PYROTECHNIC MANUAL 1986

Sysop : this manual may posted on any bbs or a.e. as long as this material
remains unaltered.

Disclaimer : Turbo jr. and Alcove town sysops take no responsibility on how
accurate this information is, and we are not liable for any accidents or usage
of these documents.

Section one : making elementry gunpowder.

Obtaining the materials ;

To make a form of gunpowder you'll need to first obtain some pottasium nitrate
(better known as Saltpeter ), flowers of sulfur ( also known as just sulfur),
and for our purposes, crushed charcol briquets.

 To get saltpeter you must visit a local drugstore, they should have some on a
shelf someplace, if they don't try another drugstore. If the pharmiscist won't
sell it to you, tell him that you cat is throwing fits, or you need it for an
indothermic science project. Saltpeter is used as some kind of an diuretic and
is used on horses alot, meaning that if you can't get it at a drugstore, try a
local farm supply store, or a vet. You can also sometimes get it from a
chemistry teacher or a chemical supply company, I wouldn't count on it though,
since they usually have had 100's of others ask for the same thing and they
have an idea what you're going to use it for.

 Sulfur is fairly easy to obtain, almost every drugstore stocks it,
if they don't have it they probably ran out of it.

 Charcol is the easiest to get, what you need is plain charcol briquets ( the
kind you use on your grill !!! ) You can get charcol from any good supermarket
or hardware store, sometimes a drugstore will also have it.

Making the mix

  The proportions for our gunpowder varies greatly, depending on what results
you wish. For example, if you add alot more of a substance than another, you
might create a very fast burning powder, while if you mix just more of one
subtance than another, you might get a long burning, flare type of powder. The
results also depends on the quality of your substances.

   Before you start to mix the chemicals, you must crush the charcol briquets
into a fine dust, the more crushed it is the faster the powder will burn. I
usually crush a single briquet at a time by placing it into a heavy duty
plastic bag ,closing the opening shut, and pound it with a hammer until it is
crushed. If a hole forms in the bag, pour the dust,and chunks of charcol into
another bag and continue crushing until it is all a dust.

The usual proportion to go by is ;

3 parts saltpeter
1 part  charcol dust
1/3 part sulfur

Of course as mentioned earlier, you should try different amounts to discover
different results. Always keep a record of your tests for future reference.

A 'part' can be any measurement - cup, teaspoon, gram,
onces, etc., even though going by weights is the best.

Besure to mix well.

10,9,8,.....,zero  IGNITION

 To ignite the mixture, it is best to buy some fuse. I buy mine from a local
hobby store. You can make your own (very low grade, el cheapo) buy saturating
(dissolve a substance until no more dissolves) some warm water with saltpeter,
then soak a piece a paper toweling or linen in it. Take it out a allow to dry.
Once dry it should be brittle, be sure not to break it or cause the dried on
saltpeter to fall all over the place. Test it by igniting a small piece with a
match, it should burn very slowly, and might even go out (a sign of
cheapness).

To test it, you can either;

1...Pour the mixture into a paper cup, insert a wick, and light.
2...Pour the mixtute into some paper toweling, crumple it around the mix, and
      light.
3...Do it anyway you want, I really don't care

USE of the gunpowder.

 Putting the gunpowder to good use really depends on your imagination. For
instance you can pour some of the mix into a glass container with a screw top
lid. Add a firecracker (not nessecary, only if your mix is a slow burner.) Cut
a hole in the lid ( just big enough for a fuse ). Insert a fuse long enough to
reach the mixture. Screw on the cap. Seal off any small openings with glue.
Light it, and BOOMIE.

Another thing you can do is, cut a small hole in a tennis ball ( big enough
for
fuse ) , pour in some mixture, insert fuse, Light and you have a sort of a
sparkling founting or a torch.

Of course there are all kinds of other things ( evil or good ) you can do,
I'll
leave the thinking up to you.


Substitute

 For an interesting flare effect or a faster burn, you can replace the charcol
with a very fine dust of a metal. I haven't tried this often, but using a
powdered aluminum creates an amazingly bright flare. But of course, there are
problems with that, it goes out rather quickly. Alot of the newer store bought
gunpowers use a zinc powder, I think. I can't tell you where to get powdered
metal other than chemical supply companies or a chemistry teacher, sometime
you
can get some out of a metal working shop, but the metal from there is usually
not fine enough. If any one has any suggestions or interesting effect leave me
some e-mail about it, or write an article about it !!!

  Also adding different salts and/ or chemicals to the mix can create a
different color flame, if used as a flare. Salt causes a yellow color. I will
include a list of the different effect in my second article, maybe.

The End
