive materials.

[pa_pyro]

Just tried it out awile ago. I used about 4 inches of 1/16 inch visco, cut like in the tutorial and wrapped it in masking tape, and afterwards flattened it( don't know if it made a difference). It burned so fast when it hit the tape it made a small bang and shot away.

 

What do you mean way too much cost and effort? I get 100 feet of visco for 7$ and it isn't that hard to cut.

[pyrochris]

Just tried it out awile ago. I used about 4 inches of 1/16 inch visco, cut like in the tutorial and wrapped it in masking tape, and afterwards flattened it( don't know if it made a difference). It burned so fast when it hit the tape it made a small bang and shot away.

 

What do you mean way too much cost and effort? I get 100 feet of visco for 7$ and it isn't that hard to cut.

yea exactly, this is way easier than taking like 8-10 hours making quickmatch from scratch, and about 80$ cheaper if you dont have the supplies to make it.

[TNTBro]

does this work with whistling pete bombs?

[pyrochris]

does this work with whistling pete bombs?

yea, you might want to cut the fuse open on the bomb and light it in your hand.

 

 

get off the forum, and especially get out of my thread spammer.

[justanotherpyro]

Even if you could walk into cannon fuse and buy visco, it would still be more expensive than making blackmatch. You don't need an expensive ball mill etc to make pyro stuff. For an investment of $35-$45 you can make hundreds of pounds of black powder, if you are resourceful. Although it may be semipractical for certain applications, it is not better than black match.

 

If it takes you 8-10 hours to make blackmatch, then you really need to refine your methods.

[pyrochris]

Even if you could walk into cannon fuse and buy visco, it would still be more expensive than making blackmatch. You don't need an expensive ball mill etc to make pyro stuff. For an investment of $35-$45 you can make hundreds of pounds of black powder, if you are resourceful. Although it may be semipractical for certain applications, it is not better than black match.

 

If it takes you 8-10 hours to make blackmatch, then you really need to refine your methods.

doesnt it take 6 hours to make the black powder?

[TheSidewinder]

If you *don't* count milling time, then no. It takes me about 30 minutes to mix up a batch of ingredients and get the tumbler started. I let it mill for 24 hours, but I'm sure not sitting there watching it.

 

Once done, it takes another 30 minutes or so to rice it, then I leave it to dry (again, I'm sure not standing there watching it dry). Once it *IS* dry, I just bag it up and I'm done. Total time, not counting milling and drying, is less than 1-1/2 hours.

 

M