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 - 30
Lampblack - 30
Charcoal (vineyard airfloat) - 25
KNO3 - 10
Dextrin - 5
Red 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.
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39 downloadsOkay.. 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
