10 replies to this topic

[Potassium chlorate]

In this case H3. According to Shimizu and some experienced people in another thread you only need 52% by weight of the powder, which I find excellent. The shell becomes lighter and you save some money too, unless you use BP and have very cheap sources for the precursors.

[Mumbles]

I use a pretty typical spray and dust method. Spray it on until the cotton seed lightly clumps together and sticks to your glove, and alternate from there. The hairs on the surface of the cotton seed makes it pick up the comp pretty well, but also doesn't give nice free flowing grains like rice hulls or cork bits. Keep spraying and dusting. At the end I tend to get it a little wet to pick up any loose dust, and I feel like it coats the burst to the seeds better. I do this will all bursts actually.

There is another method where you coat the seeds with a slurry. I've heard horror stories about this making one giant lump of burst if you don't get it just right. Maybe something like the toro method where a slurry and dry powder is used would be easier to handle.

[Potassium chlorate]

Operation went well, now it's drying. Even a moist little lump burns very fiercely.

[ener]

I use a pretty typical spray and dust method. Spray it on until the cotton seed lightly clumps together and sticks to your glove, and alternate from there. The hairs on the surface of the cotton seed makes it pick up the comp pretty well, but also doesn't give nice free flowing grains like rice hulls or cork bits. Keep spraying and dusting. At the end I tend to get it a little wet to pick up any loose dust, and I feel like it coats the burst to the seeds better. I do this will all bursts actually.

There is another method where you coat the seeds with a slurry. I've heard horror stories about this making one giant lump of burst if you don't get it just right. Maybe something like the toro method where a slurry and dry powder is used would be easier to handle.

When applying BP or KP on cotton in a star roller it's easiest to use the slurry method. You can prevent the burst getting one big lump by stirring it well with our hands. It's about the same as rolling stars, when it gets too sticky just stir well with your hands.

[Mumbles]

I just use a 5 gallon bucket, and my arm to stir. Perhaps when I get back into things, I'll try a slurry. The slurry method I had heard of is more of a batch process, not added little by little.

[ener]

I think you'll need a roller for the job.

[seymour]

Need?

I'm sure you don't!

Using a star roller certainly makes the processes easier, but there is no need. I coat burst, roll stars and prime things all by hand, in bowls and buckets using hand movement. It works very nicely for me.

[Potassium chlorate]

The best stars are made by hand rolling, though it's very time-consuming and boring with parlon bound ones.

[Mumbles]

I assumed he meant a star roller would be needed for the slurry method. Some of these types of things require constant motion to avoid too much clumping. I'm sure it could be done by hand, but I personally would like to avoid coating the better part of my forearm in burst slurry.

I can't speak for exhibition shell manufacture, but the majority of the factories in the world use star rollers for most if not all of their round star manufacture. This is even true of the toro method.

[Potassium chlorate]

At least when you roll parlon bound stars in a small machine roller at home, a lot of the composition will stick to the bowl/drum and get lost. Irritating.

When I coated the cotton seed with the H3 I first of all dry-mixed them roughly and then just sprayed some water/alcohol on it, shook the container and repeated until the seeds were sufficiently covered with H3.

Edited by Potassium chlorate, 25 December 2010 - 08:30 PM.

[ExplosiveCoek]

When applying BP or KP on cotton in a star roller it's easiest to use the slurry method. You can prevent the burst getting one big lump by stirring it well with our hands. It's about the same as rolling stars, when it gets too sticky just stir well with your hands.

I second that, it's quite easy to use the toro method for both star rolling and coating burst charge. Once you get a feel for it it's just as simple as dumping in the slurry with the rice hull's, let them roll and dump in half of your meal. Add the last part of the toro (everything starts to clump again) and throw in your last part of meal. Finished .

It's not true that rolling with a machine roller you'll get lots of composition everywhere, it depends on your technique. Of course in a early stage with small cores you'll have to sieve some crap out of your stars sometimes but same go's for handrolling.