Marking, cutting, gluing and drying large corrugated cardboard discs that will be used as your fireworks wheel frame. The simplest method but usually only single use.
Installing your cardboard fireworks wheel frame on a wooden support.
Making a longer lasting fireworks wheel frame out of a sturdy wood stick with a central hub made of lamp parts.
Using an old bicycle wheel as a fireworks wheel frame.
A homemade fireworks wheel using charcoal & ferro-titanium drivers.
How to hand twist-drill and 1/8-inch bulkhead passfire hole into the end of your drivers.
Installing a masking tape nosing onto the ends of your drivers that will be used to hold the visco fuses in place in the nozzle and bulkhead holes.
How to calculate, measure and mark the location of the drivers on your wheel frame so the drivers are equidistant apart.
How to mark the location of the drivers on your wheel frame so they get attached at the correct angle to ensure they don't burn the frame.
How to attach each driver to your wheel frame using an awl to poke holes in the frame and zip-ties to secure the drivers in place.
How to correctly attach lengths of fast fuse to each driver to ensure they ignite in sequence.
How to attach a wood support to the back of your wheel and ensure the wheel can spin freely.
Finished tube sparklers, one made without metal and one made with ferro-titanium added.
Screening potassium nitrate through a 40-mesh screen to make sure it is fine enough to use in the sparkler composition.
Screen mixing the potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal together to make the sparkler composition.
Using a funnel and dowel to help fill small paper tubes with sparkler composition.
How to roll a larger sparkler tube out of a sheet of printer paper and then fill that tube with sparkler composition.
How to install a length of visco fuse on your tube sparkler for safe lighting.
Demonstration of a tube sparkler with titanium added to the sparkler composition creating long hang time sparks.
Night launch of a homemade stinger missile rocket with beautiful charcoal tail.
Cutting cardboard tubes, with a saw and miter box, to the correct length needed to make 3/8-inch ID stinger missiles.
Hand ramming a bentonite clay nozzle into the end of your stinger tube using a mallet and the Turbo Pyro tooling.
Installing a thin piece of visco fuse into the side spin hole of the stinger missile rocket.
How to safely hand ram the rocket fuel into your stinger missile tube and add the bentonite clay bulkhead.
How to hand drill a passfire hole into the bulkhead of the stinger missile and attach a single star heading with masking tape.
A homemade stinger missile rocket fired off in the daytime.
A 3-shot charcoal streamer star mine using 3/8-inch pumped stars.
How to safely grind chemicals in a blade-type coffe mill for use in fireworks compositions.
Weighing out the chemicals you'll need to make a batch of firework stars.
Screen mixing the chemicals together twice through a 20-mesh screen to break up clumps and thoroughly mix it.
How to properly dampen the star composition with a spray bottle and use a screen to evenly distribute the water. A scale is used to verify the proper weight of water has been adedd so you get the perfect consistency.
How to fill your star pump with composition and hand ram with a mallet to get evenly sized firework stars.
How to prime fireworks stars evenly with a black powder prime using a spray bottle to lightly dampen the stars enough to get to the prime to stick.
Options for safely drying your firework stars including a food dehydrator and drying screen.
A 3-shot fanned fireworks mine made using Shimizu's Chrysanthemum 8 Charcoal Stars.
Homemade magnum bottle rockets with charcoal tails flying at night.
Marking a no-pass line on the solid drift of the Turbo Pyro tooling so you know when to switch from the hollow to the solid drift.
How to safely hand ram rocket fuel using a mallet and the Turbo Pyro tooling.
How to install a small heading onto the magnum bottle rockets using masking tape.
How to finish magnum bottle rockets by attaching a stabilizing stick, visco fuse and covering with tissue paper.
A homemade magnum bottle rocket being fired in daytime.
Homemade ferro-titanium hummers and whirlwinds lit off at night.
Cutting cardboard tubes, with a saw and miter box, to the correct length needed to make 3/8-inch ID hummers and whirlwinds.
How to construct a fireworks hummer including marking the spin hole locations, ramming the clay plug and fuel, driling the side spin holes with the Turbo Pyro drill guide and installing black match fuse.
How to construct a fireworks whirlwind including marking the spin hole locations, ramming the clay plug and fuel, driling the side spin holes and installing black match fuse.
Loading a mortar tube with black powder, and a finished hummer or whirlwind for safe firing.
Launch of a homemade firework helicopter in the daytime.
How to hand ram a bentonite clay plug into your helcopter tube using the Turbo Pyro tooling.
How to safely hand ram increments of helicopter fuel using a mallet and the Turbo Pyro tooling.
Hand ramming the final clay plug into your firework helicopter using the Turbo Pyro tooling.
How to mark the side lines on the helicopter tube so you know where to measuer and mark the locations for the vent holes.
Measuring and marking the locations where the vent holes will be drilled.
How to safely drill 1/8-inch side vent holes into your helicopter tube.
Hot gluing a popsicle stick to your helicopter to ensure the bottom holes are pointing down during helicopter spinup.
How to fuse your helicopter with blackmatch harvested from super fast paper fuse.
Night launch of a homemade firework helicopter with a beautiful spray of charcoal sparks.
Examples of the two types of fountains made in this project, an 80-mesh charcoal fountain and a ferro-ti fountain.
How to weigh out and mix the black powder base mix and spark additives for two different types fountains.
How to hand ram a bentonite clay nozzle for your fountains using the Turbo Pyro tooling.
Where to mark a no-pass line on your solid drift so you know when to switch from the hollow rammer to the solid rammer.
How to safely hand ram fountain fuel using the Turbo Pyro tooling.
Ramming a bentonite clay bulkhead in your firework fountain using the Turbo Pyro tooling.
Installing visco fuse and a stick onto your firework fountain for safe lighting.
A fan of three ferro-titanium fountains firing at once.
Example of a crackling-silver and a yellow flying fish fuse mine.
Ten flying fish fuse mines chain fused together to create a single 10-shot fireworks cake.
A finished homemade festival ball sized firework shell with charcoal stars.
Cutting and masking tape wrapping a 2-inch length of visco fuse to use as time fuse.
How to make sure your visco time fuse fits into the shells fuse hole and then hot glue in place.
Filling the unfused side of the firework shell with stars and black powder burst.
Gluing the two halves of the firework shells together with PVC cement.
Applying masking tape and strapping tape reinforcement to the firework shell to create a biggerand harder burst in the sky.
Assembling a black powder lift bag and fast yellow visco fuse leader.
Attaching the lift and leader to the fireworks shell with masking tape.
A test burn of the black power base mix used throughout Turbo Pyro.
Safely milling potassium nitrate in a blade-type coffee mill for use in your black powder base mix.
How to weigh out and screen mix the potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal so you'll have enough black powder base mix for all the Turbo Pyro projects.
How to evenly dampen the black powder base mix, granulate it through a 20-mesh framed screen and then spread it out to dry for later use in rockets, fountains, wheels and more.