40 replies to this topic

[The_Djinn]

Spawned,
I find it somewhat confusing. In a previous post you say you make tubes, ball mills etc but no comp due to lack of ingrediants yet here you state about using certain ingrediants ?

Are your comments "hear say" or from what you have read or do you speak from first hand experiance on dealing with various ingrediants / comps.

Mark

[Stuart]

Not really as i said it was 'effective' at high temps i didnt say it didnt work.

You said that it was only only effective at high temps. You then said that it slowed the reaction down unless your fuel was hot which it would have to be in the first place to decompose the sulphate

[alany]

Somewhat off topic, but in response to Matt and Phoenix.

I worked out how to use glitter in rockets and gerbs without too much slagging, the solution is pretty obvious really, make it into microstars. Unfortunately you can't seem to use NC as the binder, it kills the glitter (not too suprising), so you need a very fast matrix and hard microstars, BP meal works, so does whistle.

Whistling glitter gerbs are quite cute. So far I've only managed to get them working on trivial scales, 5-8 mm ID. I'll post the results of my work once I am feeling better. I want to build a 3/4" version, but quite frankly, that much whistle with a choke scares the crap out of me.

[dfk]

Funny.. this idea came to me the other day I just didn't get around to trying it.
I was thinking how to use it for a fountain. How....big.. were your micro stars?
for a 1#tube I was planning on using up to 1/4" stars using a rather wide choke and straight meal for fuel.

[Matt]

Ive found that cored nozzleless gerbs can work with glitter, provding the core is ALL the way through, if it burns for too long the slag will build up. Ive considered this as a rocket but it really doesnt have the guts, maybe some straight meal at the bottom of the core.

The easter holidays are upon us!!!! so nice to be payed for not working hehe

-Matt

[alany]

The microstars are +20 mesh, I used an uncalibrated coarse kitchen sieve to granulate it, and sieved out everything -20 mesh once dry. The upper bound wasn't well defined, I just broke up any clumps I didn't like by hand.

Baby cone fountians are actually looking promising, you can press them moist without ruining the microstars fairly easily, whistle needs extra pressure, and even though dry, tends to break up the microstars. One thing I should probably try is rolling some NC bound meal priming onto the microstars, but the idea of cleaning up the resulting mess in my roller is fairly unappealing.

[metalheadandy]

A little off topic, but what do people use as the stick for the sparkler? would copper/aluminium wire or thin wooden dowel do? Is it the case dipping the stick in alcohol and then into the composition?

[Mumbles]

They sell bamboo skewers for making kabobs I think would work well. They are cheap and the rougher surface of wood would help the mix to adhere better. They're about a foot(30cm ish) long, and maybe a mm or two thick. They come in packages of 100 for maybe a US dollar. Sorry, don't know the pound or euro conversion.

[pyromaniac303]

They sell bamboo skewers for making kabobs I think would work well. They are cheap and the rougher surface of wood would help the mix to adhere better. They're about a foot(30cm ish) long, and maybe a mm or two thick. They come in packages of 100 for maybe a US dollar. Sorry, don't know the pound or euro conversion.

They sell them in Sainsburys in the UK, useful for tiny 1/4" rocket sticks (as long as you cut the sharp end off!). I also had trouble getting sparkler comp to stick, and usually just spread out a thin line of damp comp on a piece of tissue, then wrap it around the stick, and roll on a flat surface to even out the lumps. Although it looks a bit odd it stops pieces falling off. It helps to dampen the tissue with PVA/water mix before rolling also.

[Mumbles]

What kind of binder do you use? I have been using Shellac lately, and that sticks just fine.

[pyromaniac303]

What kind of binder do you use? I have been using Shellac lately, and that sticks just fine.

Oh, maybe thats why then... I was trying to use dextrin. Thanks, will try again some time soon.