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November 2001
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November 5, 2001 
Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote anything here because I had hard drive problems and lost the entries for a while back. Let me bring you up to speed: ball mill I finally made a ball mill. Here's how: I got a motor for free from the dump, I live next to a mini-mall type place and they are renovating or something and they were throwing out ventilation stuff, the big steel air ducting. These systems apparently have fans spread throughout them and every fan has a good motor, so I took one from the garbage. With it came a pulley attached to the motor and a separate larger pulley attached to a steel bar. It took some work to get it off but it's worth it. Next I took the bearings off of a bike- the front wheel. This was a lot of work. If I was going to build another one I think I would use casters instead -those wheel things on the bottom of chairs. Here is a diagram of the entire thing put together:

The mixing container sits in between the bike bearing and the drive bar. I am using a peanut butter jar now but I used to use a lab jar. Fill the peanut butter jar a bit less than half full with marbles and then put about a quarter of the jar full of the stuff you want to grind and put it on and turn it on. I had to wire a plug onto the motor, but it's not hard - you can buy the plugs at any hardware store. I don't us a switch - when I want to turn it off I just unplug it. As for the milling media (the marbles) it would be better to use lead shot or ceramic balls from a ceramic store but it's too hard to get any for me. Don't use ball bearings or anything steel for that matter - especially if you are mixing the ingredients together all at once since it might spark and set the thing on fire or cause a small dust explosion. The mill is semi-efficient but it could be better. As for electrical efficiency, I'm sure it is terrible since I have a 7 amp motor powering this small little container and just turning it, but the extra is just heating my house anyways since I have an electrically heated house. I glued inner tubes to the peanut butter jar to keep it from slipping. Make sure you put on the lid to the jar tight, because it might get unscrewed, and spill everything (this happened to me), possibly with dangerous results (this didn't happen). uses: Milling your own aluminum powder: You can do this but you need steel media, and you have to alter the milling container a bit: but a steel bar through the container down the cylinder but about halfway between the center and the outside. Cut some thin aluminum foil up in the blender and put it in the mill. Turn it on. Milling this takes a long time, like a couple days maybe. You need to slowly open the lid of the container to let air in, because if you don't and when it is a fine powder you open it up all at once, the oxygen in the air will react with the aluminum and make a white hot fireball, since aluminum is pyrophoric in finely divided form. Be advised I have not tried this, but it should work.

Make gunpowder: Whether you choose to make gunpowder the ball mill way or the CIA way, a ball mill will be very helpful to grind up the powder. To make gunpowder the ball mill and CIA way you can go here for a description: http://huizen.dds.nl/~wfvisser/EN/bp_making_EN.html. The part where it says to add 6% water to the gunpowder then ball mill it is where I get stuck because if I get the powder at all wet, then it sticks to the side of the mill and doesn't get milled at all. I would advise against using a peanut butter jar for ball mill method gunpowder because I haven't tested how much static is build up around the jar, and you might get sparks. A mill is also useful just to mix the sulfur and charcoal together

grinding up any other powder: I use it for grinding up non-dairy creamer, smoke bomb (candy formula -40% sugar, 60% potassium nitrate) and stuff. **end of list ball mill is useful for

I also tried non - Dairy creamer fireballs. It's the same as a nap bomb but you put non-dairy creamer in instead of the naphthalene layer. It's not quite as good but it is a lot less messy and stinky. I also tried meal powder instead of naphalene and it works better than either, for giving a bright fireball, but it is harder to make.

I also tried a fountain or two. They were unchoked (had no nozzle at the end). I mixed some coarse charcoal and aluminum with meal powder and it went pretty good. I didn't really measure or anything but if you wanted to go see some formulas there are plenty out there.

I improved my scale a bit by replacing the wire with string and moving the fulcrum closer to the ground.

I got hold of some bentonite clay (regular cat litter) to try to make nozzles out of for fountains and maybe a rocket or two. I put some water in it, and hammered it into a tube, then drilled out a hole in the middle to make a choked fountain (gerb) but the clay doesn't get very hard again, even when it's dry. I don't know why, but at least it's fireproof, and it should work.

Whenever I go out in the field with some nap bombs or whatever I always have problems holding the thing up, so I made a holder for them (see picture) I could also tape sticks to the side of them, and shove them into the ground when ready to fire. 

I joined rec.pyrotechnics - not than you would care but I might refer to it from time to time.

I tried some mini starmines but one blew up and the other wasn't so great but I'll keep working on it. Each time I make gunpowder I have leftovers, that are kind of lumpy and stuff. I saved those and put them into a tube with a fuse hole in the bottom and a bit of gunpowder in the bottom. The effect is a bunch of chunks of gunpowder thrown into the sky while burning. Kind of neat. Then the other one, I actually rolled some meal powder stars and then put some gunpowder in the bottom of a tube with a fuse hole, put the stars on top, with gunpowder in between them. This could've worked but I didn't plug the bottom well and the bottom blew out. I don't know how to fix this, as elementary as it may seem since my clay is defective :). Maybe I'll just fill it with 5 minute epoxy or something - kind of expensive though.

I tried making pumped stars and a roman candle but I used regular meal powder for the delay powder and I didn't pack it so the result was it all going off at once, which wasn't so bad, but definitely not what is was supposed to do. I also used defective gunpowder - something was wrong with that batch and it burned slowly, I can't remember why, so it was kind of crappy.

The best success I had isn't to great but : I used my ball mill to make some really fine powder for gunpowder - I milled the sulfur and charcoal together for like 24 hours almost. Then I dissolved the potassium nitrate in boiling water and added the sulfur - I had a hard time getting the solution to " accept " the powder - if you know what I mean, but eventually it all got into a slurry. Then I boiled it until it was pasty and thick and put it on a T Shirt, squeezed it in a vice and then broke the cake into a couple of pieces. It worked really well! the powder went off really fast. I turned some into powder and most of it I just took the chunks and taped a fuse on, and set them off. They go off all at once and shoot sparks and stuff out a few feet either way (I wrapped tape around them, so it shoots out the end of the "tube" of tape). Another thing I tried with gunpowder is making meal powder by mixing all of the ingredients in the ball mill together for a while. Then

 

 I squeezed the hell out of it to make a dang hard cake. It was hard to get out afterwards, and I had to hammer it out. When it dried I light it but it didn't go all that much better than my slow gunpowder.

My lighter broke - the butane torch one it cost $32 too. *sight* I guess I'm doomed to use crappy little lighters my hole life. I went looking to a couple of different stores for those windproof butane lighters but the best they had were Zippos. I got a cigarette lighter and it works well enough, if it's not windy or wet out.

I'm making more rust for thermite too. This time I just made a salt solution and put in some steel wool, and left it for a while. The part of the steel wool above the water line turned red and below it was black. I think I want red stuff because if you think about it it carries more oxygen than the black stuff (Fe3O4) compared to (Fe2O3). Another thing I found out is that salt is used to lower the temperature for explosives- it would also lower the temperature for thermite. So don't use too much salt in the solution when you are corroding the iron. That may be one of the problems I am having with why it doesn't burn very hot (Editors note: doesn't sustain itself actually).

December 11, 2001
 I made a fountain yesterday, and it worked really well. It's much better than the tiny ones you buy in the store because it shot sparks way up high , over 2 or 3 meters. The hardest part was making the nozzle, believe it or not. I got some bentonite clay from the grocery store - it is sold as a cheap cat litter. The pet store didn't have it in small bags, all they had were "new, improved" stuff for litter, obviously not bentonite clay, and 50-100 lb bags of it. Anyways, the pet store sells it in about 5kg bags-probably more than I'll use for a long time but not unreasonable. At first I made it wet, with water and then put it into a tube, hammered it some and let it dry. This was very soft and flaky. I was expecting it to turn as hard as it was in the little grains that it comes in, so I scrapped that one (saved the tube though...). Then I just left the issue for a while, and forgot about it, because I thought there was something wrong with my clay and it had to be a fine dust anyways. It does have to be a fine dust, though. I didn't think I could grind it in my ball mill because it seemed so hard. After a while, I just thought I would try it in my mill. I put it in for a long time (maybe 4 hours) and it slowly turns to a very fine powder. I screened it through my doubled window screen to get the really big particles out, and just left the medium ones in. I took that (the fined dust an medium particles). What you're supposed to do is take the fine clay, and add some light oil to it, like WD40 to make it slightly damp, so that's what I did. I just sprayed it in and mixed well but you're supposed to put it in a coffee mill or something to get it all mixed really good. I didn't want to because I thought it would be hard to clean the mill afterwards. I took the clay and WD40 mix and put it into the tube, then since I didn't have a dowel that fit well into the tube, I used a nail, with the head part down to compact the clay. You have to beat it pretty hard to get an good plug/nozzle. Then when it was done, I drilled a hole through it to form the nozzle. The clay never gets really hard or anything, but it resists erosion surprisingly well for a compact dust. Then I made the mixture to put in the tube. It really isn't critical what amounts you put in for the mix, so I didn't bother to measure it but there are plenty of formulas out there if you want them. I used... mostly fine meal powder -not black powder semi coarse charcoal coarse/medium aluminum I used meal powder but usually people use black powder, that seemed like it might blow up to me. Mix it all up together, and test it before you put it into the tube, if you don't like it, adjust accordingly: the white sparks are made from the aluminum (duh), the dim ones from the charcoal and if you want it to burn faster with less sparks, add more meal powder. If you use coarse aluminum, you will get more branching sparks. When you're done mixing, put some in the tube, hammer it down well with a dowel (preferably) or whatever you can get. If you use a nail and hammer like me, there is theoretically the possibility of sparks, which could ignite the mix. It's better to use a dowel and dead blow hammer, if you have access to those things. Leave some room on the top to hammer in some more clay to make the bottom plug. When it gets dark outside, set it down away from burnables, stick a fuse into the top, set it off and step back. If it doesn't go as high as you would like you could either make the hole smaller or drill a core through the mixture (do this slowly so no heat will developed). Other good things to add might be: iron filings fine aluminum microstars titanium zirconium? antimony trisulphide? I had a hard time making the coarse aluminum because I had to use a file and it takes a really long time but now I use an electric sander, which is still a lot of work, but not a bad as a file. I put a piece of bed sheet under the sander to collect the aluminum, so it doesn't bounce off the surface. This isn't very efficient but aluminum is easy to get. I am using aluminum window frames now, but aluminum lawn chairs or whatever would probably work too, or any other source for that matter. I might add magnesium but it is really hard to make because I don't want to sand it for fear of it burning, it also would probably make too short lived sparks. I have the flint from the big aluminum fire starter (which is part cesium, part iron) which I might use, but it would really have to be careful filing that or it would just burn up. I made some microstars just with some meal powder, dampened with water and made into tiny balls. They are drying now but I'll report on them later. I hope they don't make it explode by getting stuck in the nozzle. I am also going to try fine aluminum in the same one as the microstars one. I'm off to write my Christmas list now :)

December 25, 2001 
Today I might make dextrin, by baking corn starch in the oven for 4 hours on 350 - 375 farenhieght, stirring frequently. To test to see if there is any starch left, you can put drops of tincture of iodine in a cold water solution of it and if it turns black or blue there is still starch left, so continue cooking. My dad said that starch isn't soluble in cold water, so I could test that way but that doesn't make sense, I'm pretty sure it is, I'll report back later. The fountains mentioned above worked well, they went only about a meter high and I couldn't see the microstars, so there is no point in putting them in. I found out powdered zinc makes a greenish color, and powdered bronze makes green too as well as powdered copper, it was mentioned in rec.pyrotechnics. For the fountains, putting more aluminum and charcoal in makes more sparks but goes slower. I also tried dextrose, potassium nitrate and it is very easy to make compared to sucrose, potassium nitrate because the dextrose melts much more easily, without camelizing. It burns the same way, maybe a bit slower. I don't know a good mixture (proportions) yet, but I'll keep experimenting. I tried putting in some aluminum filings to make sparks, but it isn't hot enough to ignite them, so it is just a waste. It is also not hygroscopic at least not nearly as much as the sucrose mix. A strange thing about this mix is that, if the proportions are not quite right, and it burns slowly, it gives a dull orange flame. But if it burns quickly, it has a dull orange flame right close to the burning mix, but a couple of inches away there is a pale-but--definitely-there purple flame. It's pretty weird. Dextrose can be obtained from beer making stores, which is where I got mine. There are two kinds: monohydrate and anhydrous dextrose, monohydrate is the most common and has a water molecule bound with the dextrose, which slows burn rates because it is about 9% water, this also has to be taken into consideration when measuring the ingredients. A good page about this propellant (and a bunch of other stuff) is http://www.nakka-rocketry.net/. On a side note, did you know some canker (probably wrong spelling - a virus which gives you sores in your mouth) is 25% potassium chlorate, interesting, if totally useless side note. I ordered from firefox, a bunch of chemicals but when my dad sent them a picture of his drivers license, they couldn't recognize it, this happened a couple of times, so he sent a good picture by email, with the order and apparently they never got it. I guess I'll send it again, but they put their prices up now, and they aren't shipping some stuff after 9/11. I guess life isn't fair.

December 26, 2001
 I made dextrin today, like I said I would. I took some corn starch and put it in the oven at 350 - not 375 because someone in rec.pyrotechnics said that when they did that, it messed up and turned into a blackened heap, even though Lloyd (a respected member of the NG) said to use 375. Anyways, I stirred it about every half an hour for 3 hours, and it slowly turned orangish. I am trying it now, making some blackmatch fuse. Even when I don't use a binder for meal powder though, it sticks together fine, I guess because of the KN being soluble enough to act as a binder. I'm hoping the dextrin will make my fuse more durable. I could also use silicon as a binder, even though it is expensive, on the other hand I probably wouldn't need much, and it would make excellent fuse because it bends easily but doesn't break. One problem I had is that the corn starch sticks together in lumps some, so the lumps stay corn starch while the stuff around them turns to dextrin. I also made some more slow flash today, it is a really nice effect for the beginning of a smoke bomb or something since it doesn't really blind the spectators and it lights up the hole area. The formula I used is 50KN/50AL/20S. I made another smoke bomb with dextrose with about 60/40 O/F ratio. It worked all right, but it didn't burn fast enough. Too much sugar I think, because it left black ash. As mentioned, I made fuse today too, with the dextrin. I use a penny for the die to draw the fuse through. I think I'm going to fix up this site over the Christmas holidays.=

December 28, 2001
 I went to test the fuse today, but it isn't dry yet, so the dextrin makes it take a lot longer to dry. It does make it a lot stronger though, I can't really say how good it is until it is dry, though.

January 12, 2002 
The fuse works very well, and is much stronger than the other fuse (without dextrin). I made a fountain for new years and some firecrackers, both worked really well. The composition for the fountain was 5 KNO3, 4 meal powder, 1 sulfur, 1 coarse charcoal and one coarse aluminum. I put in more aluminum though for extra sparks. I just made a star mine by guessing at a star recipe: meal powder, coarse charcoal and extra sulfur and dextrin. I sprayed it with 50/50 rubbing alcohol/water mix. When it was the right consistency, I put it on a piece of glass and pressed on it to make a cake type thingy. Then I cut it into square shaped stars with the back of a hacksaw blade. I didn't have a very big tube, so it is a small mine: about 6 cm tall, and 3 cm diameter. I made it by first plugging the bottom with clay. I used coarse, dry clay straight from the bag, it seems to work OK, but I wouldn't use it for fountain or rocket nozzle. Then I put the fuse in through the top, and a lift charge on the bottom -I just guessed at how much. Then I put the stars surrounding the fuse. Here's a cutaway view:

In theory the fuse will go quickly through the stars, lighting them all then setting off the lift. It goes quickly because the stars act kind of like the paper on quickmatch fuse: they bounce sparks back at the fuse, making it jump ahead while burning. (Editors note: This type of mine worked but the tube was not long enough so the stars did not go up very far because they could not accelerate fast enough.  I could use faster powder but it's much easier to use a longer tube. Then that means you have to use a long fuse, so it's just easier to fuse it from the bottom like a nap bomb. When I did this, I spread some gunpowder between the stars to ensure ignition, I'm not sure if any did not ignite.)

    I already have a list of chemicals I want so I thought I should make a list of other useful stuff I should get for pyrotechnics. 
masking tape 
duct tape
 dowels 
brown 
gummed paper
 Iron sulphate - for making rust. http://www.surf.to/theforum "making iron oxide" 
plaster of Paris 
water putty

January 26, 2002
    Yesterday I tried my hand at making fulminating powder. I mixed 50 kno3, 30 NaCO3 and 20 S then ground the carbonate and nitrate in a mortar finely, because I made a very small quantity and didn't want to bother with the ball mill. Then I put the two oxidizers into an aluminum container and put it over a methyl alcohol flame. I am using washing soda as a source of sodium carbonate and it really started to stink, so I stopped heating it and didn't melt it. I added the sulfur then heated it some more but not enough for it to melt. Then I tried to burn it but it didn't burn very well. I could hear little pops as it burned though, so there is potential. The next batch I didn't finely powder the ingredients. I mixed all three together and melted it but not completely. It sustained combustion but wasn't that good. Then I melted some of it completely, and it turned a dark red color - I think that was the sulfur. The sulfur has a very low ignition point so when I was heating it the sulfur started to burn - not good. I put out the sulfur before it ignited the rest of the mix. Then when it was thoroughly melted I scraped it off and burned some of it - it burned fast, but not as fast as gunpowder. If I actually followed the way your supposed to do it and melt the two oxidizers then add the sulfur then it probably would have been much better. I could also make all of the particles fine in my ball mill before I start. Be careful using sodium carbonate because it will easily contaminate any other color making chemicals you have (I don't have any) to make them burn yellow because sodium is such a potent coloring agent. I guess the main point of this entry is I just wanted to say that sodium carbonate (washing soda) can be used instead of potassium carbonate and it will work, though I haven't compared the two yet. Another experiment I did is melt half and half sulfur and potassium nitrate together. I just melted it until it caught fire. It burned bright white once it got going, like an aluminum composition.

February 10, 2002
     I bought a new lighter a few days ago. It is one of those camping lighters that isn't supposed to blow out and stuff. It is like a little torch. My particular one is made by Solo and only cost me $16.99 (Canadian) plus tax. It comes with a lifetime warranty too. I got mine from some outdoors shop but I had to look around. I made a different kind of star mine and it worked much better. All I did was take one of my nap bomb tubes and put stars mixed with some gunpowder in instead of the naphalene and salt and pepper mix. I might try making potassium carbonate to see if it works any better than sodium carbonate. I could do this by a double displacement reaction. By reacting potassium nitrate and sodium carbonate I could make potassium carbonate. The problem is separating them after. I could do this by fractional re-crystallization. The solubility of sodium nitrate in water at 20 degrees is 87.6 grams in 100 grams of water (!). The solubility of potassium carbonate is about 52.5 grams per 100 grams of water. At 0 degrees the solubility of potassium carbonate is about 51 grams and sodium nitrate is 73.3 grams. If I did the reaction at room temperature then cooled it to freezing it would give very little usable potassium carbonate. It would give more though if I dissolved the chems in boiling water.
potassium carbonate: http://www.albemarle.com/acrofiles/bc2010f.pdf  
sodium nitrate: http://www.basf.com/businesses/chemicals/pdfs/sodtech.pdf

February 23, 2002

Yesterday I made some simple stuff just for a pyro fix. I made some kno3, dextrose mix (65:35 O/F) and put it into a paper tube with clay on the bottom. I couldn't pour it in because it was too thick so instead I waited for it to cool down then made a sausage out of it with my hands and put that into the tube. When it lit, there was a hole in the clay so it skittered around the ground then stopped, it was OK but I could see how this could be a great rocket propellant, if only I had a place to launch rockets. I have noticed that the dextrose mix is somewhat more tame than the sucrose mix . I tried to ball mill it to make it go faster but it didn't work because the centrifical force held it on the outside of the jar - my jar was too small and spinning too fast. I also tried to make some "green" flash - its supposed to burn green but doesn't. The recipe is 1kno3, 1 sulfur, 2 magnesium and 1 boric acid. It does make a nice flash, however and it seems to be hotter than the other stuff (1:1 mg:kno3) because when I put it into some tin foil as a container and lit it, it caught the tin foil on fire and sent white, burning bits around. I tried to make some aluminum powder for fountains and stuff by taking some really cheap, thin tin foil, packing it into a container with the vice then drilling it out with a small drill bit. It worked all right, and it is much easier than sanding it I think. It turns out some coarser stuff than sanding but it could be sorted into fine and coarse if you wanted. Note that this is only useful for stuff like sparks in fountains or stars, not for flash or anything like that. I could also try ball milling it to make it finer, because the big pieces might break up rather easily and its not as messy as ball milling fine aluminum (I might try getting slingshot ammo as metal balls but its probably too much work). I might try to make magnesium shavings this way also. Just a thought: I bet thermite would work great with magnesium instead of aluminum, even if it is coarser.

March 2, 2002

March break just started today so I spent all day and last night making fireworks. I made two starmines shotgun style - stars on top, fuse through the side on the bottom and black powder on the bottom and spread through the stars to give better ignition. I haven't fired them yet but I'll report when I do. The stars I used were "silver shower stars" from the PFP database (I notice it's down now - I hope it comes back up.). I might post the formula later but I'm too lazy now. When they burn on the ground they look really bad - some flame and an orange incandescent mass. I hope they are better in the air. I also made a smoke bomb and a "starmine" with pieces of smoke bomb as the stars. For the starmine thing I put some BP in the bottom of a tube with a fuse hole in it, put some meal powder on that then put chunks of smoke bomb on top of that. The idea was to have the meal powder help light the smoke bomb that would spin around like flying fish fuse once it exited the tube (It's very energetic). The effect was a big firecracker With a deep reverberating boom and some little glowing things coming out with a flash. I think the smoke bomb got jammed in the tube because it's slightly flexible, then the meal powder helped to make a seal with the walls of the tube.
    For the smoke bomb, I did as I had done before and put the chunk of smoke bomb in an aluminum can. The effect is to light the smoke bomb (I dropped in a burning fuse before, this time I put a fuse hole in the aluminum can.) then it burns and sends purple flames out the mouth of the can as the can melts. It's pretty cool. This time, however when I was making it I noticed it was not as brown colored as the other batches I made. I usually just measure by volume because it's easier. The less blond color either means I melted it less than other batches and it had less time to caramelize or  I put in less sugar (sucrose) than usual. I also noticed this stuff was much more crumbly then the other batches I had made, making me unable to make a rocket grain out of it (as I had planned). So I just stuck it into a large glob and did the can thing. When I tested it I noticed it was more energetic  than usual when a chunk came off and rocketed passed me (going up) as it burned (that's where the smoke bomb starmine idea came from.) When I light the final device, there were a few small chunks and one big one. Instead of staying in the can like a good little smoke bomb, it decided to make a whumming sound and fly out of the can like a huge, ground level purple star along with the smaller pieces. It flew right for me and I am glad I was standing far back, otherwise I could be in intense pain. The can wasn't damaged much, just knocked over and the paint was damaged. It was cool but something I don't want to repeat unless I'm standing well back ; ) .
    Other things I did yesterday were make touch paper (remember the paper towels in potassium nitrate solution...), fuse and some experimental charcoal soaked in potassium nitrate solution. The charcoal is supposed to be used in stars for sparks since it burns faster than normal charcoal, but it's not done being made yet. I left it over night and when I came down in the morning, I noticed there were lots of bubbles in the liquid, which is kinda strange. 
    last Friday or Saturday I made some stuff for fun, but it's all old stuff really so I didn't write about it. There was one strange thing though. I made some fuse because I had run out, and needed some for the same day so I used half alcohol and half water to make it dry faster. As it turned out, this made it burn rather quickly and it span around when I tested it (always test each batch of fuse before you use it!). I just though I'd tell youbecause it seems a bit strange to me since I don't know why it happened. It could have been because I didn't add enough dextrin or something too. 
    I've been thinking of making some more zinc stuff for some feeble green colors since I don't have any barium compounds.
    There was a thread on rec.pyrotechnics that was about some scout leader doing a pyro demo for his scout group. He said that a 3/4 " copper pipe filled with shards of PCV (put PVC pipe in sock, hammer it?) made nice blue and green flames for a long time in a camp fire. The copper pipe has to have lots of little holes in it.

March11, 2002
    I didn't do a hole lot today. I made some gunpowder, but I spilled it as it was boiling because I had to hold it with pliers since I couldn't find the C clamps (found them now though). I salvaged some though. I made a dextrose/kno3 "stingeer meesile" (idea from Dan William's Page) but I don't know if it's going to work because the nozzle is slightly off center. The biggest thing I did today was make my first serious roman candle. I first had to roll my own tube for it so that I could make stars that would fit right. I had stars left over from my failed half assed attempt at making a roman candle last time. It's kinda funny, I took the old tube out from last time I tried a candle and found that there were stars still in it, even though the bottom was blown out, and I had lit it like four months ago. Anyways, I got 5 stars out of it and made a tube to fit them. The tube was the hardest part. First I tried to make it out of brown postal paper and not glue it all together to save effort (not spread glue on the hole surface, just the ends and intermediate spots). That didn't work since it was all loose and stuff. I also was having a hard time with telescoping so I made a hole bunch of smaller strips instead of a big one, that way I got a fresh start every once in a while. Then I tried making a tube out of normal white paper by folding it in half widthwise and cutting it into two pieces then rolling them into a tube, with glue spread all over it. I used about 3 and a half pieces of paper. It worked out all right but it was too big in diameter so I glued a smaller white tube into the inside. I basically followed Dan Williams's page. Black powder, star, pass fire black powder, delay mix (54 KNO3, 33 charcoal, 11 sulfur mixed green) then ram the delay mix and repeat. for details, it's better to visit his site. The stars were old ones so I'm not exactly sure what they were but I think they were meal powder and coarse aluminum (two different kinds). I haven't set it off yet.

March13, 2002
    Yeah, the explosives and weapons forum is back up! They are now at www.roguesci.org . I found out from some place (I forget where) that you can get iron filings from places that turn brake drums. I could get some form my fountains at Canadian tire maybe. I also need a good place to get gas line antifreeze.

March17, 2002
    I didn't make much today except for gunpowder and a green flamethrower. The green flamethrower is just methyl alcohol with some boric acid in it in a mini spray bottle. The gunpowder was kinda screwed up. I first ground the charcoal and sulfur together then I ground up the KNO3 because I was thinking then I would mix them together for a shorter period of time to make meal powder. Then I changed my mind and wanted to try the CIA method, cooled down some Isopropenol (99% isopropyl alcohol). Then I thought that was too much work so I changed my mind again. This time I made it the way I normally do but I put the KNO3 into the container first. Big mistake. First put the water in (very little) add KNO3 until it won't dissolve anymore while boiling then keep adding water until all the kno3 dissolved. The mistake I made is put the KNO3 in first, then add water to that and I really underestimated the solubility of KNO3 and I had to boil the extra water out of it for a long time. The problem is, I couldn't just leave it to boil because I don't have a stand to hold it for me and the mixture foams up really easily and could boil over if I wasn't at least watching or stirring. Moral of story: make up your mind how to do it first. Then if you do it my way add the water, add the KNO3 to it first not the other way around.
    I set off the starmines and roman candle. I didn't put nearly enough gunpowder in the roman candle, so the stars came like a foot out, maybe I need faster BP or just more of it. The starmines were both really loud and blew the bottoms out (one a taped on penny -  understandable though it survived last time. The other a clay plug that was too thin I guess). I think I put in too many stars and besides very few of them lit anyways. Not a great success altogether but a good learning experience. Another reason the roman candle's stars could have not gone very far is because I was using a relatively flimsy homemade tube which would absorb the shock, and also the tube was very burned, and the ashes may have slowed down the star. Next time I make tubes I'm going to add some alum as a flame retardant, use a paintbrush to put the glue on and water down the glue (which  I should have done this time). The starmine that worked well before used cut stars that were not very cubical and rather thin. The aluminum star composition was not very good either, it is way over fuelled I think because it basically glows red and looks like a crappy charcoal star. The roman candle stars worked well however though the were short burn time. They were simply meal powder and dextrin and they burned a nice white. For the next roman candle I'm going to make the stars longer and thinner but bigger in general. I could tell no difference between the stars with aluminum in them and the ones without. This could be because the stars were only seen among the large amounts of charcoal sparks given off by the delay comp, not flying through the air. The delay comp worked well, burning with a large flame coming out the end and lots of sparks for a long time.

March18, 2002
    In light of the recent flop concerning the stars I made for the starmines, I thought I would look around for some star formulas using the chemicals I have. I found this one on rec.pyrotechnics and it comes recommended.

"Firefly #1 Source: rec.pyrotechnics archive. Posted by Eric Eisack.
 Comments: 
Preparation: Aluminum is large flake. It was sieved through a windowscreen. This gives about 30 mesh powder. 
((((((((i used skylighter firefly))))))))))))))))))) 
Potassium nitrate.................................50
 Charcoal,air float................................29
 Charcoal, 80 mesh.................................10.5
 Sulfur............................................6 
Aluminum (large flake)............................4.5 
Dextrin or CMC....................................+5 or +1"

here is another similar firefly composition. this one is from skylighter and ships withe their firefly aluminum. Some people prefer to put in finer charcoal because they find the orange sparks distracting. They suggest reversing the airfloat with the 80 mesh.

49 parts KNO3 
29 parts Airfloat charcoal 
11 parts 80# charcoal
 09 parts Sulfur 
05 parts FireFly Al (10-13#)
 Dextrin (amount not given, try 5 parts)

March19, 2002
    I made another attempt at making brown paper tubes. It worked all right but I need practice. Basically I was being lazy before using normal glue and spreading a bead onto the paper. This time I watered it down and added some alum (I won't say how much because I don't know how much glue and water I added or if it was enough alum) to try to retard the burning of the tube. I used a paint a cheap paint brush to spread it on. It was runny so I had some cloths to clean it up with when it spilt on my table, it's water soluble so staining my table isn't a problem. I haven't tested the tube yet. I am hopefully going to pump stars out of it but I will line the inside with tin foil and a thin paper roll. The aluminum foil will keep the paper dry from the water in the star and the paper roll will make the stars smaller diameter so that I can use them in a roman candle in the tube I made today. The gunpowder I tried to redo yesterday was dry today but I didn't add enough KNO3 and it is even slower than before! I'm using this batch as star composition and I will restart with a fresh batch of BP, probably making it on Friday (today is Tuesday).

March 282002
    I was helping my friend choose a knife from a camping store and I found heat packs. I am pretty sure they are hexamine, maybe I will try to make HMTD just for fun. I didn't buy it a the time because I didn't think I wanted to make hmtd and they are closed today, but I will go back tomorrow. I split the diary into a bunch of pages so that it is easier to load.
    I made some stars today out of the gunpowder that I screwed up. I added some more KN03, some dextrin and some coarse charcoal. Then I made it wet and it still has chunkies in it so maybe that will give an interesting effect, like microstars or something. I made some cylindrical stars for a roman candle by rolling a paper tube loosely, then letting it expand to an appropriate size (you know how when you let go of a tube it unwinds, this was a controlled version of that). An "appropriate size" was just something I guessed would be small enough to let the pass fire BP light well and big enough to be shot out of the tube. Anyways, I rolled the loose tube (white paper) and then packed in some wet composition. Then I unrolled the tube and cut the composition into pieces. I had some leftovers so I made some cut stars with them and I will make a starmine out of them. I will set it off tomorrow and report back.
    I might try to make some precipitate method BP tomorrow since I have some isopropanol now. I will just use some meal powder, add some water, boil it then dump it into the alcohol and filter it, let it dry then corn it or corn it before it's dry completely. A potential problem might be drying it since I may have to dry it inside, but I will make a small quantity anyways (5 to 10 grams maybe). For reference, you shouldn't dry it inside because the alcohol fumes are very flammable.
    Tomorrow I may also try dissolving some sugar/kno3 mix instead of melting it. This might work better because after all the potassium nitrate would dissolve as well as the sugar where in the sugar/kno3 mix being melted only the sugar melts (I think). I might also make smaller particles of kno3 or try different ratios of sugar/kno3. I will try to duplicate the time when I made the mix and it self propelled itself out of the aluminum can. Someone on rec.pyrotechnics says to add only a few drops (one or 2) two the dry mix then light it while still wet (?).
    One thing I really want to do tomorrow is make a stand for  my melting container so I don't have to hold it, maybe something that will hold an oil bath. And a holder that will not go over a flame but instead just to hold it normally (as it is, it tips over if not supported).

April 5, 2002

    I tried making some HMTD today but it didn't work. I tried Megalomania's synthesis at http://roguesci.org/megalomania/explo/HMTD.html . I do not know what went wrong exactly but I will detail what I did here and what happened to compare to if I make it work later on. I decided to make half the amount described on Mega's site.
     I measured out 7 grams of Hexamine (this is sold as Esbit solid fuel tablets at camping stores - labeled as containing methenamine). I put the hexamine in a plastic bag and crushed it in a vice to make a coarse powder. Then I measured 12 or 13 grams of citric acid (I'm still using a balance scale and 1ml of water = 1 gram) because I read on The Forum that more acid should be used for making acetone peroxide when the hydrogen peroxide concentration is low, I assumed the same for HMTD. Then I measured out 125 ml of 6% hydrogen peroxide (hair bleach - this will hurt a bit if you get it on you) because Mega recommends 50 ml of 30% H2O2. For 6% multiply by five. You get 250 ml, then I decided to make only half of the amount. I measured with a large syringe (the same I use as for potato guns-  from the hydroponics shop). Then I made a concentrated solution of salt water to make colder than normal ice cubes out of. I put the ingredients in the fridge and the salt water in the freezer of course. The ice is to make an ice bath that is below 0 degrees C so that the mix could be at 0. It turns out the ice was around -3 degrees.
    Then 2 days later (I had been busy doing other stuff) I used a fire extinguisher (it was handy! :-) ) and a pot to crush some of the ice (salt water ice crushes easier than regular ice) to give a better contact with the container  (a Pyrex measuring cup), then I put the ice in a Tupperware container. The ice bath stayed cold all night and some into the next day ( I did this at around 4:00 afternoon) so no problems there. I had gotten a glass stirring rod from my dad and an excellent lab thermometer (thanks dad!). I nestled the measuring cup in the ice bath and poured the hydrogen peroxide in. Then I measured the temperature at around 2 degrees C. I left the thermometer in and added the hexamine kinda slowly, stirring carefully with my rod so as not to hit the thermometer. When it was all in and I think lots of it was dissolved (hard to tell) I added the citric acid slowly. There was no noticeable rise in temperature as I added the acid. I stirred for about seven minutes after all the stuff was added together and noticed no change. There were hexamine crystals floating on top of the mix. I came back three hours later and took the solution out of the bath. It had gone down to around minus 2 C but wasn't frozen or anything. It sat out of the bath in the room for two hours. When I came back nothing had changed except the temperature had gone up to around 13 C. I saw some crystals floating around on top that were there before and I hoped they had changed to HMTD, even though it seemed to be a very small yield. I filtered them, washed them in a baking soda solution then dried it out. I left it on the coffee filter because there was so little. When I came back today I burned the filters and the white powder melts but does not do anything as the filter smolders away. I think the filter might be smoldering instead of burning because of baking soda on it. Normal filters burn like normal paper.
    In retrospect the only thing that I can see I did wrong was too not keep the temperature exactly at 0 and when it was out of the bath the room was kinda cold and the container thick glass so it took a long time to warm up, not reaching normal room temperature. I also did not stir it for a full three hours! If you had a magnet it stirrer you should though. I also washed it in baking soda and not alcohol but people on the forum say to wash it with baking soda to neutralize the acid and make it more stable. Mega also says the purpose of the alcohol is to only let it dry faster. I should also wash the crystals in warm water to get rid of the baking soda. I should also have left the solution overnight instead of filtering and washing it right away, only I wanted to follow directions. When I was washing it I got baking soda solution into the filtered mix, effectively wrecking any chance of the reaction continuing.
    I remember I have read of other people making stuff on Mega's page that does not work and when I tried AP it didn't work, following his synthesis, I did not have a thermometer and did not know the concentration of my acid so it could have been my fault. I also did not keep the AP in the fridge afterwards. Mega has a nice looking page but my experience with it makes me not want to trust any of the synthesis reactions there.
    So my third attempt at a high explosive failed. :-( This is as bad as black powder only I followed directions almost to the T. I have found an entry on The Forum that has measurements in volume (!) and the reaction takes place at room temperature, overnight. I think I will try this as a last ditch effort because I have some chemicals left and  the reaction is easy since it uses volume and room temp. I will report back with what I do later.
    On a side note, when I bought the hexamine a small metal frame came with it to act as a stove, I think I will make this into a holder to work with my alcohol lamp. On an even sider side note I notice that ever since I left my lamp out in the rain it has been really hard to ignite, but I am pretty sure the water is all gone so don't let a lamp like that (or any kind) get wet ( I saw a picture on someone else's web page that uses the same lamp as me!). I don't know why the poor performance. I also found out that methanol is hygroscopic, which could mean it could me getting water in it so it is not my stove that is acting up, instead it is the bottle of fuel I keep opening up every time I want to use the stove. I will only know until I run out of methanol and buy some fresh stuff I guess.
    I tried burning those stars I told you about, made with the ruined black powder but they suck. They burn quickly and spew chunks of charcoal around that stay smoldering for a long time, the star itself leaves lots of ash and smolders for a very long time after burning. They smolder so long they are a fire hazard. I have had enough of this troublesome batch, nothing but trouble since the beginning! I'm burning it on the ground tonight.
    Meanwhile am waiting until it is Queen Victoria's birthday and fireworks are legal! I am going to make a bunch of stuff and some firecrackers to set off in my yard.

April 8, 2002
    I tried the HMTD again and this time it worked! The procedure I followed uses volume measurements so I'm sure I didn't get an efficient yield but it's better than nothing! BTW the full name for HMTD is Hexamethylenetriperoxidediamine Here is what I used:
45 ml of 6% H2O2 (obtained as hair bleach)
2.5 teaspoons of hexamine
4.5 teaspoons of citric acid
    I poured the hydrogen peroxide into a mason jar and measured the temperature at around 11 degrees (none of the ingredients were pre cooled and no ice bath yet). I added the hexamine into the mix in small portions. I noticed the temperature was going up to around 13 degrees so I went and got some snow to put it in. I continued adding the hexamine and the temperature dropped to about 9 degrees. Then I took the mix out of the snow and started adding the citric acid and noticed no rise in temperature. I stirred it a lot to make sure as much as possible was dissolved. Not all the hexamine dissolved, nor did the citric acid. I put the jar lid on and left it in a safe place for around 48 hours. When I came back I saw that there was a thick foamy layer on top. I filtered it and then washed it in baking soda solution. Then I washed it in tap water (I don't have any distilled water currently). I saved the un-reacted mix to see if anything more would develop, I'm still waiting on it, a very little bit more hmtd has formed. I set the filters out to dry (I had used two). When I burned the toilet paper that I had used to clean up throughout the filtering, it crackled quietly. I also burned the filters after scraping the stuff off, they crackled quietly. The yield was only a few grams, maybe a teaspoon. My dad says that it should be more so this is probably far away from an ideal reaction. When the stuff was dry I put a tiny pile of powder on some touch paper and light it, unconfined. It goes off with "whump"  and a little orange cloud right above the pile. I also tried putting some on an anvil and hitting it with a hammer. With a moderate blow it made a little ping sound, which was hard to tell apart from the hammer sound but definitely there. Some smoke shoots out to the side and you can smell the products afterwards. We interrupt this entry for an important message.

NOTE: HMTD is catalyzed with copper. This means that it is much more sensitive and may spontaneously detonate on contact with copper. This includes brass bullet cartridges. If you make detonators DO NOT use anything made of metal. At The Forum there is some information on caseless detonators that have better performance anyways since they have good contact with the secondary. I'm pretty sure that HMTD will corrode even things that are not copper. DO NOT store it in any metal container, and DO store in under a liquid (currently I am storing it under methyl alcohol so that it will be faster to dry then water when I want it). HMTD is probably the most dangerous thing in my diary that I have talked about so far with the exception of AP, but that didn't work. Be very careful.

    I intend to set it off in the open, in a long line to show my friends and not make any noise. On a last, negative note, http://yarchive.net/explosives/hmtd.html has a story about the dangers of HMTD. April 11, 2002
    With spring coming, I'm starting to get the spudding urge again. I'm going to re-fit and upgrade my friends guns. I'm going to try mixing some dextrin with HMTD to make a paste that I can put on some paper to make popper things.

April 12, 2002
    I set off the HMTD, a nap bomb and a flash thing yesterday. The flash thing was just a bunch of flash powder in a tin foil package, with a fuse. It was nice but predictable with a bright flash and pieces of flying, burning aluminum foil. The HMTD was set on a piece of paper with a slow, touch fuse in it. When I was lighting the touch fuse, a spark from my lighter must have touched the HMTD because there was a blinding orange flash and my hand got toasted just a bit. My hand was about 7 centimeters away from the explosive. I would definitely consider that an accident has happened here. In future I will use my piezo electric ignited lighter or point the lighter so that no sparks can touch the thing to be set off. The nap bomb was the biggest yet but it didn't go off properly. I think it was too long and skinny, with not enough room in between the top of the tube and the top of the napthalene. I packed the nap in some when I made it too. It was nice and quiet but there was just a pop then some orange jet coming out of the top. I guess the naphalene didn't ignite. It may also have been because it was too windy, the nap blew away before it lighted. I don't know but I think I might start experimenting with larger nap bombs now that I have cleaned up my working habits and won't spill the nap everywhere.
    I fixed up spudguns yesterday also. I found that around 35 cc to 60 cc of propane is the combustion range for my small gun. obviously it goes slowly at 60 cc. I installed a good sparker and cleaned on one of my friends guns. I found that a few layers of electrical tape on any exposed electrical parts protects against being shocked by the sparker.

April 17, 2002

I just read for the third of fourth time about h202 being available from the hydroponics store so I decided to mention it here. Apparently there is 50% available for around $50 for 2 litres. That sounds like a lot but if you think about I think it's cheaper than equivalent 6% (isn't it?). The danger is getting it on your skin. Fortunately it is volatile so it will evaporate if you spill any, unlike sulfuric acid. I read about a really cool machine for making metal powders. I think I might make one and run it off my ball mill.

I also read on the forum that esbit fuel tablets have wax in them that may have effected mega's synthesis. In is rather easy to remove, perhaps I will try it next time.

I wrote this to the forum asking about my failed Megalomania synthesis. But in the last paragraph I kinda answered my own question I think. I just couldn't bear to delete it, it took me so long!

"The following is a dream

I tried making hmtd about a two weeks ago by Megalomania's synthesis and failed. I was wondering why it didn't work, maybe someone could suggest something?. I made half of the amount on Mega's page. A Long winded, detailed description of what I did follows...(written the day after so it should be accurate in that regard):

I measured out 7 grams of Hexamine (esbit tablets). I put the hexamine in a plastic bag and crushed it in a vice to make a coarse powder so it would dissolve faster. Then I measured 13 grams of citric acid. This is slighly more than called for because I read on The Forum that more acid should be used for making acetone peroxide when the hydrogen peroxide concentration is low, I assumed the same for HMTD. Then I measured out 125 ml of 6% hydrogen peroxide because Mega recommends 50 ml of 30% H2O2. I measured with a large syringe. Then I made a concentrated solution of salt water to make salt-ice cubes out of for my ice bath. I put all the ingredients in the fridge and the salt water in the freezer of course. It turns out the ice bath was around -3 degrees.

Then 2 days later I used a fire extinguisher (it was handy! :) ) and a pot to crush some of the ice (salt water ice crushes easier than regular ice) to give a better contact with the container (a Pyrex measuring cup), then I put the ice in a Tupperware container. I used all clean glass ware in the reaction vessel so there were no contaminants from that area. I nestled the measuring cup in the ice bath and poured the hydrogen peroxide in. Then I measured the temperature at around 2 degrees C. I left the thermometer in and added the hexamine kinda slowly, stirring carefully with my rod so as not to hit the thermometer. When it was all in and I think most of it was dissolved (hard to tell). I added the citric acid slowly. There was no noticeable rise in temperature as I added the acid. I stirred for about seven minutes after all the stuff was added together and noticed no change. There were white crystals floating on top of the mix that I assume were non- dissolved hexamine. I came back three hours later and took the solution out of the bath. It had gone down to around minus 2 C but wasn't frozen or anything. It sat out of the bath in the room for two hours. When I came back nothing had changed except the temperature had gone up to around 13 C. The tiny amount of white crystals were still on top. I filtered them, washed them in a baking soda solution then dried them out. I left them on the coffee filter because there was so little. When I came back today I burned the filters and the white powder melts but does not do anything as the filter smolders away (it does not burn like a normal coffee filter). I think the filter might be smoldering instead of burning because of baking soda on it.

I later tried a procedure detailed by somone who posted about their first batch of HMTD and said it worked. I got some HMTD but unfortunately the procedure used volume measurement so I was hoping I could get Mega's synthesis to work.

The original log of what I did is available under "april 5" on hpp://pyropage.50megs.com but I edited it because it was hard to understand.

Did I just not leave the mixture long enough as I was using 6% instead of 30% h202?"

So, anyways, I think I just didn't leave it long enough. You would think it would be obvious, since I am using such a low concentration of H2O2. Hairyjoe on the forum made AP and did the same thing. He followed the instructions in terms of time for 30% h2o2. It was obvious to me that was his problem but I don't know why I didn't think of that for myself! I also wanted to write down, before I forget, that I read somewhere that electrical supply houses sell tubes of plastic that shrink with heat, for coating connections. This would be very useful for fuse.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=CHRIS.94Apr18170024%40bert.cs.byu.edu&rnum=1

http://www.roguesci.org/cgi-bin/ewforum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=001249

I found a hint on the forum for fuse ( by Kettch42mk.2, hope he doesn't mind) :

"In the dark days before I had a scale, I used quite a bit of this stuff, as it was a lot easier to get the correct ratio by volume than with proper black powder. Though I'm sure it varied from batch to batch, the proportion of ingredients was probably something like 40% Sugar, 10% Sulfur, and 50% KNO3. In my experience, it burns too slowly to explode with much reliability unless you use a lot (200+ grams) in very strong confinement. It makes a decent fuel for core-burning rockets (press it soaked with acetone).

The most useful application I've found for it is in improvised fuses. Take a piece of fine steel wool (xx or finer) and burn it. Roll it in the powder several times, twisting it tight as you roll. Then dip it in NC lacquer, and let it dry. It takes a little practice to get the amount and shape of the steel wool right, but if you're out of visco, it makes a fair substitute."

I should get myself some NC laquer

April 23, 2002

I tried making precipitate black powder a few days ago and it worked well and was much easier/reliable than my old method. With my old method I had to boil so that it was a thick paste before pressing, otherwise too much potassium nitrate would run out while pressing. This was tedious. I went to the store and bought some isopropanol. I don't know why I didn't try this way sooner, I guess I was disillusioned by the many methods (that don't work) in the Anarchist cookbook. I ball mill the fuels beforehand then dissolve the potassium nitrate in boiling water and add the fuels, then dump that into cold isopropanol (like rubbing alcohol but 99% instead of 70%, easily available at the pharmacy.) Then filter it out with coffee filters and I spread it out on a screen (pushed it into the screen so that it sticks to it in a thin layer) so that when it is dry I can take it off the screen by scraping it with a spoon. Then I get nice granules (well, mostly fine powder but oh well). It dries faster than in a big lump and I can't granulate it before it dries because it sticks together too much. If you had coarse fuel particles I think you would be able to corn it before it is dry. I don't like to corn it after it is dry because I'm afraid crushing it will make it into the individual seperate components again. I made some firecrackers with this stuff and it works very well.

In conclusion, don't bother making it my old way, make it by the precipitate method. Also in conclusion, I'm an idiot for not getting off my ass and trying this method sooner, its also safer than the ball mill method because you don't have to mix all the ingredients at once in the mill.

I tried to make time fuse by making a small paper tube and packing delay composition in it and it worked OK. I think I will have to use this if I decide to make an arial salute.

I had excellent success with black powder rockets. I tried an end burner but it was too slow so I put a core in it and Zoom..... I just took some black powder, packed it into at tube with a clay end plug, and slowly drilled a core in the fuel. I first tried it without a stick attached (out of a tube) and it worked fine but of course it spiraled all over. Then I attached a stick and it worked fine. I might add a salute at the end of one or something. I think the problem before was that I a) didn't use real bp because I thought it would explode b) thought it would explode because it would - I had always used nozzles.

April 30, 2002

I made some stars for a starmine with the treated charcoal I made a while ago. I haven't tested the stars since they're not dry yet. I'll report when they are tested. I basically took some meal powder and added charcoal, treated charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate. Sorry I don't have the proportions but every time I try to make stars from a formula they suck, especially the last batch I made with an aluminum flitter formula.

This time when I make the starmine I'm going to pack tissue paper in the end so that the fire has enough time to ignite all the stars, that's the recommendedway to do it according to Wouter Visser's page (practical pyrotechnics) . I'm going to try to make some starmines with fuses too, the fuse as the stars because I noticed the fuse tends to move some when it's lit on the ground (especially the fast stuff). Maybe it will fly around in the air like a go getter. I also need to make some fine charcoal for adding to compositions and to try to slow down my black match.

I made some more BP precipitate method, this time instead of spreading it out on newspaper I pressed it into the screen, and when it was dry I cracked it off and it came off in granules the same size as the screen holes were. I got lots of fine powder too, but it burns fine.

I rolled some rocket tubes around 1 cm in diameter to make some more skyrockets. I'm experimenting with different sized tubes. I'm going to try to put a salute in the end of a rocket too. The tricky part is putting the black powder in the end but not compacting it since then it would burn slowly. I am going to try this: take the tube, pack the BP in, then leave space in the top. Pack in a clay plug then drill a hole in the plug. Pack delay composition in the hole. The put black powder on top. Then seal the top with a plug of wood or a piece of paper folded over in a special way. The way the paper is folded isn't that special but I'm too lazy to draw or try to describe it. If you can't figure it out then just use wood (or don't make fireworks at all!), or maybe I will post what I'm talking about later on. Finally, drill the core in the rocket, being careful not to drill into the clay (use a depth stop). I made different size tubes to try, so with the bigger ones I might try a nozzle with a really big hole in it so that it doesn't over pressurize. I might give it some more wraps with paper just in case.

Sometime I hope to try a roman candle again, maybe one with commercial BP and one with CIA BP.

May 5, 2002

I made some stars today, to try for a roman candle. I figured out a good way to make stars that are the right diameter too. Here is the formula for the composition that I used:

White comet #1
Source: rec.pyrotechnics
Comments:
Preparation:

Potassium nitrate.................................96
Fine charcoal.....................................44
Sulfur............................................15
Dextrin...........................................10

To make the tube to press the stars out of, I rolled a piece of paper around a small dowel. Then I put the paper in the tube to be used as the candle while it was still rolled up. Then I let it expand to fill the tube. Then take the paper tube out and tape it so that it does not unravel with electrical tape (because it comes off easily). Then you can put in the damp composition into the tube, pack it down and then unroll the paper tube to get a roll of composition. Carefully cut the roll into stars by rolling a knife edge over where you want to cut them. This way the stars will be smaller in diameter than the candle tube by the thickness of the paper tube you used to put the composition in. If you want to make them smaller then don't let the paper tube expand the whole way. I also found that you can press a roll of star composition out of a funnel. Put the damp composition in, pack it down then push it through the funnel hole. The composition should be more damp for this method.

I had some leftover composition so I made some cut stars. I saved some to use as delay composition. Maybe I will make a comet out of it or something instead. Perhaps a big star to throw in a camp fire. Sometimes when my friends go on camping trips they ask me to give them some fireworks, a comet would be a good thing to throw in a fire. Maybe just packets of composition would be good too.

I made a rocket I was talking about in the last entry. I put a nozzle in with an extra large hole in it. I followed the procedure described above. The only real problem I had was with getting the fuse to stay in well. I just don't have any good tape to stick it on with.

I also spotted another composition that I might use in future since I can get all the ingredients and it comes from the legendary (mythical?) Tom Perigrin:

White flitter star
Source: Tom''s Perigrin's homepage. Composition from Weingart[5].
Comments:
Preparation:

Potassium nitrate.................................17
Sulfur............................................3
Charcoal..........................................3
Aluminum, course..................................4
Aluminum flake, fine..............................10
Dextrin...........................................1

I could also try the firefly stars "firefly #3" with makeshift firefly aluminum

Reminder to myself: I gave away the copper pipe and PVC thing so I'm going to make another.

May 6, 2002

I was on the forum and saw a thread about zinc powder and copper powder: http://www.roguesci.org/cgi-bin/ewforum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=001281 I might try it but it would probably be better to make a powder mill instead, since then I can make aluminum powder too.

I also just though of something: It would probably be easy to make copper chloride from copper and hydrochloric acid. I must try this. On the other hand, I would have to try to find a formula to make blue stars with the ingredients I have.

May 13, 2002

I found out that HCl (hydrochloric acid) is available as a toilet bowl cleaner, from any hardware store.

I was thinking about rockets and roman candles. I'm almost sure I know the reason that my candles were throwing the stars so low. It's another one of those "duh" things. The gunpowder gets compacted when I'm ramming the delay composition, so it doesn't burn fast enough to push out the star. I thought of two solutions : use flash powder as lift (my magnesium flash is very slow) or instead of ramming the delay composition, just gently tamp it in place. In theory there is another solution: make good black powder, with a press! This is more work than the others of course, but it's not too big of a deal. I already have a jack and stuff, mostly I need some I beams to form the frame of the jack.

May 20, 2002

Today was Victoria day, so I made a whole bunch of stuff.

10 firecrackers - 1 commercial gunpowder one and one flash one. These firecrackers were described in earlier entries. They leave smoldering paper, so they are not acceptable where fire is a concern. The commercial one was not noticeably different from the other BP ones. These were nice - not too loud and they threw orange sparks way out. One had my slow magnesium flash in it, it made a lower boom and a nice bright flash.

2 roman candles. These worked but not incredibly well. They were small - 3 shots each. The first shot didn't go very far and the other two went right after one another, they worked though. Instead of pounding in the delay composition, I just tamped it in. I also put some slow flash on the top, so it was bright white before it started.

2 starmines. These worked nicely. One was made with thrown together stars and some white comets, and the other with just white comets. The one with all white comets was the best. It also was plugged with two layers of cereal box cardboard on top. They both used cut stars.

5 skyrockets. These didn't have long enough sticks, except for one. But they worked nicely anyways, they just went in an arc and went down near the end. They went relatively straight at takeoff though, enough so as not to hit the audience. The way to tell if the stick is long enough is to balance the rocket at the spot where the stick and the rocket nozzle meet. I was just too lazy to add a longer stick to the rocket, since I had already cut stics.. I had one CATO. It was supposed to blow up at the end of its flight, but it set off the flash at the beginning instead ;- ) . I think I might have drilled the core too long. Or maybe I made the nozzle (one or two had nozzles) too constrictive or something, and that's why it blew up. These didn't have a lot of thrust, so payload is limited. They all burned out before hitting the ground. There was one weird one where it looked like it blew up at the end but it didn't make any noise.

1 stinger missile. This was excellent, but I didn't have a launcher for it because it got broken on the way over. Instead, I just set it on the ground and lit it. It went at an angle but very straight once it got going. It went really far. I basically followed the instructions on Dan what's his name's page. Except that I didn't do any measurements. Sorry. I used 3/2 O/F mix for the fuel. I ball milled it in a container that had gunpowder residue left in it. The sulfur apparently helps it burn fast. I must make more of these. It was a rather large rocket, the tube was about 3/4 or 1 inch outside diameter, and about 3 inches long.

1 smoke bomb. This was originally why I made the mix for the stinger missile. It was intended to be smoke bomb mix. Then when I tested it, I found it had more potential, and didn't want to waste it on one smoke bomb. So I made a rocket, which then turned into a stinger by drilling a hole in the side and sticking the fuse in there. It's a good thing I made that stinger because the smoke bomb wasn't so good. It actually propelled itself around quite a bit. It didn't give off much smoke. I think if it's melted it gives off much more smoke.

2 single shot star things. One of these just went off with a bang, I don't know what happened to it because I didn't see a star come out. The other was really meant to be a mine type thing with fuses as the stars. I noticed only a few glimpses of fuse flying out, they were totally eclipsed by the one star I put in there. Fuse is better used for lighting things.

1 "Jake". This wasn't really a true Jake. The origins of this are from one time when some guy came over to my house. I let him take some of nearly all the chemicals in my shop and mix them all together. The he put it in an aluminum can and poured lighter fluid on it. It actually burned rather well. His name was Jake. The reason this wasn't a true Jake is because it was just black powder based scraps of leftovers from my shop. It was put into a toilet paper tube and lit. It went off with a big white flash and little flying things everywhere.

The stars for all the devices (all that used stars) were nice - I used the White comet #1. They were described earlier. I think I might try making some rolled stars with flash as a core. I might try to make an aerial salute too. Out of the excellent success today, I think the good starmine and the stinger missile were the best.

May 27, 2002

Yesterday I got some 31% HCl from Home Hardware yesterday, but I haven't got around to making zinc powder yet. I am not yet clear on how to get rid of the HCl from the zinc chloride.

I was reading on the forum about some guy who added olive oil to smoke bomb mix and it burned red. I noticed on cooking shows sometimes people use a burning something that goes red or violet. I think I will try it, it's easy enough at least.

I would also like making ammonium chloride to add to smoke compositions (lots more smoke).

May 29, 2002

I made some zinc chloride, with pennies - I had to get rid of the copper coating on them with a belt sander/filing. I added pennies to Hcl until it stopped fizzing at all. Then I took out the pennies and the black stuff that formed. Then I boiled the acid out and isolated the zinc chloride. Then I added water (on second thought, if I didn't evaporate all the water in the first place I could skip this step.) To redissolve the zinc chloride. Then I added aluminum and heated the mix to speed up the reaction. Then when no more aluminum would react, I filtered it. This process is messy but it was the first time I tried it, so next time should be much better. I got a reasonable amount of product, but it isn't as fine as I thought it would be.

I mixed ammonium nitrate with hydrochloric acid to make ammonium chloride. When I added the fertilizer, it just sat on the bottom, so I heated it up a little and it dissolved quickly. It turned the solution yellowish and started to bubble a colorless gas. The strange thing is that after I cooled off the test tube it heated up again - the bubbling reaction is self sustaining and exothermic. I wonder what the gas is that is coming off, I suppose it's hydrogen but I don't see why. After a short while crystals started to form. These crystals floated on the liquid while the ammonium nitrate had sunk. I hope the precipitate is ammonium chloride (what else could it be?) I need a way to test if it is.

I tried to make copper chloride by using hydrochloric acid, copper metal and some h2o2 catalyst. It didn't work so well. The copper didn't dissolve much, though I didn't wait very long. Then I poured it into water, and the copper chloride (I read) is supposed to fall out because it isn't very soluble in water. I may have to make copper carbonate, or use copper sulphate to make an intermediate salt some way in order to make copper chloride.

Note: copper(I) chloride is not hygroscopic, but copper (II) chloride is. I don't really care which one I get (I think) because I don't have the chemicals necessary to make blue stars anyways. I'm just going to add it to a fire, so it makes no difference if it is hygroscopic or not. If I can find out a way to make copper oxide, that would be good too, since I can use it in thermite/flash.

One thing that I thought of making is sticky match. It's function is like quick match because it burns fast. It is two layers of thin, clear tape with bp in between. With it I could set off a bunch of fireworks all at once.

I got my Roburn torch to work again. The spark still works but didn't light it because it sparks in the wrong spot. What I have to do is hold it up against a flat surface, turn it on then spark it. That way the gasses flow around and reach the spark. I also had to close the air intake because it made the gas come out too fast and it blew itself out.

June 9, 2002

I made some rocket fuel from the "five cent sugar rocket" page. It is basically smoke bomb mix with sulfur. I thought the sulfur would make it faster but it actually makes it slower. It may increase the gas output though, and the mixture burns more cleanly than smoke bomb, though I measure smoke bomb by volume so that may be why. I made a rocket with it and it goes well. I tried to make a stinger missile but it was too long I think and the fuel didn't burn fast enough either that or it was stuck in the launch tube. I ball milled the mix but it was really hard because it kept sticking to the side of the mill jar, which prevents it from milling. I eventually got a big ice cream container and rigged that up as a mill jar. One thing I noticed about these rockets is that they need more time to speed up, so they have to be supported in the beginning. I put a skyrocket leaning against a rock but it didn't go up, it went off at a low angle. Maybe I could try putting black powder in the core to ignite the core and give some thrust just to get it off the ground.

Today I made some darts for my potato gun. The design that was the best was simple too. It is a dowel that just fits into the barrel. I didn't have a dowel that fit so I used a small plane to make it a smaller diameter. I cut a short length off the dowel and drilled a hole through the center. Then I countersunk one end to put the screw in. I took a length of neon orange trail marking tape and rolled the end up around three times to make it strong. I stuck a screw through the tripled over end of the tape and then screwed the screw in through the piece of wood. Here is a diagram of the dart:

June 10, 2002

Today I found some fibrous, papery tape stuff, so I tried making some rocket casings with it. They aren't very stiff casings but I'll see how they hold up. I also made some rocket casings with the postal paper I bought. It takes about six feet for a stinger rocket casing, so it would be nice if I could get some thicker paper and I would have to do less rolling. I'll put down my tube rolling technique here, it takes a long time but it works well :

First, take your roll of paper and cut a strip off of it, I made tubes 2 ½" long so I made a 2 ½" wide strip. To cut it I took a sharp knife and two boards with un-rounded edges and put the paper between them, the boards are somewhat offset so that the bottom one supports the strip of paper to be cut off. One board acts as a straight edge and the other as a cutting board. Cut the strip off with a knife. Then I cut the 3 foot strip into three smaller lengths. This is because if you had it in one big length, it would telescope too much while rolling and because the glue might have time to soak into the paper and wrinkle it before it got rolled. You could try it in one big piece and whenever it starts to telescope just cut it off and start again. Anyways, when starting a tube wrap the paper around only once, so that one layer of glue free paper is touching the rod you are rolling the paper around. Then apply a thinned out (with water of course) white glue paste with alum added (fire retardant) with a paint brush, in an even layer on the paper. Then hold a square (The square should have one flat arm that you can but up against the dowel) up against the rod and paper to make sure that they are as square as possible. Then adjust as necessary and roll the paper tightly. When you are done rolling that strip, put glue all of the second strip, roll about half a turn onto the present tube and measure with the square again. Once the second piece of paper is square, roll it up and repeat until desired thickness is achieved.

Do not use the same rod for rolling as you plan to use for ramming. The tubes will probably fit too tightly to easily ram (or press) compostion. Wrap some not so sticky tape or some paper around the rod and tape it to make it loose enough, then remove the tape or paper from the rod when ramming. Don't just role the tube loosely around the dowel, it will probably make the tube crappy (the paper might not stick together tightly).

June 13, 2002

The PGI convention is coming up in August (the third) and I just joined the PGI, so I'm going to order some chemicals from Skylighter. I already wrote a list of chemicals to get from Firefox, but I had troubles with them accepting *my* drivers license and gave up. I might order some things from skylighter but Custom Pyro ( www.custompyro.com ) has much better prices and they don't seem as paranoid about people making M-80s. Just for the record, I wouldn't make an M-80, after all I live in the city and they are much too loud. I saw and advertisement in the PGI bulletin about a company selling -325 mesh magnalium and indian blackhead at cheap prices. You must order a minimum of #5 though, so I think I'll buy #5 of magnalium. It is about half the price of Skylighter, and they don't need any ID, just a hold harmless agreement. I don't want to order energetic fuels and strong oxidizers at once the first time I order from Skylighter.

Here's the plan: buy everything that is expensive to ship or impossible (magnesium) from skylighter, and all the stuff that is cheap. Order perchlorates from custom pyro Beforehand so that I know they will ship to Canada and all. I don't want to get stuck not having ordered stuff from skylighter, firefox not accepting the ID and custom pyro not shipping to Canada! Iowa pyro supply will also ship free to the PGI convention, so I have to get in with them too.

potassium perchlorate Stock #C172HP
2 micron magesium from skylighter, magnalium from the other place
- DW is the best currently able to ship barium nitrate - poisonous Stock #C120=

titanium - maybe, its very expensive

copper chloride

dessicant
strontium nitrate Stock #C194 hygroscopic.
dextrin Stock #C146
parlon
copper chloride
pcv- Stock #C166
strontium carbonate Stock #C192
ammonium perchlorate Stock #C109
copper oxide Stock #C136
antimony trisulfide -expensive. Toxic?
red gum Stock #C176 - pricy
powdered shellac Stock #C178
Barium carbonate - poisonous
copper carbonate
hexamine
lampblack
zinc dust
charcoal, air float
copper sulfide
potassium benzoate - Stock #C167
clay got some already

June 26, 2002

Some things I want to try are making some rocket tooling, with just a short dowel sticking up from a platform of wood. Then I would have something to center the rocket body over the dowel, or nail. The main purpose is so that I don't have to drill a core hole in the nozzle because the nozzles tend to fall apart when I do that. The dowel will only stick up less that the thickness of the nozzle because I can't make a dowel with a hole dead center in it.

I also want to try sulfurless bp because it wouldn't give off so2 when it burns and people (mr. Evil) says that it burns faster. I can believe this because when I tried the sugar rockets with sulfur in them it made the burn rate go way down.

Apparently someone named Tania sells a bunch of oxidizers to Canadians. They are based in Quebec. It seems a bit expensive but if I can't get it from anywhere else then I could try her. She sells stuff on ebay.

June 28, 2002

These last few days have been excellent in terms of pyro. I got a digital scale accurate to one gram and up to 2 kilos. I got brake turnings and I also got a big steel workbench. I also got some glassware. The big steel workbench is from JDS uniphase because they are closing many of their buildings and simply throwing out all kinds of stuff in the building. I got free fiber optic cable in the original packaging, hundreds of dollars worth of anti static mat, 2 kilo and 5 kilo weights, duct tape, scotch tape, scissors, dowel, two ethernet cables, power cables, a garbage can, highlighters and circuit boards that I don't know what they are for. So much free good stuff! There were lots of expensive tables and chairs too, plywood boxes, stepstools but I didn't take them because I only have so much room at home, plus some of it was buried rather well in the dumpster. Anyways, the brake turnings were from a brake place of course, most automotive shops will give them away for free if you are a customer there. The turnings were screened through a window screen to get rid of the really big stuff. They are iron pieces so they will make good fountain sparks.

Here is one iron composition that looks good

Fountain #3
Source: rec.pyrotechnics. Posted by Tom Perigrin <tip@lead.aichem.arizona.edu
Comments:
Preparation: Charcoal, sulfur and potassium nitrate are ball milled and very fine. Iron is medium coarse. After mixing (by diaper method), add an equal weight of course meal powder (about 1Fg to 2Fg equivalent), and mix that in too.

Potassium nitrate.................................50
Charcoal..........................................10
Sulfur............................................15
Iron..............................................25

There are many others that are similar. Here is one

Fountain #5
Source: Homepage of Tom Peregrin <tip@lead.aichem.arizona.edu
Comments:
Preparation:

Potassium nitrate.................................24
Charcoal..........................................4
Sulfur............................................4
Iron..............................................10

July 4, 2002

I used fountain #5 and it works very well. I made the mistake of not drilling the core through the hole grain, so the end was a very slow burn, but the starting gave lots of sparks. It's easy to make fountains much bigger and more impressive than the ones you buy in the store. On July 1 I also set off some mines and rockets. The skyrockets didn't go straight up, probably because of the slow startup. I could try filling the core with bp to make the core ignite fast. One of the stingers worked well but the other design had too large of a nozzle and didn't have enough thrust, so it span around on the ground. The mines worked very well. Probably the best was a one inch diameter tube about 8 inches long with bp lift on the bottom, bottom fused and the end blocked with two layers of cereal cardboard glued on. The other end blocked of course by clay. I used white comets in them, I used pumped and cut stars. I made some pumped silver shower stars and they work really well but when I tried to use one as a comet it fell apart when it was being lifted by the bp charge. One of the mines failed because the bottom blew out since I taped the top up too much. Another mine blew the stars into the air and blew the wooden cap out the bottom, sending the tube into the air.

I made some of my own charcoal, and took pictures of the paint can in the fire. I made two batches of willow, one batch of alder and one of pine. For willow, first I collected the wood, then debarked it. It was green wood so the debarking was easy as the bark just peeled off. Its easiest to throw away the pieces smaller than about 5 mm diameter because they are too hard to debark and not worth the effort. I then cut the wood with clippers into pieces roughly the length that would fit in the paint can lengthwise. Then I put all the wood in the can and packed the lid on tight. I found a hole of about 1 cm in diameter in the lid of the paint can was about right to let the gasses out. If you put a small hole the blow torch effect can be kinda cool but it may pop the lid off. Then I started up the fire and used a stick to place the paint can on the fire. Since the wood in the can was green, for the first little while only steam came off. Then after about 15 or 20 minutes the flammable gasses started coming off. Once the flame got around one or two centimeters in height I took the can off the fire and set it lid down in the dirt to cool off.

When I made the alder the bark was much harder to get off than willow, even though it was still wet. I had to take it off with a knife because the bark was not flexible enough to peel off like willow. When I was making the pine I used dry wood so I didn't bother to take the bark off because it would have been very hard and I would've gotten sap all over my hands.

I made some black powder with the willow charcoal and it makes good powder but its hard to compare it because I do not have very consistent bp manufacturing practices. I noticed that the powder is quite a bit blacker than the black powder made with bought charcoal. When I was crushing the charcoal up in a pot by ramming it with a big wooden dowel, it was much easier than trying to crush the commercial charcoal. I ground up some pine charcoal but haven't used it yet. I haven't done anything with the alder charcoal. I would like to do a controlled test between willow, alder, maybe pine and bought charcoal one day. Maybe if I ever decide to use the mill process of bp manufacture (I don't like doing that because I don't have an isolated place to run my mill).