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#31 FrankRizzo

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Posted 27 August 2007 - 11:31 PM

The genius of this guy's videos is that he mixes in just enough real science that he pulls in the "I want to believe" crowd. The fact of the matter is that people are still entertained.

#32 MDH

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Posted 03 September 2007 - 02:01 AM

If this is faked, I'd freaking love to know what software he used to do it.

He must have spent a damn long time on it (IE a month) to do something like this.

#33 Creepin_pyro

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Posted 03 September 2007 - 11:30 AM

I think the idea is that the procedure is fake, not necessarily the device itself!

#34 spectrum

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Posted 03 September 2007 - 08:55 PM

We have been making smokes at our factory for some time now and as such I would offer a professional opinion.

The film is not neccesarily a fake although there are one or two anomalies.

Commercial coloured smoke formulations do not employ Potassium Nitrate as a fuel, mixtures containing this oxidising agent generally burn too hot to work effectively, most dyes are thermally unstable and at elevated temperatures the smoke would bleach out and appear off-white. The skill (or luck) in this case is in identifying a dye which is not unstable, curiously oranges are usually the best where this characteristic is concerned along with Yellows, Blues are also good but Reds are always difficult to work with.

I would have to say that the dye didn't appear particularly strong in pigment terms, we use dyes and the colour gets absolutely everywhere, smoke production in our factory is no-where near as hygenic and pleasant as this chap makes it look, it is a messy, horrible way to earn a living - I am able to say this having produced over a million smokes over the past ten years. I have encountered just about every production process associated with coloured smoke manufacture, the only cast smokes I have ever seen employ special resin systems, these allow the manipulation of the composition into intricate shapes and also make for a cleaner workplace.

The base burn mixture in any coloured smoke composition is essentially low energy and has a low ignition temperature. To demonstrate a manufacturing process which involves a gas ring is utter madness and I would everyone watching this to disregard the demo as a dangerous gimmick, you could just as easy be watching footage of a burning kitchen and, if this were to be attempted on a regular basis, I am certain that this would be the inevitable outcome.

As many of you know already, the oxidising agent for this job is a Chlorate, check out the EIDAS forum and count the number of accidents involving Chlorates and Sugar over the years - the effects are breathtakingly awful as well. I know this puts me across as a fuddy-duddy but please take my advice and ignore this one chaps.

#35 marble

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Posted 04 September 2007 - 04:06 AM

Any chance of selling us some dye?

skylighter sell the dyes mixed with all the other things (minus the chlorate) but i would have to sell my first born just to pay the shipping.

#36 Asteroid

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Posted 05 September 2007 - 07:34 PM

Commercial coloured smoke formulations do not employ Potassium Nitrate as a fuel

Neither does any other smoke mix I know of :P.
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#37 paul

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Posted 27 October 2007 - 12:04 PM

Sorry to get your hopes up guys, I'm afraid it's a fake. I tested a few variations and frankly they were all awful. Even worse than standard KNSU. The bicard did its job and lowed the reaction several times, as well as making it harder to light, but it just produced the same amount of smoke in triple the time, a fairly pathetic thin cloud. I will collaborate the videos I got to show you the difference.

Heres the video. It isn't very good, but you get the idea http://uk.youtube.co...ITD8c-H6c&eurl=


A comment under your video mentions the Dye, the "fake"-video makers use... Keystone Smoke Dyes. Google for it.

This seems not to be the sollution anyway, as the videos says you can get it in hobby stores...

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#38 Asteroid

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Posted 27 October 2007 - 09:22 PM

Yeah I just realied, I posted it in another thread. They sell to individuals, and certaily with Kclo3 it works well

#39 GZ22

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Posted 28 October 2007 - 02:29 AM

The only dye I have heard of in hobby shops is found in the candle making section, and I'm not sure of it's origin as I've never used it myself, only heard about it. I have researched a lot into this guy's claims, and I too say that he is a complete fake! He has good reason to lie - according to Metacafe he's made just under $24,000 dollars from the revenue on his videos, almost $2,000 on the 'ultimate smoke' video alone! He's based in the UK by the way, there are lots of things in his videos that give that fact away. In one of his other videos he apparently uses the contents of a Pains-Wessex distress flare. I firmly believe that in order to generate the orange smoke, he's taken a PW Day/Night Signal (another diiferent type of commercial marine distress signaller to the one in his video), and butchered it. That particluar device has a red flare at one end and orange smoke output at the other, each can be used independently. Once taken out of it's case, and wrapped in gaffa tape it'll be roughly the same size as what you see in his video. Also notice that the smoke outputs from both ends of 'his' device - that's in keeping with my suspicion that he's butchered the Day/Night Signal, and removed the red flare end of it, which would leave him with a hole at the bottom of the device, and also with a surplus of red stars. (in fact he ignites some red flare stars in a separate video, conveniently claiming to have taken them from the distress flare <_< ). Another point which I notice is that 'his' device performs as though it has a first fire composition, he didn't incoporate a first fire into 'his' device in the video - although this is clearly visible after igniton, and before the dye is sublimed. Look carefully at the frames from the video to see this.

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Edited by GZ22, 28 October 2007 - 02:40 AM.

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#40 marble

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Posted 28 October 2007 - 09:12 AM

His videos are full of shit, take a look at the binary explosive one. Utter rubbish.

#41 Asteroid

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Posted 28 October 2007 - 10:40 AM

Looking at the keystone dyes site I think that candle dyes can be aniline dyes, but I don't think they will form a coloured smoke, since I regularly use coloured offcuts for any smokes I make and I just get the normal grey/white colour.

#42 GZ22

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Posted 29 October 2007 - 12:25 AM

I've done a bit of digging and it seems that candle dyes are chiefly Aniline dyes. The lack of colour in your smoke that uses offcuts of coloured candles is due to the fact that once the dye is blended with stearin, or paraffin or beeswax (all primarily hydrocarbon in structure) in the finished candle, the colour does not separate from the wax and so the dye is now an integral part of the fuel (Anilines being oil-soluble dyes derived from coal tar, the colour will not seperate from the wax) and so is burned rather than sublimated.
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#43 seymour

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Posted 29 October 2007 - 04:02 AM

I saw a great video of a Potassium nitrate/Sugar smoke in youtube last night. It said "Silver nitrate has been added for colour". The smoke changed several times; red, green, white, brown.


Hilarious! :lol:
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#44 edders

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Posted 10 November 2007 - 11:16 PM

I also posted the video on metacafe. I'd really appreciate it if those who have an account or a few minutes take the time to rate it and back me up with a little scientific knowledge. Thanks


damn shame that the video was a fake. but how did you manage to make it produce that much smoke (in the end clip).

also i wonder if it would be possible to make it coloured by using powder paint. or would it just burn up and be useless.

#45 Asteroid

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Posted 11 November 2007 - 01:54 PM

In the last clip I added paraffin (candle) wax to the mixture. It cools it down and produces more smoke, there is a thread with information about it somewhere, just search. Powder paint would just burn, food dye is water based and would burn if it wasn't anyway. The dye has to be something that vapourises at the temperature of the grenade, and of course the vapour must be coloured.




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