Coating Cotton Seed

[dynomike1]

Oh your talking about linted Cotton seed. Thats not a probablem either i live close to three Cotton Gins. The only thing there is going to be very little Cotton if any this year. What kinda price are you talking abou?t I might have some this fall.

[pyrojig]

If you can't get rice hulls, which are not that hard to come by, you can use rice crispies. I've even seen coated Cheerio's, but that would be more suited for larger shells. Just make sure you don't buy anything sugar coated or sweetened, the bp will never dry. No need to buy name brand, generic is just fine. Also do't get puffed rice, it swells when coating and shrinks when drying and has a tendency to flake off the bp after shrinking.

I too have coated H-3 on rice crispies. It does take patients . Torro may be the best way to do this. I did it with lots of water sprayed in intervals . It appears that you almost get it to the point where they stick together then ,shake them well or stir in the star roller. H-3 is a harder comp to make adhere to the burst medium. I believe this is where the type of binder has more influence . Dextrin works but I believe that SGRS or other binder may be a much better choice for a stronger "stickier" adhesive. The H-3 has a tenancy to flake off, and about 1/2 to 3/4 sticks to the medium using the dry method. I got 3-1 ratio at best with hulls, and close to 4-1 on the crispies ( due to a wetter condition).

[pyrojig]

Well, a test with the H3 coated rice hulls proved much more efficient (than did riced H-3 that wasnt screened to size). I guess from my readings , consistent particle size is critical for best performance. The bursts from a 3" shell looked close to commercial ( not bad fro a plastic shell. ) . I kept chlorate stars with a H-3 burst as a safe combination . I truly have been spoiled by flash/whistle boosted shells with bp hulls, and this was a nice change up . Im sure If this burst is applied to a nice paper shell, the bursts will be great! I can see why the Japanese and other makers prefer the simplicity that chlorate comps have to offer. Sadly there have been enough bad accidents in industry that have put a stop to these practices with chlorates. But there is good merit to the application they have in the manufacture of fireworks. There still is many counties that utilize it for this use, but in the States it is forbidden ( on a commercial standpoint) .

There still is one test with the rice crispies coated with a 4-1 ratio . I hope to see these perform well in a 4" shell . Sadly My digital video camera took a dump, and I can t film these new experiments to show the comparison .