My First Blackmatch Rig

[nwpyro]

Spent some time the last couple days making a rig for blackmatch. I am just demonstrating it with cotton/poly thread. It will use six pure cotton threads.

 

The holes in this rubbermaid container were drilled, filed, then quickly torched to remove burrs and get smooth plastic holes. Heavy duty braided string was pulled back and forth through the holes for final smoothing.

 

The die at the exit is a pen tip. Black tape will be applied to make a smaller hole and to round the shape of the blackmatch if neccesary.

 

Notice the slant on the thread feeds... This insures that the thread feeds straight toward the container and doesn't screw up other rollers. Otherwise, thread might drag against another roller pushing it forward faster than it's feeding and causing a tangle.

 

Thread pulls through extremely easily... If neccesary, I may add an additional upper thread feeding rack for a total of nine, ten, or even twelve threads. Thread is only fed in pairs to ensure a thorough coating. I am not making normal blackmatch... I am making reliable NC coatable blackmatch! Additionally... I may also make BM in 10' sections and apply a twist to eliminate any potential air pockets. Drying it with a twist will require holding the twist in place with clothes hanger clips. Quite easy, just glue one side of wooden clothes hanger clips to two boards spaced 10' apart. It will be twisted with dremel with a small wire loop, or a dewalt drill with a wire loop.

Edited June 3, 2014 by nwpyro

[pyroman2498]

Why not just use 1 roll of thishttp://www.peachesandcreme.com/yarns/cones - #1005- White .. instead of those tiny threads...

 

Stay safe and stay green

 

~Steven

[Jakenbake]

I really wouldn't waste time with twisting multi strands. All that really accomplishes is squeezing out the slurry you want coating the thread. Just my 2 cents worth. It looks built nicely though if that helps. Just be sure not to put it in the oven lol

[BurritoBandito]

@nwpyro: I'm glad to see you are ditching those silicone fuses. One thing to consider is, if you coat the blackmatch with NC lacquer you can't use it for quickmatch.

 

Edit: Spelling.

Edited June 3, 2014 by BurritoBandito

[dagabu]

Nice little machine there but sadly (as I did) you will find threads to be good at sucking up liquid but horrible at gathering any BP. The Peaches and Cream yarn (#1005- White) is the very best of all the twine, thread, line etc that I have used, and I have used a LOT!

 

Some of the ones I have used to make black match are below and you can see that the two cones of Peaches and cream are already to go, the others have to be twisted like yours to hold together.

 

What I have done is to wind the P&C off the cone directly to my frame for the total feet needed to run a full batch. Coil the P&C up on your arm like you would an extension cord then make a hank from the skein you just coiled up. Take this hank and dunk it into a container of your slurry (hot is better) and knead the BP slurry into all the P&C.

 

Leave it in the tub for a good 15 minutes, knead it once more and then go to your frame and undo the hank to a skein, unravel the end of the P&G, draw it through the little triangle you make with your fingers (thumb, pointer and middle) when you pinch all three of them together, to pull off the extra slurry leaving a consistently sized match.

 

Once on the frame, use BP fines and dust the string generously. Leave the frame under a protected but breezy location for a couple days. Cut it off the frame, seriously, dont pull it off, you just break the strands. Cut it off into nice, stiff lengths, ready for use as passfire, match etc.

 

[dagabu]

[nwpyro]

Nice little machine there but sadly (as I did) you will find threads to be good at sucking up liquid but horrible at gathering any BP. The Peaches and Cream yarn (#1005- White) is the very best of all the twine, thread, line etc that I have used, and I have used a LOT!

 

Hmmm... That is interesting... Well, I still think I can pull it off. I don't really see how that could cause that much of a problem. Cotton string soaked with nitrate alone burns. I am not making quickmatch... Just a alternative to buying fuse! I even have a booster solution prepared already for if the strings are sucking up too much liquid...

 

---Blackmatch Liquid Addition Solution---

70 - H2O

25 - KNO3

5 - Dextrin

 

I am adding in the modification to bring the machine up to 10 strands. Five pairs! If neccesary, after the slurry... I will add some actual rolling rollers and run the strings through a second container of dry meal, and then finally combine them all at the very end by adding the twist after all slurried and meal coated strings are pulled through.

 

Rolling rollers will both prevent powder from being stripped off the strings and prevent too much tension building up through the second step! I will probably not put this in for a while. I already have a motor and gearing which could be used to make a tap-tap agitator for the dry powder, but I don't feel like doing that much work right now.

 

 

Edit: Oh, and for those who think this is all too much effort... I do have a roll of pure cotton yarn and could use dagabu's method... However, building this contraption is more interesting to me than actual blackmatch at the moment. I like solving things!

 

Let it be noted... I am going to be the first "hobbiest" to make a wet/dry hybrid visco machine! (That I have heard of.) it would probably also be a good idea to also put a actual "rolling" roller in the slurry that would spin as the string goes through to help keep the slurry well mixed.

Edited June 3, 2014 by nwpyro

[MrW]

My 2 cents.... My final version ( after a number of versions) was to use 6 single strands feeding into a bp slurry and then thru a small funnel to combine into 6 strands into a single match and onto a frame (similar to Dag's). Out of 100 grams of bp slurry I get about 60metres of bmatch.

The slurry is consistency of paint made from 75/15/10 with 2% dex & 3% wall paper paste, mixed with about 100gms of hot water.

[pyroman2498]

Hmmm... That is interesting... Well, I still think I can pull it off. I don't really see how that could cause that much of a problem. Cotton string soaked with nitrate alone burns. I am not making quickmatch... Just a alternative to buying fuse! I even have a booster solution prepared already for if the strings are sucking up too much liquid...

 

---Blackmatch Liquid Addition Solution---

70 - H2O

25 - KNO3

5 - Dextrin

 

I am adding in the modification to bring the machine up to 10 strands. Five pairs! If neccesary, after the slurry... I will add some actual rolling rollers and run the strings through a second container of dry meal, and then finally combine them all at the very end by adding the twist after all slurried and meal coated strings are pulled through.

 

Rolling rollers will both prevent powder from being stripped off the strings and prevent too much tension building up through the second step! I will probably not put this in for a while. I already have a motor and gearing which could be used to make a tap-tap agitator for the dry powder, but I don't feel like doing that much work right now.

 

 

Edit: Oh, and for those who think this is all too much effort... I do have a roll of pure cotton yarn and could use dagabu's method... However, building this contraption is more interesting to me than actual blackmatch at the moment. I like solving things!

 

Let it be noted... I am going to be the first "hobbiest" to make a wet/dry hybrid visco machine! (That I have heard of.) it would probably also be a good idea to also put a actual "rolling" roller in the slurry that would spin as the string goes through to help keep the slurry well mixed.

I'm sorry to say but I don't see this tiny thread burning , it's like taking a few fibers from your blue jeans that you spilled a nitrate solution on , and bring only those few threads, there isn't much to burn and stay light , same with the string your using .

 

Stay safe and stay green

 

~Steven

[Mumbles]

You can call it whatever you want, but referring to this as a visco machine or the product as visco (even if eventually coated) is going to be both disingenuous and confusing. This is still just blackmatch. You did however make a nice blackmatch machine.

[nwpyro]

You can call it whatever you want, but referring to this as a visco machine or the product as visco (even if eventually coated) is going to be both disingenuous and confusing. This is still just blackmatch. You did however make a nice blackmatch machine.

 

Well, right now it's just blackmatch. However... When I add the second meal coating step with the tap-tap agitator...

 

What do you call blackmatch which has been run through slurry then run though meal as individual strands then twisted together into one strand to dry? Hybrid Visco? Wet/Dry Visco?

Edited June 3, 2014 by nwpyro

[BurritoBandito]

Blackmatch.

[Shadowcat1969]

I would call it blackmatch. What you are proposing is the same as Dagabu showed above, except you are pulling wet threads through the meal, he simply dusts it on after the match is wound on his drying rack.

 

My understanding (which is far from complete, so if I am incorrect I hope somebody corrects me) is that Visco is a dry powder core that is held together by twisted thread, usually at least two layers twisted in opposite directions. The thread istself, however, is not saturated with flammable material.

Blackmatch is wet processed thread of one or more strands that can be (but not must be) twisted together into a single strand of fuse.

 

What you are doing is simply multiple strand Blackmatch.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Shadowcat1969

[markx]

 

Well, right now it's just blackmatch. However... When I add the second meal coating step with the tap-tap agitator...

 

What do you call blackmatch which has been run through slurry then run though meal as individual strands then twisted together into one strand to dry? Hybrid Visco? Wet/Dry Visco?

I actually built a similar contraption for making blackmatch type of fuse before stepping up to a real visco machine. My approach was to use a meal powder+rubber cement slurry and pull a rather heavy and "hairy" cotton string through it with a roll attached to a slow disco ball motor. The string would unwind from a bulk roll, run through the slurry assisted by stainless guides and then slowly exit to run over a guide wheel and onto the roll attached to the disco ball motor. During that trip it would dry out enough to be wound onto the collection spool and not stick into a singular mess. The rubber cement+meal slurry was was diluted with a volatile liquid hydrocarbon mixture "Aviogasoline" as it is called in my neck of the woods....for functional simplicity's sake just gasoline A rather flammable combination, but given the proper precautions it worked perfectly if the consistency of the slurry was just right. Although that condition was quite hard to fulfill. Forget about using thin slippery strings for catching the mixture....it will fall off and slip down, creating voids on the fuse. A rather thick and burry thread is the way to go (just like the one Dagabu displayed in his post)....another point to take into consideration is the fact that the bulky thread is going to absorb the solvent from the slurry and carry it away quite effectively, thus thickening the mix to a point where it no more adheres to the tread properly. Mixing is not going to change that. Only a healthy bowlful of slurry will relive the effect. Well...long story short, a nice learning curve, but the result frustrated me to the extent of having to build an actual visco machine

[Nessalco]

I've found that using 4% dextrin and adding 1% CMC to the slurry makes a huge difference. So far, I've only made match with crap-quality 6-ply twisted cotton, so I've used the "make a hank and pummel it" method - but it works very well indeed. The match is stiff, but if you unwind it from the drying frame nothing flakes off. Usually I just cut 6' lengths and store them - I use it primarily for crossmatching and nosing. The slurry stays slurry until it is all pummeled in - the water seems to draw into the string much less.

 

I have some real QM string coming (soon, I hope) - 6 ply untwisted, untreated cotton. I'm going to give a 'draw through' machine a try and see if it works the way I hope it might.

 

Kevin

[nwpyro]

Well, I got some linty furry cotton thread spooled on now, and added the second rail. We shall see what happens!!!

 

 

I have also figured out a simple way to meal coat the string without needing an agitator! I am going to run each of the five pairs through a plastic bottle seperately through very small straws. A certain amount of meal will get through the straws, but it will fall into a catching container to be used for something else.

 

I will show you guys when I get that part done. Definitely adding it!

[nwpyro]

Wow... Works perfectly! I'm not sure how you guys were having issues with thread picking up slurry. They pick up so much there is a solid sheet of slurry on top of and between the threads as they head into the die... Which instantly fills completely with slurry! The die(pen tip) extrudes a perfectly round stream of slurried string!!! I think the die might have slightly positive pressure because of the way the threads feed it slurry.

I kinda overdid it with +6 SGRS... So I had to add a bit more water to get the slurry to the right consistency... And that thinned out the solution so I had to bump up the KNO3. Dropping down to +3 SGRS next time. Good lord this stuff makes a mess... I was unprepared with no place to hang it.

Twisting definitely doesn't work on slurried blackmatch... The blackmatch shrinks to 1/4th the size and loses a lot of slurry. However, if the threads were stripped of most slurry, run through dry meal, and then recombined by twisting... I think that will still work!

 

 

Update: I am adding two more threads for a new total of 12. These threads will be in the empty spots on each side of the middle pair. This will insure that a solid sheet of slurry is heading into the die even with a smaller amount of SGRS. Pictures coming soon!

 

Under-feeding the strings on the top deck makes the spools kinda slant sideways... Doesn't cause a problem, but annoys me... OCD! Going to switch that to an over-feed. I will have to change the top deck to have a steeper angle for that to work!

Edited June 5, 2014 by nwpyro

[pyroman2498]

Got a video of the Burning ?

[dagabu]

Yupper, that much SGRS will allow a lot to stick to thread but it's also a fairly good burn retardant at high levels.

 

I used 1% CMC with nothing more for a binder and even that small amount slowed the burn some.

 

Can we see some video of the burn please?

[nwpyro]

Pictures and video in a few days. Doesn't matter to me if the SGRS slows the burn a little. I am not using it for quickmatch as I already said before.

[MrW]

Following on this is my BM maker, with a burn test of a match (500mm long) and a QM test with 3 matches (500mm long)

I have settled on this final design as its easier, quicker, less messy and works well for my purposes. Hope this helps.

Cheers

 

[nwpyro]

Nice MrW... Amazed you get that good of a result with such thin blackmatch! My blackmatch extrudes nearly three times bigger. The naysayers of thread BM are foiled by us with SGRS, Wallpaper Paste, and other gooey sticky binders! Hehe

 

Gonna have to make myself one of those winding drying frames!

[nwpyro]

Been real busy... Might be able to get pictures/video later next week.

 

Made some modifications. A inverted bottle cut in half or a funnel is neccesary for the best quality blackmatch. It allows you to work with the thickest slurry possible making fast blackmatch using threads. MrW!!! Great setup with that inverted funnel. That is the secret to great thread blackmatch!!!

 

Slurry consistency needs to be like peanut butter after you mix in the oil!

[MrW]

Glad to hear its working for you NWP. I cannot take credit for the overall design, i have just adapted other designs to suit my purpose, and it works like a charm for me.

Cheers

[pyrojig]

One word of caution , or more so a concern . I have used BM in the past in place of visco( even NC coated or rubbercement coated) all BM is capable of (erratic burning) and using this for any ground device or handheld devise ( worst yet). In some of my youthful years I admit to using this improvised fuse to ignite noise makers ( ground salutes ) ...... and im very blessed to still have all my fingers ( never had a accident ) but had a few sobering experiences that changed using improvise fuse. Use commercial fuse where safety is a matter. I'd rather spend a few bucks and save limbs and digits . Just my two cents .

As that being said , I really can appreciate your creativity and admire your skills , and love the set up.