A couple more shells (5" single, 4" 3-break)

[flying fish]

I posted these on Passfire but thought I'd spam them here too

 

5" Farfalle:

 

I had so many people asking how I made that shell.

 

4" 3-break:

 

 

First break is blue, second is blue and purple, and third is blue and glitter. The comments I got from that one pretty much added up to "it was nice but it needed a bottom shot..."

[LTUPyro]

What can I say.. Farfalle was spectacular, silver sparks and pink looks amazing. Multibreak was very nice as well, very good breaks.

[flying fish]

Thanks! That pink (or magenta if you prefer) ironically was Freeman's metallic fueled "purple". Someone posted it here on APC a while back and I friggin' love it! Edited July 29, 2013 by flying fish

[Zmuro]

I posted these on Passfire but thought I'd spam them here too

 

5" Farfalle:

 

I had so many people asking how I made that shell.

 

That was really nice shell, I love farfalle shells. Can you share some info about this shell...farfalle inserts size and composition, the size of awesome pink stars.

[fredhappy]

flying fish: well done on the farfalle, that must have been lots of work! I love that farfalle shape, it is very pretty.

 

I like the 3 break 4 too.

 

thanks for sharing the vids, vids keep things interesting here..

 

best

 

fred

[flying fish]

Thanks Fred and Zmuro.

 

The Farfalles are the standard "4 oz" rocket tubes (1/2" ID, 3/4" OD) cut down to about 2" long. The ends were plugged with bentonite. The plugs and comp were pressed in with an arbor press and a 1/2 aluminum rod. The comp was green meal + 13% FeTi and 3% Ti with the particle size being -30+60. At least, I THINK that was the composition, could be off by a percent or two. Sadly I was in a hurry to finish the shell and didn't take notes. Anyway, the vent hole was 1/8" and was drilled all the way through, in the center of the tube, perpindicular to the length of the tube. I'm not really sure about the safety of drilling through these things, so I always wear a face shield, gloves and heavy cotton when I do this. Perhaps I will try to find an appropriately sized punch that can be used with my arbor press to avoid the drilling process in the future. As for priming, I stick 4 strands of skinny BM through the hole which fit sort of snug, fold the ends over so they meat and tack them to the tube with a drop of CA glue. This is tedious and perhaps not necessary, but it helps keep the fuse out of the way when you are trying to cram the inserts into the shell (14 fit snugly inside of a shell casing rolled on a 4-1/2" former) and perhaps prevents neighboring inserts from pulling eachothers' priming out when the shell breaks. I've only built one so I will have to revisit my priming process. I am thinking in the future I will only have the BM stick out one side, and have that side face the center of the shell. The opposing side may be held in place with BP slurry. Or perhaps the slurry isn't even necessary? Not really sure!

 

As for the magenta star size, they were 3/8" pumped with a heavy prime layer.

 

Now that I have done more than enough rambling about priming, I noticed yesterday that Ned has some videos on youtube of some strikingly similar shells (5" with two rings of farfalle). I'm sure he has a nice tutorial for them on his site.

Edited July 29, 2013 by flying fish

[burningRNX]

That were lovely shells, FF.

How big were those stars in the 3 break?, were they pumped?

About the farfalle's

You can just let the BM stick out to the burst, not the other side, you can simply fold it down and secure it with tape.

Slurry prime isn't necessary.

Edited July 29, 2013 by burningRNX

[flying fish]

The blue stars were 3/8" pumped and the glitter stars in the final break were 1/2" pumped. There were also some purple cut stars in the second break but it is hard to differentiate the blue from the purple in the video.

 

Thanks for the tip on the farfalles! That will save me a lot of work in the future.

[WonderBoy]

Nice shells! Nice break on the farfalle, and the four too. I too like my multi's to break on the way up.

 

When I make farfalle I usually pre-drill the vent holes. Then you can just insert the match as you are pressing the device, instead of drilling or punching through Ti laced comp.

 

Did you use a stick to pack your polverone in the intricacies around the farfalle? This should eliminate most rattling.

 

I don't think the third break was a hose break, it looked about the same size as the rest. Are you spiking each break longitudinally and circumferentially, or just longitudinally and then spike everything circumferentially at the end? Was it rinfasciatured as well, or just the farfalle? Maybe I missed it, but what type of break are you using?

 

 

WB

 

Oops, I was posting from memory, and some of what I said was in response to posts on Passfire.

Edited August 7, 2013 by WonderBoy

[flying fish]

Thanks for the comments! I like the idea of pre-drilling so that I might live a little longer

 

I did not use a stick to pack the pulverone, I just shook the shell to settle it. I would have been more carefull about trying to get a solid fill, but I was in a rush to finish it before the shoot (this was one of the details I posted on Passfire, I had powder rattling around after the "dry paste" layers were added and was wondering if that was "normal" or due to my inadequate packing of the the shell with pulverone).

 

As for the multi, it was not rinfasciatured. The breaks were spiked and pasted individually, then assembled by spiking together and pasting in the whole thing. Sort of a hybrid Italian/Maltese method I guess? As a break I used 2FA.

[WonderBoy]

I would recommend making a little packing stick. I carved a rocket stick into a long "triangle" that fits in the gap between the inserts and the shell wall, this way you can quickly pack the intricacies and make sure there is a solid fill with no gap, even if there is BM coming out of the inserts. I usually use a dowel of some sort to pack all of the contents of the shell, making sure everything is firmly locked in place.

 

That hybrid construction method seems to work well, making sure all breaks have equal containment. I am particularly fond of rinfasciature myself, I use that method for all of my shells.

 

Make more cylinders

 

 

WB

Edited August 9, 2013 by WonderBoy

[sjaak]

wow, the farfalle is amazing .