I've been thinking about rolling a few of my own this year. Any words from the wise? (Other than "don't do it", that is [:)] )

I preferred to think of them as homemade 4th of July Salutes.  Amazing what a few store bought supplies, construction paper, and Elmers glue can turn into.  

Oh yes, Don't Do it!

Make sure a family member is ready with a phone since you will have no fingers left to dial 911. [;D]

[IMG]http://www.duhspot.com/users/smiley/s/otn/violent/detonate.gif[/IMG]


Then again a search on google.com may come up with links like this:

[url]http://www.skylighter.com/index.htm[/url]

Boomer, sorry I have to also say, "don't do it!" in regarding making your own.  A buddy of mine in elementary school tried to make his own and had a freak accident resulting him losing three of his toes and two fingers.  Ever since that accident, he sadly looked like he was part alien whenever he went to the beach.  He was left with a big toe and little toe on his left foot and missing a middle and 4th finger on his left hand due to the injury.  My friend the alien.   [(:|)]

Already made fireworks are dangerous enough.  I'd rather stick to them than roll my own and take a chance.  Just my advice.

[b]-RoadDog[/b]

1.  Get empty 12 Gram Co2.
2.  Fill with gunpowder.
3.  Insert fuse.
4.  Seal with hot glue.
5.  Light.
6.  Throw.
7.  BOOMER!

Sky Rocket are fun. Kinda like making a burrito.
Use bullseye for propellant, a small dose of black powder in top end for payload, fold top in and roll up, and don't forget the cannon fuse on the BULLSEYE END. Tape to lenght of coat
hanger,light ,run like hell, WHIZ KA BOOMER!!
And like the others Kids don't try this at home.

ps NEWSPAPER WORKS WELL

As a teenager, I used to cook them up.  The hard part was getting a stable fuse.  I am luck to have all of my limbs.  Save some money on medical bills and buy them from a factory.

when i was younger and stupider i did once. blew a nice crater in the backyard (was at friends house with a a lot of land) heh helll his dad was helping us [:D]

I used to back when I was studying to go into the pyrotechnics field, but of course like all of my dreams it was shattered and never came true.

[grenade]

Take an empty can. The kind with a plastic lid. Place a [b][u]SMALL[/u][/b] amount of Methanol/Nitromethane mix (Jet Fuel, I believe) in the bottom of the can. Place a fuse and put the lid back on so the fuse sticks out. Shake the can, but not too hard. place can fuse side down on ground and light. Sometimes works sometimes doesn't. I made this for New Years Y2K. My first one shot 50 feet into the air. The others lifted slightly or just blew the lid. Note: I made the first one sober. The rest were made with varying levels of Rum and Coke. Maybe that's why some of the others didn't work.

Take an exhaust pipe (12" Steel) and a cheap Muffler. Place the exhaust pipe in the muffler. Place a [b][u][red]SMALL[/red][/u][/b] amount of light fluid down the tube. Take a cutting torch. The portable kind. And open the valve on the Oxygen side (don't need the Oxygen tank) or just leave the Oxygen tank attached. open the Acetylene or Propane Valve wide open so that it produces a liquid stream. shoot into both ends of the device. Place most of the gas into the exhaust pipe end. [b][u][red]SHUT OF GAS[/red][/u][/b] and remove from area. Now drop a match down the exhaust pipe. By the way get your hand out of the way and KaBoom. Didn't get my hand outta the way once and got it burnt. Fortunatelly wasn't too bad.

The simplest a small can filled with black powder. Place a [b][u][red]LONG[/red][/u][/b] Fuse into the can. light and get the F*** away or you'll be missing more than a few toes or fingers.

A person can get themselves into a lot of trouble or even blow a hand off if they were to start messing around with Piccolo Petes and do something really stupid with them.

Piccolo Petes(the ones that do nothing other than scream) are made with a very fast burning flash powder that when in a solid form will burn down through the center of the cardboard casing much like a candle wick, it burns the surface layer off going from the top to the bottom.   If you've ever had a Piccolo Pete blow up unexpectedly on you, it's likely because the powder was no longer in solid form but was in powder form.   I've watched what Piccolo Pete "bombs" can do and it's nothing you'd want to mess around with or have an accident with.   Definitely the most abused "safe&sane" firework out there.




Next?


Either sparklers or ground flowers.    We don't get the classic type of sparklers in Ca. anymore, those are banned from sale here now.


But the ground flowers can be made into some pretty decent rockets if you take a small 1/8 inch diameter drill bit and bore a hole down through their centerline coming in from the end where the fuse is located.   Rip the fuse out and put it through the hole you just created and then plug the hole where the original fuse was by snapping off a tooth pick in there or something.   When you drill the hole through the center of the ground flower, only go about 3/4 of the length of the ground flower, when the powder is lit the surface area of the powder will begin to burn and as it burns outward from center the surface area grows so the amount of gasses generated increases as it burns, the ground flower will quickly shoot off in some direction on you.   It's not wise to use these in any area where you're affraid that a fire might start, sometimes they will chase you around the street and other times they will take off straight down the street for 50-75 yards or more so they are VERY unpredictable.

One other thing we like to do with ground flowers, actually our most favorite.   Is to just take a few regular ground flowers, or actually about 30-40 of them, and stand them all up on end in the street so the fuses are pointing in towards the center of the circle.   Then we get out the gasoline can and pour gasoline all over the center of the circle and lead a small ignition trail back about 4-5 feet away, we light the ignition trail and run like hell.   A 2-3 foot fireball will be generated thanks to the gasoline in the street, the gasoline also serves VERY well to ignite all the fuses at nearly the same time for all 30-40 ground flowers.  When the ground flowers go off they serve to further agitate the gasoline vapors and the fireball will suddenly grow by another 3-4 feet, what's  more is the ground flowers will begin to bounce into eachother like a bunch of random atoms and they will eject out of the fireball in all different directions while actually adding to the color of the fireball generated by the gasoline.   It's a pretty cool effect to view when done properly, but I really don't want to think how screwed up a person would be if they should accidentally set their gas can on fire while trying to light or while doing something else stupid.

I always try to use as much precaution as possible, I realise that goofing around with fireworks is in fact dangerous so when I go out of my way to use them in ways never intended I try to be even more cautious.

The least cautious time though would be when my other "nutty" buddy and I go out and play catch in the street with lit ground flowers.   We'd toss them just as they begin to light, sometimes the lit ground flower will be a curve ball and other times it will slow itself down and hit the ground and other times the ground flower will give additional velocity to it's speed over what you used to throw it with.   It's not really catch that we are playing as it's tag, we stand about 25 yards apart from one another and try to hit the other person while the other person has to try and dodge the things.   My buddy and I have only been hit once in all the years we've been doing it, but we've had plenty of close calls because the airborne ground flowers are so hard to predict.




Two years ago when my buddies and I were having a get together we went through 5 bricks of ground flowers, the ground flowers come 6 to a pack and there's about 15 packs to a brick.   Man it's great to have an adult income for spending on fireworks!   But even still, we waited till around 2 hours before the fireworks stands closed so that we could go around buying up all the open packs of ground flowers at a discount.   If the fireworks stands have any packs that are opened or aren't in their bulk packaging, the firework stand operators have to purchase the loose left overs.   We managed to get some good deals at the stands about 1-2 hours before they closed, it was about 50% off on some of the bricks we bought.

The next day we had a pile of ground flowers in the street that stood about 1 foot high and was about 2-3 feet in diameter.   There was also a HUGE black spot in the street from where the gasoline "grand finale" had managed to scar the ground when we lit off 30-40 ground flowers all at once.



Ah, the joys of being a typical gun loving american male!  Huh guys?  Fireworks are just made for stupid people!

skylighter is the place to go from what I've heard. I used to get their catalog (not sure why) but I have never tried to make my own.

BTT

Here my setup to shoot fireworks.

[img]http://heartofvirginia.org/1998/Festival/fireworks/setup/FW07_SMALL.JPG[/img]

Click for more pics
[url]http://heartofvirginia.org/1998/Festival/fireworks/setup/[/url]

[url]http://heartofvirginia.org/1999/newpics/fw.html[/url]
[img]http://heartofvirginia.org/1999/newpics/images/fw03_small.jpg[/img]

I tried. ONCE!!

Third degree burns on my right hand (OUCH!) taught me a lesson:

Its best left to the professionals.

T

A fun way to make noise, but without flame, is to get a bunch of dry ice and some 2-liter empty soda bottles. Put a little water (like 1") in the bottle, grind up some dry ice (maybe a piece the size of a golf ball) and pour it into the bottle. Screw the cap on really tight, and GET IT THE HELL AWAY FROM YOURSELF.  Everybody withing 2-3 blocks wonders who has the dynamite, and sometimes the police show up.  Do this at your own risk.  I will accept no responsibility if you end up with an assfull of plastic shrapnel.

Aluminum foil + Lye + Water just so happens to produce H2 very very well.  You can get incredabily creative with this.  Just watch out because the reaction is also very exothermic and what ever you are mixing it in will get quite hot.

-Matt

I made giant firecrackers out of brown grocery bags, cannon fuse, wax, Krylon sealant, and tape.  I mixed together some aluminium powder and potassium perchlorate for the charge.  They were about 3" in diameter, 10" long.

They were way too big, and extremely dangerous.  Setting them off was like a stick of dynamite, and would always bring cops and firemen.  I also made the little CO2 cartridge bombs, too.  Weaker, but a lot easier to make.

Ever wonder where the term "bomb making materials" comes from?  In some states this is a good way to loose you gun rights forever.

i got about 15 of those blackpowder cans full of black powder a few with reloading smokless gun powder the cans are the ones about the size of a small coffee can. well i took 3 of them out to the farm i took the lids off drilled a hole for the fuse a put the lid back on and put on about 3 ft of cannon fuse(i buy it by the 50ft hehehe) dig a small hole put it in there cover with light coat of dirt light and run. instand land mine very big and LOUD!!! hehehe[devil]

[b]READ THIS[/b]
Let me put it this way:
1. 3-4" of 1/2" pvc
2. cap one end drill hole in other end for cannon fuse
3. fill with blackpowder
4. glue on top cap
5. put in woods by your house
6. Light
7. run
8. I got a free trip to juve for 11 days
!!! 3,000 dollars in lawyer fees. Almost got felony adult charges. SPent the last 5 years trying to get record cleared.Just got firearms rights restored. Have a hearing in Jan to get record sealed so when i graduate college it will not show up on a backgorund check. Which in FL juve records can now be viewed by public AND it is considered one of florida's "Most serious crimes" along with rape and murder.

So when it comes to homemade fireworks, blowing off somefingers is not the only risk.

the legal definition of an explosive is something that yeilds readily to combustion. This would include: Gunpowder, Gasoline, etc.

But would not include expanding gas explosives, such as: Dry Ice, CO2, etc...

Fortunately, my only juvee offense was Disturbing the Peace or something like that. They wanted to try Vandalism, but they dropped that when it became apparant that the damage was accidental and that our parents agreed to pay. Then again, I was pre-teen at the time so I was released to my parents without actually spending time in jail. But, my mom did say if I did it again, she'd let me stay in juvee for a while.

But, it was fun blowing stuff up, breaking stuff, burning stuff, and other fun kid stuff. I got my butt whipped a number of times doing this stuff. Worst was burning stuff. Apparently parents don't like it when you set a small fire playing with Gasoline, Rags, etc...something along the lines of a molotov cocktail. Funny thing was none of us knew you couldn't put a Gas fire out with water.

Many times we didn't get caught. I loved one time, I brought out my homemade blast cannon, which has since been stolen. We set it up, loaded it with acetone, lighter fluid, and Propane. Voila ignition and one hell of a loud blast and a cool muzzle blast. A few minutes later, the cops showed up. Of course by then we were hiding. Cops drove around a few times and busted one of my friends/cohorts down the street with his Air Rifle. Apparently he shot at a bird after he left and hit some guys car window. At least that took the heat off us.

Didn't get to shoot it mcuh except for the 4th and Near Years becuase it always drew the Police.

But, you can also take white phosphorus (match tips) and place it carefully in a bottle cap. Then carefully close it up. Then place on ground and hit with hammer. Some say it can be as loud as a .38 Revolver when it goes off.

Anything with less than 1/4 oz. of explosive isn't a DD. Anything over is a DD and can get you 10 Years in club fed.

Rule of thumb is that if you set off a huge blast, get the hell outta there because the cops'll be there poste haste. This has kept me out of prison. Blow it up and beat a hasty retreat.

Oh, and take any incriminating evidence with you. This means cannons, etc...If the cops find nothing they will probably leave.

www.pyrotek.org - I get some fun stuff from them, and I like to roll my own Roman Candles (more than anything else) and I use galvy pipe for cases.  Works nice, but take you time and pay attention...

I DO miss fun stuff like PETN, C-3, C-4, Astrolite-G, and stuff like that, but some of the stuff you can crank out easily make a nice substitute for light work...

FFZ

To me this thread has gotten a lot more troublesome than "Babe" posts, even though it was probably started quite innocently.

I believe it should be deleted.

For those who dream of making their own fireworks, you need to do a little research on accidents at fireworks manufacturers.  There have been a number of them.  Also the  pyro pros have had accidents even with all their experience.  I recall an incident in the last few years in which an entire barge of fireworks at a show went up due to a malfunction.

Also one of the industry's most experienced families lost a member to an accident.  

At age 14, my one attempt at "rolling my own" ended with a premature detonation that left me deaf for about an hour.  I was lucky to have all of my digits intact.

I dont know if this is legal in the states but I learned to make them in mexico at my grandmothers house.

Take a peice of paper fold it side ways twice so you have a strip of paper 11X2"
fold it diagnal at the bottom tape on side you should have a triangle shaped cup at the bottom. place small amount of pistol pyrodex in the "cup" and a small section of fuse sticking out of one corner..(cannon fuse is the best , but you can make a straw fuse buy melting an end of a straw fill it almost to the top with powder then melt other side(this is tricky dont burn your self))

ok now fold the papper over and over in triangle sections then after its all folded lie a papper foot ball tape it (fold it tightly)

nice little firecracker
even if it blows up in your hands its to week to do any serious damag e but they are loud and cheap ...again I dont know if thease are legal in the states.

I know that this thread was brought up as a harmless question, but it should stop here.

Some pathetic soul will stumble on this website, and be accusing us of discussing how to make bombs, explosive weapons, or some such rot. Considering the current state of world affairs, that's the last thing we need.

Please do not continue to add to this post.

(please do not take offense, Boomer)

Thanks for your co-operation.

Tyler

This thread doesn't violate any of the forum conduct rules. Yet I see Tylers point, and I know from experience that just asking not to add to this thread is not going to work.

I'll lock this thread for now.

Kuiper