Fireworks Blog

Yesterday, May 30 2020 ,  Nasa and SpaceX launched Crew Dragon Demo 2 Mission to the ISS. I know this is not a blog about space exploration, but I decided to talk a little about this fact because one of the most important things that powers this two areas is the same - Rockets ! The fuel is not the same, but the principle of this milenar technology that started about a thousand years ago is. The ambitions of conquest the space are not from 50/60 years ago. Early in 1914, Robert Goddard created the world's first liquid fueled rocket (oxygen + gasoline) and made a lot of studies and experiments about high altitude rockets. Some years later, during the WWII, Wernher von Braun created the A4 Rocket , mostly known as the V2 Rocket , a powerful missile that reached a range of 320km and a velocity of about 5700km/h. After the war, von Braun went to the U.S. and started developing ballistic missiles and finally was joined NASA, contributting to the creation of the Saturn V roc...

Roman Candles are a type of Firework that usually shoots it's content from a single mortar but multiple times.They are sell both for the consumer and professional market. They exist in small and bigger sizes, some shooting little stars while others shoot big comets or small shells. Are simple items but their construction is interesting and can change depending on the manufacturer, but the working principle is always the same. The basic concept is the use of a strong (because it needs to support multiple firings) and long cardboard mortar. Inside it, there are 4  main components: the lifting powder , the spacers , the flying items ( stars, comets or shells ) and obviously, as any other fireworks, the fuses . Each spacer contains a fuse in the middle to control the timing between each firing and prevent the fire goes once to the bottom, shooting all items at the same time. As in the other posts I do, I'm attaching an image, so you could understand bett...

There is a Fireworks components company in Spain that mades products to build almost any kind of commercial firework like shell casings, rocket headings, mortars, mines, roman candle spacers and many others. The company I'm talking about is Plasticos Gamón . I remember the time I was living in Portugal, there are many local companies that uses products from them. Please take a look at their website for more information:  https://www.gamon.es/ They have a big list of products you can search for:  https://www.gamon.es/productos/ A spherical shell casing (image from https://www.gamon.es/ ) A cylindrical shell casing (image from https://www.gamon.es/ )

Probably you know that in China (not only China but for the entire World), Liuyang is the Fireworks factories capital. Maybe you didn't know, but Brazil is the second largest Fireworks producer in the World and there is also a fireworks capital called Santo Antonio do Monte . The town, located in the center of Minas Gerais state is the Brazil's and Latin America biggest fireworks producer, with an average of about 50 factories, making something like 30.000 tons of products every year. The history of fireworks production in Santo Antonio do Monte started in 1859 with Joaquim Silva and Luiz Mezencio Silva, two brothers that made gunpowder and fireworks at home. Only near 100 years later (1945) the first legal factory started operating, by the name of "Fogos Record". Nowadays, "Fogos Caruaru" is one of the main companies in the city. Most of the fireworks I buy come from them. In the picture below, you can see a consumer firework - ...

In Portugal, a Girandola is usually a rack to launch multiple stick rockets at the same time or one after another fastly. It consists of a piece of wood with holes where the stick is put in. The rockets are linked by a trail of gunpowder, a black match or by quickmatch fuses, depending on the objective (rapid or slowly firing). Image from  https://museus.madeira.gov.pt/Exposicao?exbID=18 Image from  https://museus.madeira.gov.pt/Exposicao?exbID=18 This way of firing rockets is also very usual in Spain, specially, you could see it at the "Cangas de Nárcea" festival that you can see in the youtube video below: The "Girandola" is also another type of firework in other countries like Italy and USA and I will talk about it in a future post.