Fireworks Blog

Today, 24th June is Saint John (a catholic saint) day in Brazil (also in many other catholic countries). In states/cities of Brazil northeast like Bahia and Sergipe , there is a beautiful tradition named Guerra de Espadas  (in english "swords war"). The celebration consists of throwing fireworks artifacts like small gerbs/fountains (these are known as " espadas " and " busca-pés ") in large streets, between people. The devices are tubes made of a kind of a native Brazilian bamboo named "taboca" and filled with a blackpowder composition with iron swarf for the sparkling effect. The " espadas " just make a sparking effect, while the " busca-pés " explode at the end. These fireworks are handmade by the "warriors" and it is know that this is a centenary tradition. Unfortunatelly, due to security concerns, this tradition is loosing power in the last years, but is still present in some places...

Some years ago, while visiting  Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden , I found the remains of what was in the past a Gunpowder factory . The factory was built during the Portuguese / Brazilian colonial times and remained in activity until 1831 when it was deactivated supposedly due to explosions. One of the most interesting things in this factory is the way the powder ingrediences were mixed - using a huge mechanized mortar and pestle. Unfortunately this device does not exist anymore, but are there still the remains of the holes used as "mortars" and there is actually a beautiful mockup of it that you can see below: Take a look at the video below to see how one of these mortar and pestle works (that's incredible how you can find one of these devices still working today in Brazilian rural areas): This is the beautiful external view of the factory: If are or want to visit Brazil, Botanical Garden ( "Jardim Botânico" ) and the old gunpowder fa...

Cangas del Narcea is a municipality in the province of Asturias, Spain. On every 16th July, there is a huge celebration using rockets . "Nuestra Señora del Carmen" (the patroness of sailors) is the name of the popular Saint for which the devotees make the feast. The most wanted moment of the celebration is what local people call " La Descarga ", that means "the discharge" that is literally a huge discharge of rockets. The rockets are mounted in long lines and usually are fired around 8:00pm when the Saint is passing through the city. Not only these rockets are lauched, but also a lot more hand fired by the the local people. This is the poster for this year: This is a video that tells much better than me how great is the show:

In this post I'm going to share with you my first rocket tool . I made it some years ago and it's enterely made of wood. Basically, I've cut a piece about 10cm long of a wooden 2.3cm diameter broomstick and made a hole of something like 5mm diameter on it, with a length of 2cm. For the base, I used 2 glued wood blocks with a wood pin of 5mm diameter, 2cm length sticked on it. Obviously, there must be a very little space between the pin and the hole in the other piece, you can reach this space with a sandpaper until the pin enters very close to the hole, but freely. For today, that's it, in a future post I will tell you how I made the black powder rocket motors with this tool.