I was cooking up some powder to make some home made bamboo roman candles. They are lots of fun. Well I thought I got it just a little too hot so I turned to get some water and just as soon as my face was clear of the pan on the hot plate it all went up. I only cooked a small amount at a time but still that flame scoreched my garage ceiling. I almost lost my good looks that day.
Bamboo roman candles.... I cant recall the perfect mix ratio but I know 50/50 works by volume just not well.
Get stump remover. Check the ingredients. It should be 99% potassium nitrate. Grind it in a morter and pestel. Poor in a container and do the same with regular household sugar. The finer the better. Then mix a small quantity in a non stick cooking pan and add water until its like mud. Powderize some charcoal and add until the mix has a dark grey color. ( I had experimented until I had proper ratios but its been years. )
Get a clear plastic face shield. WEAR IT!
Turn the hot plate on and heat it up and stir until the mix melts. It will have the consistency of melted plastic or drop biscuit dough.Thats when all the water is gone. Remove the pan from the plate and let cool until you can handle the still hot mix. Roll small balls of it in your palm. These will be the flame balls. Make them the diameter you want. Roll them until they are cool enough to not dent when set down. They will get rock hard when completely cool. Make as many as you like and store in a sealed container away from humidity, they suck water out the air.
Make a nother dry powder mix but dont add water, just mix with a stick. Light small quantities AWAY from everything else. Adjust the mixture until you have a good fast burn. Use this mix in your bamboo as the propellant.
Get a stick of bamboo with nodes far apart as you want the candle to be long. Cut so only one node is present and make it the bottom. Dont make the node flush with the cut. Leave enough stal at the bottom cut at an angle you can jam it in the ground to hold itself. Loosely tap about half an inch of powder in the bamboo. If you pack tight the burn slows too much. The drop one of the hard balls down and be ssure it hits the powder. The should be a loos fit but a close one. Then pack about an 1/8 inch on top of that firmer but dont over doo it or you will compress the loose powder under the ball, this gives a slower burn to allow some time between ballshots.
On top of the packed powder angain pour anbout a half inch, maybe a bit more ( play with single ball cannons until you get a good launch, the diameter will make differences. ) Drop another ball. Repeat until about two inches from the top. Get cannon fuse, and insert on top of the last ball. Pack powder around it tightly. A hot " glue " ball thats still plastic makes a nice cap when molded tightly over it all leaving the long fuse sticking out. Seal with wax to stop moisure. Insert in the ground, ligh fuse and run like heck!
They work well and I havent blown one up yet...... but perhaps I will try. Another thing to try is go to Wal-Mart camping section. Get the stuff you throw in camp fires to change the colours of your camp flame. Incorporate that into your ball mix to add colour.
I had some powder mix left over and didnt know what to do. I made a bamboo cracker.. Loosly packed powder in a cut arrow shaft with a node at the top. Fuse it and cap with a meted ball. Make around three inches long. They bang decent. I poured the rest into an old coconut i drank the water out of long ago and inserted a fuse. THAT WAS INTERESTING!
