EPTBeginning Pyrotechnic Guide!
By 404.Nitrogen
![[image loading]](http://pyroguide.com/images/9/96/GunpowderGrades.JPG)
By 404.Nitrogen
Hello there! In my attempt to win a sc2 beta key, I have decided to write a guide. This guide is for one of my absolute all time favorite things: fire!
A few notes before we get started (on pyrotechnics in general, you may not need some of these
for what I have explained in this guide)
- SAFETY HOLY SHIT DON'T SKIP THIS PART WHAT THE FUCK. SAFETY FIRST ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS. NOT JUST FOR YOU, BUT FOR EVERYONE AROUND YOU HOLY SHIT SERIOUSLY. Burns are INCREDIBLY painful if you don't know. Work in an open area with good ventilation (preferably outdoors). Please take my advice because I've learned this from personal experience, including lighting white gasoline on my hand, spilling ~10 M HCl on my hand, inhaling HCl fumes, and getting molten sugar on my leg... For the love of god, safety first. P.S. WEAR YOUR FUCKING SAFETY GLASSES.
- Make sure what you're doing is legal. Check in with your local fire station if you cannot find the information online.
- Wash your hands before and after handling any chemicals! The ones in this guide aren't that bad, but once you start using things like barium salts and antimony trisulfide you must always wash your hands.
- Keep your work area clean!
- Make sure what you're doing is legal. Check in with your local fire station if you cannot find the information online.
Now I will go into more safety things...
![[image loading]](http://maze.icomix.com/picturepage/062505/CarolSafetyGoggles.jpg)
Be clean!
Being organized and clean prevents contamination, accidental ignition, and tons of other things. Just be clean.
Wear proper clothes
No synthetic fibers! They will melt onto your skin and will stick on if heated/burned. I saw this happen first hand to someone in my eight grade science class. Wearing proper clothes includes wearing safety glasses.
Don't use any sparking tools.
Although we won't be using very many tools that could ignite anything in this tutorial, always be sure to avoid tools made out of steel and iron, even if they are galvanized. Instead bronze, aluminum, wood or plastic. Be careful when using plastic with paper tubes because you can build up a charge on the plastic, possibly creating a spark.
Try to avoid glass/PVC type materials
Avoid putting any explosive compounds in anything that will fragment easily, such as glass or PVC. A few things you can use are paper and fiberglass, and certain types of plastic (I'm not sure which kinds).
You will probably be mostly using paper.
Contamination/Misusing Chemicals
Don't try to substitute any chemicals for other ones please... potassium chlorate and potassium perchlorate are very different, especially when sulfur is involved. Contamination, as you can imagine, is really bad. Avoid it. Remember to always wash your hands before/after handling chemicals, even if you have gloves on!
A few things to avoid mixing (not using them in this guide though)
- Chlorates with sulfur, sulfides, or phosphorus.
- Chlorates with nitrates and aluminum.
On to the guide...
I'm going to cover how to make two separate things in this guide, both of which are fairly easy to make.
Candy Smoke Mix
A very simply smoke bomb that can burn very vigorously at times :p
This video is from like a year ago. (Don't make fun of my voice, I had a cold)
A very simply smoke bomb that can burn very vigorously at times :p
This video is from like a year ago. (Don't make fun of my voice, I had a cold)
Okay! So the basic idea behind this one is that the potassium nitrate is an oxidizer, which aids in the burning of the sugar, which creates lots of smoke.
Materials (I will explain where to buy these at the end of the guide)
Potassium nitrate
Sugar (Granulated is fine, powdered works better though)
Fuse (Visco preferably)
Scale
Electric heat source (Not open flame, use something like a hot plate.)
Mixing utensil (Anything is fine really)
Pan
Basic overview
3 parts potassium nitrate
2 parts sugar
(If you make a 50 gram batch, which is what I usually do, you would be using 20 grams sugar and 30 grams potassium
nitrate.)
For optimal performance, the two compounds will be melted together using your electric heat source.
You can also mix in some things to alter the burn rate of the smoke bomb. Red iron oxide (Fe2O3) can be used to speed up the burning process. Add about a gram of this to your 50 gram mixture before melting to speed up the burn rate. The iron oxide is a catalyst in this reaction, but be careful because DAMN, does it speed up the reaction. Note the video above does not have iron oxide in it. Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda, NaHCO3) can be added to the reaction to slow it down, about 2.5 grams to your 50 gram mixture. I've heard stories of some people using sulfur in their mixture, and
having it work better. I wouldn't try this though, because combustion of sulfur creates sulfur dioxide, which isn't exactly the most healthy thing to breathe in!
Tutorial
So, we will start off by measuring out the compounds. Use your scale to measure out 30 grams potassium nitrate and 20 grams of sugar. Use some cupcake papers and remember to account for their weight (or use tare if you are using an electric scale).
So pour the mixed powders (mix them pretty well in a cup or something) into the pan over the heat source. You will begin to melt them together, and they will begin to look like peanut butter.
![[image loading]](http://pyroguide.com/images/d/d3/Rj-sb-img05.jpg)
See, I told you it looks like peanut butter.
Spoon it out onto some wax paper or something to let it dry, and stick some fuse in it. Make sure the fuse is long enough to not ignite the smoke bomb immediately. Experiment with the fuse you bought and time how long it takes to burn and inch of it, so you know how much you have to use in order to be safe, but not too wasteful (safety is more important than wastefulness). Make sure the fuse doesn't go directly down into the middle of the smoke bomb, because sometimes you can ignite the inside before the outside and it will build up internal pressure and it will pretty much explode and send little pieces of molten sugar and potassium nitrate onto you. Not fun. I learned this the hard way. Anyways, put the fuse so it will just ignite the top or the sides or something like that. Once the smoke bomb is dry, it will turn hard. I mean really fucking hard. You'll have to scrape it off the wax paper, try not to leave too much on the bottom of the smoke bomb.
Ignition
Just light the fuse and step back about ten feet, and watch the show. Doing at night is optimal, so no one calls the fire department on you :p.
Black Powder
Black powder is one of the most critical components in many pyrotechnic devices. It is also known as gun powder.
Black powder is one of the most critical components in many pyrotechnic devices. It is also known as gun powder.
Materials
Potassium nitrate
Sulfur
Airfloat charcoal
95% denatured ethyl alcohol or 90% isopropyl alcohol
Distilled water (can be bought distilled, don't worry :p)
Glass pot (old coffee pot is fine)
Window screen
Towel
Aluminum tin
Stirring stick
Electric heat source
Basic overview
15 parts potassium nitrate
3 charcoal
2 sulfur
(For this example, we will be making a 0.5 kg batch. That means 375 g of potassium nitrate, 75 g of charcoal, and 50 g of sulfur.)
![[image loading]](http://www.crawfordhs.net/EOCT%20Pages/psy_sci_study_guide_files/i0250000.jpg)
You see this? This is the secret behind this method of making black powder.
If you know your chemistry, you'd know about boiling point elevation :p. When 375 g of potassium nitrate are dissolved in the 175 mL of distilled water, the boiling point of the solution will be elevated to about 117 degrees celcius. Because of the increased temperature, the sulfur will partially melt in the water and the potassium nitrate will soak into the charcoal some. It is also important to note that potassium nitrate is not soluble in a water/alcohol mixture. You're probably connecting the dots now :p. We can make the potassium nitrate precipitate easily with the alcohol. This method is called the CIA method for making black powder. It was first published in a manual called "Field Expedient Preparation of Black Powder."
Tutorial
Measure out your potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal. Add them to your coffee pot. Then add 175 mL (0.75 cups) of distilled water to the urn. Slowly heat the mixture (NOT OVER AN OPEN FLAME) while stirring. The potassium nitrate will eventually dissolve completely, and the suspension will begin to boil. Let it boil gently for a few minutes, then remove it from the heat source. PLEASE MAKE SURE IT IS AWAY FROM ALL SOURCES OF IGNITION. Let the mixture to cool for about two
to three minutes, then add 150 mL (0.5 cups) of the alcohol very slowly, while stirring very quickly. You add this slowly while stirring quickly because the heat will vaporize the alcohol quickly, and it will be very hot. These fumes are very flammable and you shouldn't breathe them. After 10 more minutes, add 50 more mL of alcohol. Keep stirring until the coffee pot is cool enough to touch (but still warm). Scrape the contents of the pot onto the center of a towel, and pull the corners up to form a ball with the black powder in the center. Wring out the liquid. Let the ball sit for about three minutes. While you're waiting get out your window screen. Split the black powder ball into four pieces and push them through the window screen. Let them dry outside, but out of the wind. A shed will do fine.
Ignition
You can light small amounts with anything really, but remember to be safe with fuses. You can use black powder in tons of things pyrotechnical! It's also just fun to burn.
Other links
http://www.skylighter.com/
http://pyroguide.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://www.unitednuclear.com/
http://usplastic.com/
Oh yeah and just a quick note: potassium nitrate can be obtained at home depot and places like that under the name of stump remover. It is over 99% pure, but make sure it doesn't have anything in it that could be harmful in your experiments, I have never personally used it.
Sorry guys, these aren't my pictures. I don't have any potassium nitrate with me or else I would make it myself and take pictures, so instead I've borrowed pictures off the internet. Also, a lot of the safety and black powder guide I have based off of Introductory Practical Pyrotechnics, written by Tom Perigrin. Great book, buy it! It's at skylighter.
If you have any questions, just post them here. If you ask me about m80s or flash powder I will personally rape you.
The end. Hoped you liked it :p. Be safe.
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Very interesting read I must say.
