36 replies to this topic

[RegimentalPyro]

I thought I'd share a technique to fuse shells so that they ripple fire at a rate of 1 every half a second. I first saw this technique in a firing site in Malta, but I fully accept there may be prior examples.

The advantage of the technique is that it's extremely quick and simple to implement in the field. Basically the quickmatch shell leader is snipped and bared and fed into the tube next to it so that it takes fire at the time that shell lifts. You should then waterproof the tubes by pasting over foil tape individually. (ie don't lay strips of tape over more than one tube at a time.)

One possible modification of this technique is that I think bare-ing the leader may not required. This should cut down on simultaneous lifts of two adjacent tubes, but may result in the sequence halting.

I tried this technique last week and this is the results.

http://uk.youtube.co...h?v=Qv3KZ6uQK9s

Can anybody spot any flaws with this technique? I've had a think myself and cannot spot anything obvious but I reckon it should have more people to analyse......

Thoughts?

[Mortartube]

Sounds good. I think I know what you mean but I would like to clarify.

So shell no 1 in a rack is fired normally, and to get a half second delay on shell no 2 the end of the match leader to shell no 2 is bared and poked down into the mortar tube of shell No 1.

The lift from shell No 1 lights the leader of No2. And this is repeated along the rack.

Is that correct?

[Night Owl]

Yeah thats a great easy way to do ripple fire, thanks for sharing that, ive also experimented with this type of effect and the one I really like is for a rack of shells, cut some quick match the length of rack, connect the first shell in and your pic or igniter then tie a knot in the Q/M then connect next shell and so on till you've done the whole rack, knots between shells.

I done this with upto 50 shells! real proper machine gun effect, its Awsome!

[Mortartube]

I have done the knot tying technique.

Some American firers in the past have used "Buckets". These are thin paper tubes about 2.5 inches long and 1 inch dia. These give a delay.


They are hard to explain but basically there are short lengths of match running along the length of a mortar rack between the shells. Where each shell leader comes out of the mortar tube one of these buckets is tied.

The match is tied into each end of the tube but an airspace is left so the flame has to flash over. This gives a delay. The shell leader is then poked through a hole made in the side of the tube half way along its length.

I haven't used this method but I believe that you can adjust the delay by changing the length of the "Bucket" tube.

I forgot to add that visco is sometimes used between buckets. This explains it far better than I can. Look about 2/3rds down the page.

http://www.pyrosocie...st=0#entry51491

I did try adding a diagram to this but it was pants when I submitted my post..

Edited by Mortartube, 09 November 2008 - 12:10 PM.

[RegimentalPyro]

Sounds good. I think I know what you mean but I would like to clarify.

So shell no 1 in a rack is fired normally, and to get a half second delay on shell no 2 the end of the match leader to shell no 2 is bared and poked down into the mortar tube of shell No 1.

The lift from shell No 1 lights the leader of No2. And this is repeated along the rack.

Is that correct?

Yup - That's the technique. Quick. Easy. Reliable as far as I can see.

I did another rack of 7 x 2½ inch shells and got a couple of tubes sim-lifting. I think that was because the quickmatch in fired the quickmatch of the next shell. (rather than the lift firing the next shells leader as intended). Not baring the leader would stop this I think

The video for that rack is here (sorry for the blurry quality. Bloody autofocus!)

http://uk.youtube.co...h?v=uUPpXna9py0

[yorkie]

When trying to do a ripple effect, if you leave longer visco between the shells it giuves you a bigger delay between the ignition of the next fuse, also to stop crossover between any adjacent tubes make sure the newley lit leader cannot whip around. This stops leader number 1 lighting number 3 which then goes off at the same time as number 2, if that makes sense at all

[cooperman435]

Yorkie both comments don't apply to this type of firing. there is no visco involved apart from maybe the first shells delay fuse. The lift from one shell ignites the raw quckmatch to the next. The tubes must also be individually covered for this reason too as qm is uncovered it would very likely to cross ignite. this would prevent cross firing to tubes later in the sequence anyway.

[yorkie]

Hi Cooperman,
not wanting to be contradictory but every shell i have ever bought (except those from MLE) have about 2-3 inches of visco inserted in to the leader as a "safety" fuse, if you cut this off altogether before splicing the 2 leaders together will give you and almost instant transfer of fire to the second leader, if you leave abouy 1/2 an inch of this visco you will get a slight delay between the 2 leaders igniting. Thats what I meant to say anyway, sorry if I wasnt too clear

[Night Owl]

In my case Iv'e very rarely seen visco in shells although I have seen it, visco is not an easy ignting fuse so I wouldnt be confident using visco and the mussle blast to light the next visco fused shell, theres plenty of ways to add delays to shells, what we are talking about Yorkie is a ripple or machine gun effect, visco wouldnt really give that effect.

Edited by shell shooter man, 10 November 2008 - 01:55 AM.

[yorkie]

In my case Iv'e very rarely seen visco in shells although I have seen it, visco is not an easy ignting fuse so I wouldnt be confident using visco and the mussle blast to light the next visco fused shell, theres plenty of ways to add delays to shells, what we are talking about Yorkie is a ripple or machine gun effect, visco wouldnt really give that effect.

sorry, I wasnt looking at using the muzzle blast, just chaining the shells, I'll get me coat

[cooperman435]

:-) we have a result lol

[Night Owl]

Come back Yorkie, all is forgiven!

[Gigantic Crab!!!]

Gigantic Crab!!! has used this technique (particularly when firing dozens and dozens of salutes), but experienced a delay of much less than 0.5 seconds.

[Spyrotechnics]

I have used this effect in the past and agree the delay was much smaller than 0.5

[RegimentalPyro]

That's weird. Did your method look anything like the video's I posted, or did it seem to be much faster, like a machine gun effect?

Did your method differ from mine in any way?