pyr0ph1L Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Hello guys! This is my very first topic, so please cut me some slack hehe!I've been making fireworks for about a year now, so I wouldn't consider myself a "total newbie", but I'm not anywhere near being professional either. Let's just say I got quite a bit of experience .. Feel free to check my YouTube-account too. Same name on YT as on APC.Okay so let's get to the point.. Yesterday I made my very first batch of willow-stars, although it wasn't normal willow-stars, because I added some metal to it. I used this composition: KClO4 - 30Lampblack - 30Charcoal (vineyard airfloat) - 25KNO3 - 10Dextrin - 5Red Gum - 2.5+10% 200µm MgAl What I did first was to ballmill the KClO4, Charcoal, KNO3, Dextrin and Red Gum together for 4 hours approximately. Then I took it out of the ballmill, mixed in the lampblack and granulated the star mix (using 75/25 water and 93% denatured alcohol). After the granules had dryed I gave it an hour in the ballmill to turn it into powder again, in order to really get the oxidizers to soak into the pores of the charcoal.I then added the MgAl to this powder and wetted it, still using the 75/25 water and alcohol.It was one of the easiest comps I've ever tried to handroll, because it really turned into this clay-consistency that was very easy to form and was super sturdy!When I handrolled them I also primed them all in normal BP with dextrin, like I usually do with all my other stars I ever make.After I had rolled all the composition, I put them in the evening sun for around 2 hours and then I brought them into my room, where they dryed overnight.When I woke up the first thing I did was to check up on my willows. But what I saw was these cracked stars with yellow/white dots on them. Okay.. So what did I do wrong? Personally I think, that the composition simply did not have enough dextrin to keep together all these fuels? (MgAl, lampblack and charcoal was basically 50% of the total comp!)But what did you guys think I did wrong? - Phillip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJV Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Hi Phillip , I had the same problem with Ruby Red Stars.Check this out.BJV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyr0ph1L Posted July 4, 2011 Author Share Posted July 4, 2011 Hi Phillip , I had the same problem with Ruby Red Stars.Check this out.BJV Yeah it looks like we had the same problems hehe. Although I've made quite a few batches of ruby red and they never failed on me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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