curious aardvark

Looks like this has bottomed out

You give up easy :-)

Hell if it's that local (can't find any reference to an icarus palace on the net, and it doesn't ring any bells) coalville is only 20 minutes away and I travel all around the area for work.
Absolutely no idea what the course involves - but certainly be prepared to give it a go :-)

So this 'icarus palace' - any other info ? Like an address, website, post code ?

If anyone wants to stay a little further than melbourne (15 minutes) there's a couple of good sized decent b&bs just down the road from me:-
overseal house
robin hood

So you can put me down - any excuse for a day off work and the beginning ofd the year is traditionally stupidly busy, a day learning how to make things go whoossshh - would do me good :-)

Not sure whether to start a new topic or not - so I'll start here :-)

Maplins are currently flogging off launch kontrol systems for £15 - so I bought 2 to play with :-)

I tend to not do very large displays or that many of them - so figure this system should do the trick.

But I would like reload the igniters without having to buy them every time.
Launch kontrol is one of those gadgets where the initial kit is well cheap, it's the consumables they get you on every time.
They want £10 for every 15 fuses - to me that seems a bit steep - and it's no like I have any objection to running around with portfires - 'cos that's fun too :-)

The ignition system is simply a small section of coiled wire.
Anyone know what kind of wire ? I figure I can probably work up a way to reload the fuses if I knew that :-)

Also curious to know if anyone else has played with these things.

The idea of an infra red point and shoot control really appeals to me gadget side ;-)
The first use of this thing will be in a couple of weeks at my birthday party, then there's new year and if I can relaod the fuses myself I can think of a lot of other uses for the system as well :-)

fishy the whole point is that you get a glowing ember - to use something highly reactive in the end would just be stupid and counter productive :-)

generally it's:-
1) the weight - chemicals aren't light
2) the fact that most pyro is shipped by courier firms like dhl. Ordinary air frieght or land mail are very cheap in comparison.
3) legalities regarding shipping of hazardous substances add extra insurance which bumps up the price.

No real comment on the h2so4, but as for ball milling I reckon I'm doing it wrong.
Used the standard 75:15:10 comp - weighed and everything. I've milled the crap 3 times, crunched it up milled it etc and it's still pretty useless unless you leave it lumps. I used to make bp by grinding the ingredients under acetone, compared to my ball milling that was much more effective.
I do believe I'm using much to pure carbon (it's carbon black) - so on that point don't get carbon float use charcoaled lumps of wood.
Got a good sized firepit now so I'll be having a go at charcoaling wood some time over the winter :-)
But as far as ball milling goes - don't use ultrafine carbon.