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Winokur's 40 Glitter Compositions


Mumbles

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I was trying to find some videos to serve as examples, but I couldn't find any. It depends on the composition in question. They are a result of the wetting. There will always be some reaction between the nitrate and aluminum. Boric acid alone can change things. There is also varying degrees of solvation of the nitrate. From the videos I've seen, when pressed, glitters seem to be more fine grained. Where as when cut the glitter tends to be more varied. It's a little harder to compare to round stars as they are often experienced in different environments (ball vs canister shell).
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The first one. The charcoal, while making a nice tail, does not effect the color of the flashes. Well unless your charcoal is full of sodium and calcium impurities.

 

For a white, look into William's No Antimony Glitter. I am assuming you want to avoid Sb2S3, so just look through the Winokur formulas. Most of the white/silver will contain Ba(NO3)2 as it really makes white glitters nicer, but Williams does not contain it.

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  • 7 months later...
Made my first batch of glitter comp this weekend, #39. I needed a delay comp on my 1lb stinger missiles and I thought this might look pretty good leading up to the header. I used an N95 respirator and gloves due to the Barium and Antinomy. I used mixed hardwood airfloat from Hobby Chemical and screened the comp 4 times through a 20 mesh screen and tried a 1/2 tsp pile loose just to see the effect. Very nice! I'll give an update after I try out the stingers next weekend at our club shoot. I don't have a vid camera, but our shoots are usually taped so I should have some vid to post....I hope2huh.gif
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  • 1 year later...

hi to all!!! can someone to tell me please which effect of all these winokur are near to this effect?????/ ( who have done it...)

( youtube

piromusical sicily)

at 02:10 silver flashing comets..... and something else...if someone knows which of all winokur pinkish glitters are the best and more red of all...thanks!!

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Made my first batch of glitter comp this weekend, #39. I needed a delay comp on my 1lb stinger missiles and I thought this might look pretty good leading up to the header. I used an N95 respirator and gloves due to the Barium and Antinomy. I used mixed hardwood airfloat from Hobby Chemical and screened the comp 4 times through a 20 mesh screen and tried a 1/2 tsp pile loose just to see the effect. Very nice! I'll give an update after I try out the stingers next weekend at our club shoot. I don't have a vid camera, but our shoots are usually taped so I should have some vid to post....I hope2huh.gif

 

I guess that means the books arrived safe and sound. Good. :)

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  • 2 years later...

I just made 250g Winokur #20 formula from Tom Perigrin's book Introductory Practical Pyrotechnics. When I fired a pumped star from my star gun, it just burned dim. After reading the formulas posted here it seems that in his book the table on flitters and glitters has an error. The chart for #20 shows no sulfur and for #13 show 17 parts. It looks like #13 should be 9 parts sulfur and #20 should be 17 parts. This would also make all the formulas add back up to 100 in the book. Thanks for the thread.

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Yeah glitter needs some sulfur or antimony to work right. I have been told antimony can be replaced with sulfur and will work well. But I don't know if and how it changes the appearance.

 

I have yet to try it myself but trust the source. And with the price of antimony going up and it's toxicity, it may be worth trying.

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If you want to see how a glitter works without any sulfur and only antimony trisulfide, just check out Win 39. It's a fairly popular formula. Also, the toxicity of Sb2S3 is largely overblown by people reading too much into MSDS and hypochondriacs. Unless you're literally eating it by the spoonful, you'll be fine. The LC50 for ingestion is around 1.5g/kg of body weight. The inhalation is similar, though has a slow clearance rate. Wear a dust mask, like you should be anyway, and you're fine.

 

To me, the most attractive glitters are made with some component of both antimony trisulfide and sulfur. Win 39 is just odd.

 

Introductory Practical Pyrotechnics has a multitude of errors that have never been corrected, along with other issues. Not many people really recommend it as a suitable book for beginners anymore.

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No, it's not terribly toxic but is one of the more toxic common pyro chems. I also have my body and life permanently damaged from exposure to chemicals so I am a bit more paranoid but far from a hypochondriac.
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After adding in the missing sulfur the test out of the star gun was perfect. I will definitely be double checking my formulas from now on.

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  • 3 years later...

Here i guess?

 

(Link changed as per the suggestion of Mum below. What would we do, what would we be, without him.)

Edited by MrB
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You may also find the first post in this thread useful. Probably even more so considering the formula in that link is incorrect. It was taken from this forum many years ago before I went through and corrected all the typos.

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Winokur #36

Potassium Nitrate 38
Barium Nitrate 16
Aluminium, (atom, spher, 120-325 mesh, 20 micron) 12
Charcoal Airfloat 10
Sulfur 10
Iron (III) Oxide, red 10
Dextrin 4

All according to this composition
except dextrin
I used a wallpaper glue "Quelyd"
I create a jelly from the glue and add to it the composition,
to the desired consistency, from which to cut the stars
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Why would you add glue to a composition? It's dextrin bound, just add water. And not a whole lot of it. If you don't have dextrin, go shopping. In a pinch, make your own from starch.

Edited by MrB
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I do not like dextrin, it's too hydroscopic in my climate
and in comparison with this glue it needs more in composition
In addition, this glue burns perfectly, and gives a more ductile mass
Here is an example of how this glue burns
p.s. and I also have dextrin
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I also use wallpaper glue (ready mixed) for my glitter comps. I find it superior to using dextrin - it holds less water, and consolidates into nice hard stars which function nicely.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here is a slightly modified Win 20 stargun test (different types of Mgal). (Made them small like dragoneggs, makes it more like a glitter/strobe whitout a tail)

 

 

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Looks good, but i'll stay with N1 + Alcoa 120.

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Looks good, but i'll stay with N1 + Alcoa 120.

 

Nice dynomike1

I also use D1,N1 ect it´s cheap and beautiful, but on the above video i wanted a "star" whitout a tale wich i thought i was sucessfull whit :)

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