Fireworks Blog

In Italy and also in the majority of contries in Europe as well as in the USA , the most traditional fireworks shells are made in a cylindrical shape. There are ones that are "single-break", like the salutes, but the most interesting are the "milti-break", a shell made of multiple shells. You can see a picture below showing the both types from the Takeo Shimizu book: As you can see, usually the breaking charge (or burst charge) is in the center, and the stars or other effects like small reports are put around it. For these shells, the stars are also cylindrically shaped. These shells are also "top fused", I'm not fully sure why, but I think this is because of the pressure generated inside the mortar during the lift (so the fuse does not blow / damage), because the pressures generated inside the mortar are usually higher with cylindrical shells than with spherical ones. For the multi-break shells, a very common effect is what is called a "b...

Image from  https://www.pgi.org/ As you already may know, PGI - Pyrotechnics Guild International is a Pyrotechnics organization in the USA, dedicated to teach and improve knowledge and safety for all the fireworks enthusiasts (professionals, hobbists and public in general). Annually, they organize a convention with an agenda with various interesting events like shows , competitions ,  courses , tutorials , safety tips , meetings , etc. For this year (2021), check their agenda:  https://whova.com/embedded/event/pgico_202108/ To know all about them, please visit their website:  https://www.pgi.org/

Thrissur Pooram is an anual religious temple festival held in the state of kerala, India . In my opinion, it is simply amazing due to the big salute shells that are shoot at their shows. Not only the power of there fireworks but also the way they are made and launched. The bigger shells are put directtly into the ground - the mortars are big holes in the ground !   Credits of the images images:  https://www.facebook.com/Vedikettu-premikkal-763614653726293 Nothing better than some videos to better understand what I want to say:

This is the main thing everyone who loves fireworks and pyrotechnics wants to learn. The base for all the kinds of fireworks is Black Powder. In this post, I will show you how I made a very good quality Black Powder to use in my fireworks. Ingredients and main formula: - 10% Sulfur (from agriculture store) - 15% Charcoal (homemade from Willow wood, see here for a tutorial ) - 75% Potassium Nitrate (from agriculture store) - Distilled water and alcohol Usually, to prevent accidents (or minimize the effects of a possible accident), I allways make black powder is small quantities, for example, a max of 100grams each time, so, consider, for example, using the percent of the ingredients in equal weight in grams. Tools: - Ball mill (with lead media or pellets). - Mortar and pestle or any wooden tools to crush the pucks into grains - Hydraulic press (for pressing and corning) with die (you can make one with a PVC tube and an engine piston) Instead a ball mill, y...

Ih this post I'm going to show you how I create Time Fuse to use in my shells. Ingredients: - Black Match; - Piece of toilet paper (about 5 cm long); - Cotton string; - Piece of kraft paper (5 cm long); - White glue. Manufacture: Roll the toilet paper around the black match and tightly (must be really tight, so no space to air between the paper and the black match) wrap a layer of cotton string along it. Now, roll the piece of kraft paper around and make the same thing with the string. Paste the body of the fuse with white glue, to prevent the string to unroll and let it dry. It's ready to use. The fuse is completely fire proof and it's burning rate is about 1 second per centimeter. Check the diagram below:   Take a look at the ready fuse inner core: Check the image of a piece of burned fuse and see how it is fire proof:

One of my favourite Fireworks - I really consider them the best in the World, are the Japanese ones. They are so perfect and made in a so traditional way that it captivates me. I love really all about Japanese pyrotechnics but one of the things they have that in my oppinion is so interesting and exciting is the fast hand firing, dropping the shells inside mortars with a hot iron inside - if you want to read more on this launching technique, take a read at this post . During past years, I found some interesting videos on YouTube showing this technique in action and I want to share it with you.   I hope you like it! If you have any videos of this type and want to share them with me, please commend with the link! Thanks!

A Catherine Wheel - image from Wikipedia As many times, I'm again talking about a fireworks type that is very common in my origin country (Portugal) - what we call " ground fireworks " or " fogo preso " in portuguese. There are some types of fireworks that we can call " ground fireworks ", but the most interesting I know about are like spinning wheels or " catherine wheels ". Usually, some events of real life are pictured using this kind of fireworks, like people riding bikes, animals moving, people dancing, illuminated churches or Catholic saints pictures, because the majority of fireworks shows are related to Catholic feasts. The most of ground fireworks I know are powered by small rocket motors (that cause the wheels to move) and gerbs to illuminate or color the scene. Some of these fireworks have explosions at the end, which usually causes some kind of scare in the public! The sound of the rocket motors powering the wheels is ...