Everyone drops praise just cause the man knows how to wrap a lightbulb in tin foil!!

 

lol yahh if only it was that easy. haha Once photobucket stops being a little I'll post up pictures of the construction process...it's pretty involved and takes about 30-45 minutes just to assemble a single shell once all the materials are ready.

 

A guy that comes over to our house every year puts a bunch of powder into a bucket with a fuse coming out of the side.(one of them is coffee creamer).

Not sure what the other powders are , but it makes for one hell of a boom.

 

Would be cool. I 'LL have to wait till its closer and see how things are here and what kind of plans the lady has.

 

Would be cool. I 'LL have to wait till its closer and see how things are here and what kind of plans the lady has.
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Well if you can convince her, bring her out too! We'd love to have you guys.

 

As promised, here is my basic tutorial as to how one of my 4" reload-able shells is created from start to finish..... ENJOY!

So here we have what are called the hemi's (hemispheres) from the pyrotechnic supply company. The half on the left you can see 2 holes, those are vents that will allow some gasses to escape as the shell begins to explode in the sky. These holes come pre-drilled. Now the half on the right you will see 1 hole that is 1/4 inch diameter. This is for the time delay fuse which will be explained later.


I start by taking two small squares of 3/4" masking tape and about a 3 inch piece of thick thread. I insert the thread ends into each of the previously mentioned vent holes and tape the holes shut. This thread is where the "leader" will go through to ensure the shell is lowered right side up into the mortar further ensuring proper and safe operation.


I then fill the vents with beads of hot glue which serve 2 purposes. First being to hold the thread in place, and second to add a little more resistance to the shells vent holes.


Now, the introduction to the various types of fuses used in the making of this particular shell. The big ring off to the upper left is 1/4 inch time fuse which will act as the delay from the time the shells lift ignites to the time it explodes in the sky (about 300 feet for a 4 inch shell). Only the core of this fuse burns. The thick paper shell protects the fuse and prevents the whole fuse from being incinerated when the lift charge goes off. The gray fuse in the lower center is superfast Chinese paper fuse. This is composed of 3 strands of smaller black powder fuse. This will be used both for the leader and for "cross-matching". The green fuse off to the lower right is pale blue falling leaves fuse. For this shell it gets cut into 1.5 inch long segments and acts as the effects. When the shell bursts, these bits of fuse ignite and burn very slowly (about 7 seconds per inch), resembling pale blue falling leaves. And lastly the upper right green fuse is your standard 1/8 inch Chinese visco fuse which is what most of you will have seen when lighting consumer grade fireworks. This burns at about 2.5 seconds per inch and acts as a delay for the super fast Chinese paper fuse (to prevent immediate launch when the fuse is lit).


Alright so back to shell construction. Here I have about a 7 inch length of the Chinese paper fuse which has been dissected into it's 3 individual black powder strands. These strands will be used for "cross-matching" the 1/4 inch time delay fuse. This is done to ensure that the lift charge ignites the time delay fuse and also to ensure that the other end of the time delay fuse ignites the shell once at it's apogee.


Here is one end of the cross-matched 1/4 inch fuse. About 1/2 inch of the fuse is bifurcated and short 2 inch segments of the black fuse are inserted into the black powder core and glued and tied in place.


This is then inserted into the shell like so and glued on both ends to ensure no fire can pass in-between the fuse and the paper shell.



Next is quite possibly one of the most important parts of shell construction if you want nice uniform breaks, the "pass-fire" tube. It is basically just a cardboard or paper tube that directs the fire to the center of the shell to ensure an inward to outward burst. I just buy penny rolls from wal-mart and cut them in half for my 4 inch shells as seen here.


This is then glued into the inside of the shell like this.


I then take the leftover pieces of black powder fuse and fill in the "pass-fire" tube.



My falling leaves fuse cut and ready for the shell...


I take multiple strips of tissue paper and glue them onto the inside of one half of the shell as shown here.


Sorry for the lack of pictures in this part of construction but it's pretty straightforward. I line the outer parts of the hemi's with my falling leaves fuse and fill in each half with my black powder coated rice hulls for my burst charge. The half that has the tissue paper gets filled and then each tissue paper segment is folded over and a tissue paper disc is glued over the tabs, locking all the black powder coated rice hulls and effects in place, allowing me to invert it onto the other half without losing any material.

I then place a thick bead of hot glue all along the edge of the non tissue paper hemi which is supported by a cylindrical ring to keep it stable. The other half is lowered down on top quickly and held in place to dry.


Once dried, I cross-match the exposed end of time fuse the same way as the interior of the shell. For the 4 inch shells I use regular bathroom size dixie cups to hold my lift powder/charge. The powder is weighed out and put into a sandwich baggie. I cut about a 16 inch piece of super fast Chinese paper fuse and fold aluminum tape over it to strengthen and protect it leaving about 1 inch on each end exposed. One end is inserted into the baggie of lift powder and the baggie is taped onto the fuse and placed in the dixie cup. The cup is then pushed up to the shell (after some trimming) covering the cross-matched time delay fuse, and hot glued in place. I then add about 5 or 6 inches of regular green visco fuse to the other end of the super fast Chinese paper fuse to act as a safe delay. Remember that thread that was glued in place? Well that whole length of fuse is pulled through that thread to keep the shell upright. I then tape the seams of the hemispheres with about 4-5 wraps of 3/4 inch masking tape for reinforcement and cover the entire shell with aluminum tape for 2 reasons. First being that it looks really good and professional, and second being it adds more strength and rigidity to the shell resulting in a better break.

Here are pictures of the finished shell. Note: For this shell, because it was a prototype employing new methods, I added extra green visco so I could be even farther away, just in case.




It all turned out BEAUTIFULLY though. I wish I had a good picture of the burst, but here is a still of the lift charge going off. I didn't add a comet (rising tail) so the shell was nearly impossible to trace, so my buddy who was filming missed the entire burst by about 50-75 feet, haha. Hope I didn't bore you all..... ENJOY!!

 

I WANT ONE!

 

You'll shoot your eye out!

 

You make it sound so tempting. Cause I am up and down 24 all the time.
I will do my best to show up. Keep me informed with PM's please.

 

You make it sound so tempting. Cause I am up and down 24 all the time.
I will do my best to show up. Keep me informed with PM's please.
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WILL DO!