Skylighter Fireworks Tips
November 26, 2002 -- Issue #44

Lori has been rat-holing all sortsa strange and wonderful remnants up in the attic here at Toxic Central, which in turn, are increasingly intruding into the real estate up there where they make me sleep during the daytime. (They don’t allow me downstairs during the daylight hours, when the help is around.) So, if you get your next order of $120.00 or more in to us between now and November 28, 2002 at 5:00 PM, you can pick any one of the following absoposilutely free. And that’s in addition to taking advantage of the free offers listed below. If you decide to jump on this, just order from our web site pronto. Use the comments section of your order to tell us which one you want. Limit of one per order. Since these are one-of-a kind items, it’d be a good idea to give us a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice. And, fer pity’s sake, don’t waste your time writing us to find out if we still have the thing in stock. In the time it takes you to write us and fer us to get around to replying, I can purt near guarantee you it WILL have been scarfed up by somebody else who *could* read these here directions.

Now, why, you ask, are we just giving you this stuff? Huh? Basically, we’ve been holding onto this stuff because there wasn’t enough of it to list on the web site as products, but it was still "good stuff" and too good to toss. So, presto. We figured out how to trick you not only into becoming our unwitting (or is the right word ‘witless’?) housecleaners but we also figured out how to get you to pay the freight to take it away. Not to mention tricking you into to doing battle with your deep-rooted, pyrological procrastinatory tendencies, whose secondary effects are prone to causing unpleasant ordering delays here at the Toxic Central. Slick, huh?

--Irv Snerd
Very limited numbers of the following, most one of a kind:

• 2 pneumatic confetti cannons, ready to confetti-ize your friends and neighbors. Great New Year’s Eve item. Each can be used one time. You get both of ‘em. One is about 18 inches long, the other around 36 inches. Both are 2 inch ID. Non-hazardous. Value is $35.00.
  
  
• 3-inch mortars. Five heavy-walled (3/8 inch - 1/2 inch) tubes, various lengths from 13-24 inches. Value is $15.00.
  
  
• TU1020, 200 of them. Check the Parallel Tubes page of our web site for details. Value is $28.60.
  
  
• Assorted disks. Zillions of them. Many sizes, with and without holes, most about 1/16 inch thick. Useable as-is, or can be trimmed to other sizes you may need. 5-10 pounds of disks in each box. Somma my display shooting buddies use ‘em stapled onto racks to keep wires and quickmatch outa the way. Value is $80-$90.
  
  
• End caps for 3-3/8 to 3-1/2 inch (OD) tubes with 7/32-inch hole. Perhaps 1,000 or more in a 10-15 pound box. Value is approximately $75-$100.
  
  
• 12 long parallel tubes, our choice. These are an assortment various sized, long tubes, the uncut ones we sell. They all have some defect or damage, but there is still lots of useable tube in each one. Value is around $20.
  
  
• Maltese Irdieden video by Toni Busuttil. A $29.95 value. For more information on Maltese Irdieden fireworks, see "The Maniac from Malta" article in a previous Skylighter Bulletin 16 (June 16, 2001).

We continue to receive some great tips and tidbits from our admirers. Please send yours and if we use it, we’ll send you some funny money. Everybody’s got something they know or do that’s different from everybody else’s. So share it with us.

Rock-Harden Your Tubes

This one is so simple it ain’t funny. Tom Dimock was at my house a couple of nights ago and I was able to get him drunk enough to find out that he increases the strength of the parallel tubes he buys from us. Basically, you just dip your tubes in Minwax® Wood Hardener, then hang them up to dry. Use the MWH without anything done to it. The tubes will soak up the stuff and once dried, will withstand far greater forces when being pressed as rockets or drivers. As soon as my hangover goes away, I am going right out and buy stock in the Minwax Company. Thanks, Tom.

Using Uncoated Homemade Electric Matches

Thanks to Greg Boyd for this one. You may want to read an earlier Skylighter homemade electric matches in Bulletin 15.

"One day after soldering the wires onto 1,000 of your (uncoated) match heads I thought it might be great if they would work with no pyrogen on them. The first thing I tried was just coating a match head with some plain black powder. Nope. Didn’t work.

Then I remembered the warnings about how static-sensitive flash powder is. So I decided to test an uncoated match head (with lead wires attached) in a concussion mortar containing one ounce of flash powder. BANG! It worked great. So then I tested 20 more uncoated electric matches. (GRIN). Worked every time. I figured I was on to something. But while doing a test shot another day, it failed. Hmmmm. What was different? The first time I had used a capacitive discharge (CD) electrical firing system to fire the match. But the failed ignition occurred when I tried to use just a battery instead. So I tried the CD box again. BANG! It worked. It turns out that you need the bridge wire to really explode to ignite the flash. You see this for yourself without any flash powder. Just fire an uncoated e-match using a CD box (no flash powder). The bridge wire at the end of the e-match head literally explodes. This didn’t happen when I conducted the same test with a battery in place of the CD box. The battery alone just doesn’t have the oomph to make them explode 100% of the time. Now these uncoated matches, along with a CD firing system is the only method I use in my concussion mortars and airbursts (made with two-part concussion powder.) We now have an affordable way to test concussion mortars without having to burn up those expensive e-matches."

Using Sparkle Powder in Concussion Mortars

This one’s from Greg Boyd as well. "A few notes on the concussion pots. The sparkle powder additives must be mixed with the concussion powder and not just poured on top. What happens when it is poured on top is that the particles will fuse together and make big clumps of hot metal that will fall out of the air. Let me tell you, when they land in your lap...yowsuh!

I found that particle size ranges can be very broad for sparks. In the airbursts for high altitude (more than 50 feet up) the 10-60 mesh flake titanium is great. The sparks fall about 35 feet. I use a ratio of 1/2 cap titanium to 4 caps of A/B concussion powder. For any lower heights, I would use 80-100 mesh titanium. By the way, I always use genuine SARAN wrap original when I make up my airbursts. The Saran wrap is completely consumed in the flame, whereas the other plastic wraps I have tested drop burning plastic debris on whoever and whatever is below."

Concussion Mortar Fireballs

And one more from Greg Boyd. "For a documentary being made by Discovery Channel, we created a fireball effect using concussion pots and gasoline. Here how we did it. Fill the concussion mortar full with two-part (binary mix) concussion powder. The fill a 1-pint plastic water bottle with gasoline and put the top back on. Place the gas-filled bottle over the hole in the concussion mortar. Fire electrically from a safe distance. What happens is that the blast turns the bottle inside out and makes a spectacular fireball about 20 feet in diameter with no flaming fallout on the ground. We have tried this with quarts and gallons also, but they tend to leave the ground a flaming mess. Do not attempt this when you have flammable conditions. Keep several fire extinguishers on hand. Always fire them electrically. I suggest you make sure you’re at least 200 feet away when you fire this."

Mesh Sizes and Microns

We first ran this conversion table in our printed catalogs. But we still get questions concerning mesh sizes, micron conversion, etc. So here it is again.

What does mesh size mean? Figuring out mesh sizes is simple. All you do is count the number of openings in one inch of screen (in the United States, anyway.) The number of openings is the mesh size. So a 4 mesh screen means there are four little squares across one linear inch of screen. A 100 mesh screen has 100 openings, and so on. Note, therefore that as the number describing the mesh size increases, the size of the particles decreases. Higher numbers = finer powder. Mesh size is not a precise measurement of particle size. Screens can be made with different thicknesses of wire. The thicker the wires, the smaller the particle passing through that screen, and vice versa.

What do the minus ( - ) and plus ( + ) plus signs mean when describing mesh sizes? Here’s a simple example of how they work. -200 mesh aluminum would mean that all particles will pass through a 200 mesh screen. A +200 mesh aluminum means that all the particles are retained on a 200 mesh screen

How fine do screens get? That depends on the wire thickness. But the supplier of our screens does not offer any screens finer than 500 mesh. If you think about it, the finer the weave, the closer the wires get together, eventually leaving no space between them at all. So, beyond 325-400 mesh, we usually describe particle size in "microns."

What is a micron? A micron is another measurement we use for measuring particle size. A micron is one-millionth of a meter or one twenty-five thousandth of an inch.

This table is adapted from a post made by Ken Kosanke to the PML and previously published in a PGII Bulletin.

U.S. Standard *	Space between wires
Sieve Mesh No.	Inches	Microns**	Typical material
14	0.056	1400
28	0.028	700	Beach sand
60	0.0098	250	Fine sand
100	0.0059	150
200	0.0030	74	Portland cement
325	0.0017	Silt	44
400	0.0015	37	Plant Pollen
(1200)	0.0005	12	Red Blood Cell
(2400)	0.0002	6
(4800)	0.0001	2	Cigarette smoke

* The mesh numbers in parentheses are too small to exist as actual screen sizes; they are estimated and included just for reference.

Size Does Matter: Finding the Right Black Powder

This was also lifted from our old printed catalog, but some folks do not know what "meal powder, 2FA, or 4FG" mean, so this should help.

Having a hard time finding the "right" size black powder or confused about it? Black powder types and grain sizes are classified by the manufacturers by the numbers and letters shown below. Most black powder sold in the US is either "sporting grade" ("G" powders), or "blasting grade" ("A" powders). Professional fireworks manufacturers prefer the "A" series powders, but you are required to have an ATF license to buy them legally. However you don't need an ATF license to purchase up to 50 lbs. of sporting grade (G) powders, which are chemically identical (go figure!). Since the composition of the two types of powders is identical, you can, in fact, substitute G powder for A in your fireworks, if you understand the following: back in Neanderthal times, the powder manufacturers created completely different grading schemes for each type of powder (ie. sporting vs. blasting powder). Hence, 2FG powder is not the same size as 2FA. But using the table below you can see how to substitute G Grade powders for the harder-to-obtain A grades. In the USA, gun stores will sell you Cannon Grade, 1FG, and 5FG powders as suitable substitutes respectively for the most commonly used 2FA (for lift and burst), 4FA (for lift and burst), and Meal D (for rice hulls and priming.

If you are making your own black powder, you can use this chart for approximate screen sizes for granulating powders to standard grain sizes.

Black Powder Grades & Equivalent Sizes (in mm)
Sporting Grades (G)	Grain Size (in mm)	Blasting Grades (A)	Grain Size (in mm)
		1FA	8.0-4.0
Cannon Grade	4.76-1.68	2FA	4.76-1.68
1FG	1.68-1.19	4FA	1.68-.84
2FG	1.19-.59
3FG	.84-.29	5FA	.84-.297
4FG	.42-.15	7FA	.42-.149
		Meal D	.42
5FG	.149	Fine	.149

CHAINED REACTION STAR CANNON OR...
CASCADING COMET RACK

Thanks to Geoffrey Kassin for this one.

"Last summer, during the weekend following 4th Of July, some friends of mine who have a band were scheduled to play a private party. I furnished some flash pots, some small soup-can creamoras (fireballs), and about 80 Class C mortars. Everyone loved it.

Then at the Pyrotechnics Guild International convention in Fargo, North Dakota last August I saw the R.E.S. close-proximity display. WOW! I was inspired to try and figure out how I could do a similar show on a dime-store budget. I had about 400 1/2-inch diameter dragon egg (crackling) stars, about 300 3/4-inch emerald green to white flitter stars. The question was, how could I fire them in precise, rapid succession? I do not have the money for 700 electric matches and thousands of feet of shooting wire; and I cannot get quick match. I laid awake in bed for many hours trying to think of a solution.

The solution for the tubing came quickly. I would use 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch I.D. schedule-40 PVC conduit (you could also use 1/2-inch ID cardboard tubes from Skylighter, a little safer than PVC). That solved the tube problem, but how was I going to fire them in precise, rapid succession? Friday night, I finally figured it out.

Saturday, I began building one short rack of 50 1/2 inch tubes. I went to Home Depot and bought two 12-foot lengths of 1/2-inch I.D., schedule 40 PVC conduits and one 12-foot long 1 x 3 maple board. (I chose maple, because it is hard, the surface is smooth and straight and I can get a good seal between two pieces of it.) I cut the PVC into 4-inch lengths. I cut the 1 x 3 in half into two 6-foot pieces. Next, I drilled a line of 47 13/16 diameter holes about 1.5 inches apart, all the way through one piece of 1 x 3. It’s important that all the holes be in a straight line. Using my Dremel tool and a sanding-drum bit. I slightly enlarged each hole enough so that I could glue each 4-inch length of PVC tightly into a hole. Once the glue dried, using the router base for my Dremel tool, and a slotting bit, I routed a slot 1/16-inch wide and 1/16-inch deep down the under side of the 1 x 3 mortar base board. Now there was a 1/6-inch deep channel joining all the mortar tubes together. I then drilled a 1/4 inch diameter hole through the end of the 1 x 3 into the first mortar tube. I tightly screwed the blank 1 x 3 to the bottom of the mortar rack, so that the 1/16-inch channel was now completely enclosed.

Next, I loaded one gram of FG black powder into each of the tubes, then dropped one dragon egg star into each tube on top of the powder. I then took the whole thing to a friend’s house who has a big front yard. I inserted an electric match into the 1/4-inch hole in the end of the board, all the way into the first mortar. I have a small electric firing system I made from radio shack parts.

I hooked it up, pushed the button and 47 dragon egg stars launched 30 feet into the air in about one second! It was beautiful. The fire traveling down the 1/6-inch channel from the black powder in the first mortar is enough to ignite the 2nd lift charge and so on.

My friend, one of the members of the band, was really impressed. So next 4th of July weekend, I will be ready to shoot 800 assorted stars and comet, flame towers, creamoras, and flash pots in precise choreography to "Highway to Hell" for about $250.00. I can’t wait!"


Order $126.26 of anything from Skylighter between now and Monday, December 2, 2002, and take your pick of any TWO of the following items, absoposilutely free of charge. Deadline is5:00 PM, December 2, 2002. See fine print below or - well, you know. Hah! To take advantage of this deal, just order from our web site. Use the comments section of the shopping cart to tell us which items below that you want free.

CH5301 Potassium Nitrate, Chunky Style 5 lbs. (retail value $13.55)
CH8078 Clay, bentonite 5 lbs. (retail value $10.35 )
CH8168 Iron Oxide, Red 5 lbs. (retail value $22.55)
CH8216 PVC 5 lbs. (retail value $36.25)
CH8271 Sodium Benzoate 5 lbs. (retail value $21.70)
CH8249 Saran 5 lbs. (retail value $33.35)
CH8317 Teflon 5 lbs. (retail value $35.65)
CH8214 Polyethylene, Chlorinated 5 lbs. (retail value $25.30)
ZCH5420 Potassium Perchlorate, Italian 5 lbs. (retail value $34.05) (only 30 lbs. left in stock)
ZCH8318 Tin powder 1 lb. (retail value $17.30)
CH3049 Titanium flakes 1 lb. (retail value $15.85)
TU1013 Tube, parallel 3/8 ID x 2 in. long 100 ea. (retail value $13.50)
TU1020 Tube, parallel 3/8 ID x 2-1/2 in. long 100 ea. (retail value $14.30)
TU1019 Tube, parallel 3/8 ID x 3 in. long 100 ea. (retail value $14.75)
TU2126 Tube, spiral 1-3/16 ID x 4-1/2 long 50 ea. (retail value $15.30)


Buy $127.27 wortha anything from Skylighter, and we will give you, I mean just outright souvenir you Ten Free Pounds of CH5301 Potassium Nitrate, Chunky Style. Just sign up for $127.27 worth of merchandise between now and December 31, 2002. That stuff costs $25.40 if you are so unfortunate as to miss this special deal! To take advantage of this deal, just order from our web site. Use the comments section of the shopping cart to tell us you want this deal. Check the fine print below for details or weep and wail later.


Wade through it now or weep later. This fine print is different from the last fine print. It supersedes all previous fine print.

- You have to ask for either the Free Grab Bag Deal or the Free Potassium Nitrate Deal when you place your order-not retroactively.

- You have to get your order into our hot little hands/email/fax/ear before 5:00 PM Eastern Time (US) on the deadline dates above (not Kuala Lumpur time, not Central, Rocky Mt. nor Pacific Time). If we're not here, send an email or leave a phone message (both are automatically date and time-stamped). Postmarked before the deadline don't count. Faxed at 5:01 PM don't count, neither.

- You have to ask for this deal when you place your order-you're not allowed to forget and then remember. You can’t order yesterday and get this deal today. We will not apply it to the last order you placed, no matter how much we love you, nor how good a customer you have convinced yourself you are.

- The minimum order total cannot include anything showing as "Temporarily Unable to Ship" or "Not Shippable" on our web site unless you’re gonna pick it up or have us deliver it. The minimum order total cannot include shipping charges or sales taxes.

- Some of these products are hazardous; some are non-hazardous. We cannot ship any of the hazardous materials outside of the US.

- This offer does not apply to our former Al Quaeda customers currently residing at our lovely Caribbean resort at Guantanamo Bay. And, no, we will not make an exception because you want to put on a neat fireworks display just to entertain your military guards. Yes, I know they’re bored.

- No funny money will be given or taken on your order if you take advantage of either of these special offers.

- To get the free Potassium Nitrate, you have to order $127.27 worth of stuff. If you order $127.27 worth of stuff, you get 10 free lbs. of Chunky Style Potassium Nitrate, #CH5301. If you order $254.54 worth of goods, you can get 20 lbs. free, and so on. If you order $127.26 wortha stuff, you don't get nothin' fer free! We are tough sonsabeeches!

- To get the Free Grab Bag deal, you have to order $126.26. If you order $126.26 worth of stuff, you can take any of two of the items listed above free. If you order $252.52 worth of goods, you can get 4 of the items above free, and so on. If you order $126.26 wortha stuff, you don't get nothin' fer free! We are tough sonsabeeches!

- It’s first-come, first-served. Supplies of this stuff are limited. Once we run out, that’s it. We cannot get this item back in stock in the future.

- You pay any shipping costs on free items.

- You have to prepay your order before the deadline, or give us your credit card number. You cain't place the order, and get us to hold it for you, until your allowance/alimony/social security check comes. Neither should you entertain any fantasies about first placing the order and then asking us to wait for your check. Nosireebob!

- We have to receive your ID and Hold Harmless (or you must have accepted the Hold Harmless Agreement on our web site) by the deadline. You can’t send your order and send your papers later, after the deadline.

- You have to ask for this deal when you place your order-right then; at the same time; in the same email; in the comments block of yer web site order; when you're talking to us on the phone; in the fax you send; in the letter you mail; in the chicken scratchings wrapped around the yer homing pigeon's leg; in the same bottle your order washed up in; on the same flying carpet your messenger flew in on; wrapped around the same rock that crashed through our winder here; stuck in the same hole in the same tree trunk; in the exact same puff of smoke you signaled your order with.

- This deal cannot be combined with any other specials or discounts. You already know this though, so why do you keep trying? NOOOO!

- No, we won't give you this deal on the order you have already sent us; nor can you call us and tell us you forgot to mention it, because remember? You didn't ask for the deal back then! You must use at least 5% of your brainpower to get this deal.

- Yes, we really did conspire to send out this deal right after we got your huge order at full price! You KNOW we did! Must have!


Don’t forget that the free Fine Firefly Aluminum (CH0149) deal expires November 30th. If you want to know more about it, just click here http://www.skylighter.com/skylighter_info_pages/article.asp?Item=45 or go to http://www.skylighter.com, click on Articles from Our Email Bulletins, then click on Bulletin 43. All the gory details are there.