7 shells test for new year

[superspike23]

I tested seven shells for the new year.

The first 5 on the video are 3 inch

The last 2 are 4 inch.

 

I'm pretty disappointed, I think they did not use enough flash powder

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYTcTAQPuxA&feature=youtu.be

Edited January 2, 2013 by superspike23

[Col]

Its better to increase the number of pasting layers first, there`s less chance of blowing the stars blind.

[psyco_1322]

What kind of break charge are you using?

[Hoppy]

More flash would end up detracting away from what appears to be your 'wants' out of the performance of your shells.

 

How many layers of kraft or gummed tape did you use?

 

Yes, the break appears to be less than satisfactory...waiting to see your reply since a few others would most likely be a better suggested method (KP coated rice hulls, H3...) where you are looking for a better and larger symmetrical break.

[taiwanluthiers]

Commercial class C cakes use so much flash (I don't exactly know how much, but from what they sound like it seems like a lot) that I can't even look at it... the flash is like a flash bang that goes off and prevents you from noticing the stuff that you actually want. When one of them went off on the ground it set off car alarms... so I am guessing at least 1 gram.

 

How many layers did you paste? According to one instructions I've seen he used 4 sessions, 2 layers each session with a total of 8 layers of 30lb kraft. On my shells the burst actually turned out pretty good, but I felt I could boost it somehow with slow flash or whistle.

[Potassiumchlorate]

I love powerful breaks, but they shouldn't be done with flash. H3 is much better.

[taiwanluthiers]

how do you use H3 safely with meal primed stars? I would like the idea of using H3 too, as I produce my own chlorate so I can make them cheaply.

[AirCowPeacock]

prime with sulfurless BP or have a tissue paper barier between stars and burst (as you should probably be doing anyways.)

[Potassiumchlorate]

how do you use H3 safely with meal primed stars? I would like the idea of using H3 too, as I produce my own chlorate so I can make them cheaply.

 

You prime with H3 as well or with Pinball prime

[superspike23]

I used 3 layers of gummed paper.

For the break I had more than enough rice hulls, so I used the black powder out of the mill.

[Potassiumchlorate]

I used 3 layers of gummed paper.

For the break I had more than enough rice hulls, so I used the black powder out of the mill.

 

It should be 9 layers on the 3" shells and 12 layers on the 4". At least 6 on the 3" and 8 on the 4", no matter how powerful the break is.

 

Not that my own shells were very succesful this year

Edited January 2, 2013 by Potassiumchlorate

[Seymour]

I think the burst could be a bit harder, but also that you should work more on getting your symmetry better, and in a few cases longer burning stars, and, perhaps it's just the camera, but there seemed to be a few blind stars.

 

While I am an advocate for flash boosting, you can get a really good result from a gram, or even half a gram of vitamin F in a 3" if you do a fair effort at pasting it.

 

While I am guessing here, in a lot of my shells that had poor symmetry but fairly decent burst, the cause was irregularities in the stars. While with well cut and pumped stars you can get good result, having stars arrange nearly perfectly in the sky is really easiest with quite uniform round stars. Even uneven priming and colour changing causes pretty big deviations in trajectory.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Seymour