13 replies to this topic

[Arthur Brown]

Looking for guidance about how many or how much star in a small mine, or a small shell.

For the mine I think I'm looking at about a diameter high pile of small stars so a 19mm tube would have 19mm depth of stars. But would a 100mm tube have 100mm deep of stars?

[Mumbles]

Personally, I tend to use about an equal height as width. I go off of the former, so 3.5" wide and around 3.5" of stars. There really is no rule of thumb though. You can go more, you can go less, they both will look fine. I've made 100mm mines up to twice as high as they are wide, and it still worked just fine. They had a bunch of insert shells in them though, not just stars. I'm not to precise in how I make them. Roll the bag, add the lift and lift sabot, and toss in handfuls of stars until it looks about right.

I also don't really see the point in making 19mm mines.

[seymour]

For micro mines I would not suggest filling the tube one ID high in stars, or even two, as that would, depending on your star size, get you only a minimal number of stars. I suggest filling your little tube right to the top to get the maximum effect for that tube.

I agree with Mumbles, why go so small? I sometimes use 25mm tubes for star tests, or for small inexpensive splashes of colour, but 19mm is just ridiculous!

or a small shell.

I'd guess, however many stars it takes to fill the shell.

[Mortartube]

Seymour, you need some empty space at the top of the tube so it can act like the barrel of a gun or you end up needing much more lift, which means less stars.

Unless you want an unsightly heap of stars going 2 feet in the air of course.

[pyrotrev]

Commercial mines seem to usually have between 0.6 and a diameter of stars when it's straight colour stars: I suspect that in any reasonable (>2.5") calibre more than this will be a wasteas you won't see much extra. For effects, inserts etc. it's usually rather more.

Edited by pyrotrev, 23 December 2008 - 01:36 PM.

[Arthur Brown]

I'm playing with 19mm tubes as I have some (poss 5000 !) left!

[seymour]

Seymour, you need some empty space at the top of the tube so it can act like the barrel of a gun or you end up needing much more lift, which means less stars.

Unless you want an unsightly heap of stars going 2 feet in the air of course.

Well it works fine for me, and I can assure you the stars go more than two feet! True, I do not fill the stars right to the top, because I leave a couple of centimetres star free to jam wadding in. I should have been more detailed in my description, sorry

[Mumbles]

You'd probably get more of a continum of stars if you filled them high. When I have done tests of around 25mm or so for smaller stars I add a handful, which is at least 3 diameters high. 7" long mortar, 3" of stars and a couple grams of -16mesh lift. Works just fine. Depending on the burn rate, they can make it to 30 feet or so.

[Bonny]

As Mumbles said, go with a good handful. I'd use stars around 1/4", and maybe toss in some dragon eggs if you have some. Small tubes like that would be great for building a "mini-mine cake". They are also good for flying fish mines. I use pcs of flying fish fuse about 3/4" long, with a gram or 2 of lift to get them started out of the tube.
Here are some 1" mines I made, a bit larger than your 19mm tubes but you get the idea.

[spanner]

I'm playing with 19mm tubes as I have some (poss 5000 !) left!

Just some 1 pound rocket tooling, and away you go!

[pyromaniac303]

I've recently been making some 3/4" candle mines, which consist of a 7" long tube, with a length of blackmatch running down the inside. The bottom end is plugged with bentonite.
I fill them in this order:
1g of pressed and corned BP, around 30#
10-15 3mm to 4mm colour stars
small 'shot glass' of fine sawdust
press lightly with either hand pressure, or a light tap with a mallet
then repeat until full. I usually get 6 shots from them.


They are quite effective, and fire very rapidly, over in about 2-3s but in a fan type arrangement I'd imagine they'd look good. Once you have all the materials prepared, you can fill them in under 2 minutes each.

I know you'll probably be complaining that I'm only using small stars and not a great deal of them, but the idea was to create a small piece suitable for garden use. 4mm veline stars are still quite effective and cheap to make. I would say they reach approximately 10-15ft height, considerably less when using streamer stars though.

Planning to fire some over new year, so will try and remember to upload a video.

Edited by pyromaniac303, 25 December 2008 - 11:58 AM.

[pyrotrev]

I'm playing with 19mm tubes as I have some (poss 5000 !) left!

If the walls aren't too thick they'd make great inserts for 25mm ish bombette candles/cakes, also wicked whistles

[pihop]

The answer is 13

[cooperman435]

According to the Hitchikers guide its actually 42.