47 replies to this topic

[Bonny]

With finely pulverized shellac you can roll it. It's harder than rolling dextrin bound stars but way easier than rolling parlon bound ones.

Anyway I think that a prime with 1:1 of barium chlorate/shellac and H3+10% silicon or MgAl will do for ignition.

When you roll then are you using straight alcohol or acetone as the solvent?
I guess barium chlorate stars are harder to ignite than potassium chlorate stars... When I made potassium chlorate stars I rarely primed any, and never had any problems with ignition.

[Potassium chlorate]

When you roll then are you using straight alcohol or acetone as the solvent?
I guess barium chlorate stars are harder to ignite than potassium chlorate stars... When I made potassium chlorate stars I rarely primed any, and never had any problems with ignition.

Straight alcohol.

Yes, barium chlorate stars are a lot harder to ignite than potassium chlorate ones. In many compositions there is an addition of up to 28% potassium chlorate to help in ignition, but I don't want the flame impurified with potassium chloride.

"Electric" greens with barium chlorate are easy ignited, but I have experimented over and over again, and I doubt that there is a more pure green than barium chlorate/shellac only.

[44RedHawk]

I've recently been looking at buying some shellac for general use in coloured fire compesitions. However there seems to be a bit of range available.

SHELLACS (Aqueous Alkali & Spirit Soluble)

Aleuritic Acid
Lemon & Orange
Button
Seedlac
Decolourised
Shellac Sticks
Dewaxed Shellacs In Solution
Garnet
Shellac Wax


The question is, which type do i want for pyro use?

Anyone know much about this? any insights would be great.

Cheers

Steve

Powdered orange shellac is the preferred organic fuel for chlorate based color compositions (see Shimizu), unfortunately, shellac is 4-5 times more expensive than Red Gum which doesn't fair as well in chlorate color stars.