How To Make A Flying Fish Fuse Mine

Learn how to make a simple fireworks mine using Skylighter's flying fish fuse.

Materials Needed

• Black powder
• Flying Fish Fuse, various colors
• Glue, Elmer's or carpenter's
• Mortar tubes, #0 (TU2053)
• Paper, 1-1/2 inch square pieces
• Plastic mortar tube bases, #0 (PL3001)
• Razor blade
• Visco fuse, Chinese (GN1005)

This is a great project you can make on just about any scale. This is perfect for doing with your kids or for your very first fireworks making project. Although this mine is a small, quiet one, suitable for use almost anywhere, you can easily scale it up to something more dramatic. It is fast and easy to do, and many of our customers have tried them. Here's what one customer said:

BTW, I’ve made several flying fish fuse mines, thrown them together if you will. Quite the rewarding little project indeed! -David Vanover

First, just what is a fireworks mine? Well, this is my definition, which is not necessarily the textbook one. A mine is a fireworks device that fires its effects from a ground-based tube up into the air. Usually the visual effects burn from the time they leave the tube until they burn out. A mine is distinct from an aerial shell in that a shell is first launched, and then the effects are ignited after they achieve their desired height in the air.

Traditional mines most commonly consist of simply propelling firework stars out of a ground-based mortar tube using a black powder charge. You place the charge in the tube, add loose stars, or stars in a container, and ignite the lifting charge. The stars are lit, propelled out of the mortar, and burn out typically as they are rising into the air. Mines look like this.


A Bank of Mines Made from Colored Stars

In practice there are an endless variety of mines, traditional and non-traditional. What you can do with mines is endless. This project is basically a flying fish fuse derivative of the traditional star mine.

If you are not familiar with Flying Fish Fuse, it is a variety of visco fuse, which, when cut in short lengths, is reactive enough to actually fly through the air on its own power. Very commonly used in Chinese consumer fireworks today, flying fish fuse comes in a wide variety of colors and effects. It’s become so common that flying fish fuse is used in place of stars. And that is how it’s used in this project: a quick and easy substitute for ready-made stars.

This is what you need to make your own flying fish fuse mine.

Black powder. Almost any kind or size will do, even rough-mixed green powder. If you don’t have any black powder, then the instructions below will tell you how you can make it using:

• Potassium nitrate (CH5300)
• Sulfur (CH8315)
• Airfloat Charcoal (CH8068)

Flying Fish Fuse Mine Kit for 10 Mines (KT0100)

• 32 feet Yellow Flying Fish Fuse Yellow
• 32 feet Silver Crackling Flying Fish Fuse
• #0 Mortar tubes, 10
• #0 Plastic mortar tube bases, 10
• 3/32-inch visco fuse, 10feet
• 1-1/2-inch square pieces of stiff paper (an old envelope will work fine)

The chemicals are all available from Skylighter. You can buy all the other parts from Skylighter in the kit or buy the parts individually. Two colors of Flying Fish Fuse are included in the mine kit. Try other colors and combinations of Flying Fish fuse and Falling Leaves fuses. You can do some really neat things with them.

This is how you make the mine.

Black Powder

If you already have black powder, use that. It’s not critical which type or grain size. If you need to make the black powder, you can make a simple type of black powder called "green powder."

First, weigh out 150 grams of potassium nitrate, 30 grams of Airfloat Charcoal, and 20 grams of Sulfur. Run the potassium nitrate and sulfur through a screen (20-60 mesh) several times individually to break up any lumps. Then mix both them both with the charcoal by hand-wear long rubber gloves. Once the color of the mixture is pretty much the same, then sift that mix through your screen three times.

Transfer the mix into a one-gallon zip lock plastic bag, the heavier the plastic, the better. Add enough water to the mix so that it will clump and hold its shape. How you know you have it just right: you can squeeze some of it in your hand and it will hold its shape, but no excess water squeezes out between your fingers. Add water sparingly to the bag. Then work it into the mix thoroughly. Then add a little more, if necessary, until you get the right consistency.

Next, lay out several sheets of newspaper on a tabletop. Push the damp black powder mix through the screen onto the newspapers. Let it dry. You can speed up the process by setting a fan up and keeping air moving over it. Don’t try and heat it up. Moving air is all you need. If you can, sift out anything finer than 30 mesh. What you have left is called "green" or "rough" black powder. It is not the most powerful powder, but it will work fine for this mine project.

Assemble the Mine Mortar

Cut a piece of the green visco, 2-3-in. long and set aside.

Next, apply a bead of white (Elmer’s or carpenter’s) glue into the groove of the plastic mortar base. (Hot melt works, too, but tends to come loose after you use your mortar a time or two.) Push the tube down into the groove and let it dry thoroughly.

Once it’s dry, drill or punch a 1/8 inch diameter hole into the cardboard mine tube about 1/8th of an inch above the base. The diameter of the hole should be small enough that it will hold the fuse firmly. Insert your green visco fuse into the hole.

Cut Flying Fish Fuse to Length

Cut your flying fish fuse into 1/2 inch long pieces with a razor blade (never use scissor to cut fuse!). Mix the colors together in whatever proportions you like. Make a bundle of flying fish fuse big enough to slide down into your mine tube. The flying fish fuse bundle should fit into the mine tube snugly. Set the flying fish fuse bundle aside for the moment.

This is our favorite method for making a really pretty flying fish fuse "star" mine. Cut 40 strands of yellow flying fish fuse and 5 strands of green falling leaf into 6-inch pieces and then group them together. This bundle should be tested to easily slide into your tube, if it does not, remove strands of fuse until it does. The fuse is then formed into a bundle and wrapped with 2 turns of tissue paper glued at the end. Once dry, cut into 1/2-inch long pieces using a razor blade and downward rocking motion.

Note: Flying fish fuse has been known to ignite when being cut with shears. This is presumed to be because of the friction of the composition between the blades. An accident at the PGI was attributed to this. Using a razor also has the added benefit of keeping the powder core exposed.

Green and yellow fuses were used because of the color combo and the two-tiered effect of fast and slow moving fuses.

Assemble the Flying Fish Fuse Mine

This is real close to real-time gratification. This should take you less than a minute.

Step 1: Dump 1.5 grams of black powder into your mine mortar.

Step 2: Shove the bundle of flying fish fuse all they way down into the mine tube. A magic marker or a dowel works great for this.

Step 3: Place the square of paper on the top of the mine tube. Using your magic marker or dowel, shove it as far down as you can go.

That’s it. You just made a mine. So, take that sucker outside and light it. Flying fish fuse will fly all over the place, so make sure you’re 100 feet or more away from anything you care about.

To learn more about mines and fuse effects read these:

"Flying Fish Fuse Sky Rocket"
"Visco Fuse Sky Rockets"
"15 Foot Crackling Stars Mine"
"Firework Mine Construction"