Here is a few stargun and static tests of Chrysanthemum #6 composition. I ball milled it a lot (3 hours), so it burns quite quickly, but the charcoal effect is quite dense and delicate. I love it, the composition is fast enough for drivers, yet cheap with no metals and fairly harmless like blackpowder but puts on a good show.
The composition:
58 Potassium Nitrate
35 Charcoal (airfloat)
7 Sulfur
5 Dextrin
All stars where 8 mm diameter 10 mm long pumped, dried for 3 days on the window sill, nothing special at all.
Worked well.
The first stargun shot used a teaspoon of pulverone lift, which either blew it blind (doubtful) or lifted it so high I didn't catch it before it burnt out.
The second lift was only a pinch of pulverone and grossly under lifted it, but there was clearly good ignition.
The third lift was a 1/4 teaspoon of pulverone which was a little under lifted, but this is a fast burning star, so it is close to right.
The static test shows how fast it burns and density of the charcoal effect produced.
I got the general idea to try Chrysanthemum #6 from Matt's site. He, like myself, is stuck with a fairly small choice of chemicals, most obviously, no chlorates or perchlorates. So we both must make do with little more than Potassium Nitrate, still much can be achieved under this design constraint if you don't mind a lack of colours.
| title | type | size |
|---|---|---|
| Shot #1 | video/x-msvideo | 290.098 kbytes |
| Shot #2 | video/x-msvideo | 431.648 kbytes |
| Shot #3 | video/x-msvideo | 412.308 kbytes |
| Static Burn | video/x-msvideo | 748.754 kbytes |