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How to Make Festival Balls More Interesting
Learn how to make better use of your Class C festival balls, what tubes to use, how to make mortar racks and how to fuse your artillery shells together.
Materials Needed
It has come to my attention that the Chinese are making bigger and bigger assortments of festival balls (or "artillery shells" or "reloadables") but still supplying just one or two measly little mortar tubes for them. This leaves you with a lot of artillery shells to reload, which can be slow and boring. So it is critical that I point out to you several items for you reloadable artillery shell junkies.
- Artillery Shell Size: Those artillery shells come in a variety of dimensions and shapes.
Consumer fireworks shells are sold as "festival balls," "artillery shells," or "reloadables"
There is no standard-sized Chinese festival ball artillery shell. They typically vary from around 1.67 inches in diameter, all the way to 1.88" or more. You might be asking yourself if you can get extra mortar tubes from Skylighter. And if you are, you need to know which mortar tube to look for. So, measure the outer diameter (OD) of the largest of your reloadable artillery shells. Measure the "widest" part, where the fuse goes around the artillery shell. Write that dimension down.
- Mortar Tube Options: If you make/scrounge your own mortar tubes, PLEASE DO NOT USE PVC pipes. PVC becomes dangerous shrapnel when it shatters. And these artillery shells can and do accidentally explode in mortar tubes. You would not believe how brittle and sharp PVC can be when it is exploding at you at 500 miles an hour!
To get artillery shell mortar tubes from Skylighter, you have two basic options: Cardboard or plastic. If your artillery shells are less than 1.74 inches in diameter, and you want to spend the least amount of money, you can use our TU2100, Festival Ball Mortar tube, 1.75 inches inside diameter, 10 inches long. Your artillery shell has to be smaller than 1.75" so it will slide down the mortar tube freely. Your other option, and your best one, in my opinion is to use PL3170 High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) Festival Ball Mortar tubes. These are industrial-strength, professionally made, wooden-plugged mortar tubes, which should last you a lifetime. You can fire any size artillery shell out of these things.
- I got all these mortar Tubes from you; what do I do with them? Let’s look at your options one at a time.
But before you make anything: Make sure your artillery shells fit your mortar tubes. Try several. They should drop down the mortar tube freely, by just lowering them holding the fuse. If any are just a little snug, you can often roll the fuse side of the artillery shell against something smooth like a counter top, pressing down on the artillery shell as you do it. Try and press the fuse a little flatter. Then try and drop the artillery shells into your mortar tubes. When you load your mortar tubes, be sure the artillery shells go all the way down to the bottom. If an artillery shell does not go all the way to the bottom, you will either get a low break, possibly injuring someone or starting a fire, or even a flowerpot. A flowerpot occurs when the artillery shell doesn’t lift out of the mortar tube, and explodes in it. Both conditions can be dangerous. So make sure, when you load your mortar tubes, that all artillery shells are firmly seated on the bottom of their mortar tubes.
Make a cardboard mortar tube rack. TU2100 mortar tubes don’t come with plugs in them. Forget using plastic bases-most of them blow apart the first time you use them. And no, our paper caps and plugs aren’t made for this. Here’s what you do. Get yourself an adjustable hole cutter/drill/bit. Then get yourself a piece of 2 x 4 about as long as you want. Cut round holes in the 2 x 4 about 1/2 inch deep just wide enough to hold one mortar tube. They can be holes or grooves. Either will work. Your mortar tube should fit into the hole snugly. Cut as many holes as you want. Using white/carpenter’s/Elmer’s glue, glue your mortar tubes down into the holes. Let them dry for a day. Et voila! You have a mortar tube rack. If you want to reuse your mortar tube rack next year or after, first dip/roll your cardboard mortar tubes in an oil-based varnish and let dry. This seals them up, and keeps moisture from causing them to unravel.
Make a milk carton plastic mortar tube rack. Read article, "How To Make a 30-Shot Festival Ball Mortar Rack" for details on how to make a quick artillery shell mortar tube rack using HDPE mortar tubes. These make an awesome display. Milk cartons can be had at Staples and Wal-Mart. They come in different sizes and can accommodate different numbers of mortar tubes, but 20-30 of our PL3170 mortars tubes is typical.
Milk Carton Mortar Tube Rack Using PL3170 HDPE Mortar Tubes
Buy a ready-made mortar tube rack. We have an incredibly well made wooden mortar tube rack, which holds 6 HDPE mortar tubes in a fan shape, PL3175 Festival Ball Mortar Tube Rack. They have folding stabilizers on the ends to keep them from tipping over, even if the ground is uneven or on a slight slope. They are the best for spreading your artillery shells all over the sky.
- How do I fuse my artillery shells? I thought you’d never get to that question. This answer has two parts.
How to connect fuses: This is an easy answer. Just tape your two fuses side by side. In the picture below, 3/4" wide masking tape is used. The important thing is to have the fuses touching each other inside the tape. The type of fuse shown is called Visco fuse.
Connecting Two Visco Fuses
How to chain fuse artillery shells using visco fuse: Chain fusing is simply connecting a number of devices together so that they fire one after the other in some intended sequence. You chain fuse artillery shells when you want to fire more of them at the same time, or if you don’t want to light them all individually, or because you want to create some visual effect in the air. Or you could chain a mortar tube rack of artillery shells so that many of them would fire within a few seconds for a finale to your fireworks display. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. So, let’s see how a milk crate mortar tube rack might be chain fused. We’ll use different colors of visco fuse so you see which fuses do what.
Using the milk carton mortar tube rack, shown in the picture above, notice there are 4 rows of 5 mortar tubes, and one row of 4. You can make each row different kinds. Here’s what they would look like using red visco fuse for the main fuse. The green visco fuses all go to artillery shells.
The centers of the mortar tubes are 2.5 inches apart, so in this example, we’ll make a simple chain with artillery shells chained at 2.5-inch intervals. First cut a length of visco fuse about 2 inches longer than your row of mortar tubes. With a magic marker, starting at one end, make a mark every 2.5 inches. Tape the artillery shell fuses at each mark. The finished chain looks like this.
Artillery Shell Fuses Chained to Visco Fuse
How to make a faster burning chain: The chain we made in step 2 above is relatively slow burning. But suppose we want to make the artillery shells fire almost all at one time, using visco fuse. Here’s how. Just join the ends of all the fuses, octopus style. Tape them together really tightly. Then insert a 6-inch length of visco fuse into the middle of the bundle like this. Use another piece of tape to securely attach the 6-inch visco fuse to the octopus bundle.
Joining 5 artillery shells in one place
Your chain should now look like this.
5 artillery shells fused and timed to go off at the same time
When you lower this chain into the mortar tubes, you’ll find that the artillery shells don’t go all the way to the bottom of some of the mortar tubes. Don’t worry. When the fuses burn past the taped connection, they will drop to the bottom of the mortar tubes before they fire.
How to chain fuse artillery shells using quickmatch: Quickmatch burns almost instantaneously, the artillery shell fuses in this chain will all light at the same time. These artillery shells will all leave their mortar tubes within a half second or so of each other. First, cut a length of quickmatch using a razor blade knife the same length as you made the main visco fuse in step 2 above. (Do not use scissors to cut quickmatch, as their friction has been known to ignite quickmatch!) Then attach a two-inch piece of visco fuse to the end of the quickmatch, using masking tape to attach it securely. Using a razor blade knife or scissors, make an incision in the quickmatch about an inch or so from the attached visco fuse, making sure that the black match inside can be seen.
Cut a slit in one side of the quickmatch
Then, insert about an inch of the artillery shell fuse into the quickmatch, with the end of the artillery shell fuse pointing in the direction your fire will be coming from (toward the visco fuse). This is important: because fire travels down quickmatch so fast, you want that fire to hit the exposed end of your artillery shell fuse, rather than travel past it, if it’s facing the wrong direction.
Insert fuse in quickmatch toward the fire
Then use masking tape to securely attach the fuse to the quickmatch. If the connection is secure enough, you should be able to pick up the whole finished chain, and no artillery shells will come loose.
Use several wraps of masking tape
When your chain is finished, it should look like this.
Quickmatch chain. Note visco fuse on right side
When you have finished making artillery shell chains, you can either fire them individually, or chain your chains together. Here’s how they look chained together with Fast Yellow Visco fuse loaded in the milk carton mortar tube rack. It’s ready to fire, and all that’s needed is to light one fuse.
Artillery shell Rack Loaded with Chained Artillery Shells
To learn more uses for festival ball artillery shells read these:
"8 Ways To Make Your July 4th Class C Fireworks Show Better"
"Artillery Shell Mortar Tube Racks: Cautions and Advice"
"How To Make a 30-Shot Artillery Shell Mortar Tube Rack"
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