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PGI Grandmaster Ned Gorski teaches you how to make a firework star pattern shell.

   

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xlack Powder Coated Rice Hulls

Copper Carbonate (CH8087)
0extrin (CH8107)
agnalium, -200 mesh (CH2073)
Paper Hemispheres, 8-inch (PS2080)
Parlon (CH8210)
Potassium Perchlorate (CH5400)
Red Gum (CH8230)
ime Fuse (GN2010)
issue Paper

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A shell which bursts with a ring pattern, a smiley-face, or a star pattern can be a unique and
creative addition to a fireworks display. Suddenly, after a procession of fairly typical full,
spherical shell bursts, a simple ring of stars, or a display of four or five of them fired
simultaneously, changes the focus of attention of the audience. "Hey, here's something
different," they'll think to themselves.

Pattern Shell with a Star Inside a Ring

Pattern shells have some distinct advantages and disadvantages to their construction. hey don't
use nearly the quantity of stars that a fully loaded shell would use, so if I have a few stars of a
particular size and color, they might come in useful in a pattern shell. Patterns can be chosen to
coincide with a particular theme in a show, with blue stars in a patriotic section, or pink hearts in
a romantic interlude.
On the other hand, it will be hit-or-miss when it comes to the pattern's orientation in the sky
when the shell bursts. he smiley-face may display upside-down, or the ring may be seen on
edge by a portion of the audience, looking more like a simple line in the sky. For this reason,
most display designers choose to fire 4, 5, or 6 of the same or similar patterns at the same time.
hat will usually result in the audience in a particular location seeing at least 1 or 2 of them in
the desired orientation.

Six Ring Pattern Shells, With Only Three Oriented Toward the Camera
If 6 ring-pattern shells of different colors are fired at once, the audience at one end of the field
may see, say, the blue and red ones as true rings, and imagine all of them being the same
shape.
Ring shells can use simple color stars, which leave no tail behind them, as in the photo above, or
tailed stars can be employed, as below.

 C Escher's Lithograph, "Vuurwerk" (Fireworks)

his Escher print, "Vuurwerk," is on the cover of Pyrotechnica XI. It shows a pattern I would
expect a ring shell of slow-burning, silver-tailed stars to display. It would have to be oriented so
that the ring broke "flat" in order to display the "parasol" of stars just right.
A small rising tail produces the "handle" to the umbrella.
An advantage to using patterns such as rings, stars, squares or triangles is that they can break
in many directions that still have them look correct, as long as they don't break on-edge to the
viewer. A smiley-face has to break in just the right direction to be recognizable.
he star-in-a-ring pattern shown below would look correct if it was rotated any number of
degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise. It would also look fine if it was flipped 180 degrees front
to back. he only way it would not show up well is if it broke on-edge to the viewer.

Star in a Ring Pattern Shell

y friend, ike x., made the heart-pattern shell shown below. While it did not break on-edge to
the audience, unfortunately it did break almost upside-down. he fortunate thing about hearts is
that they look good in almost any orientation, and the audience can make out what they are
supposed to be representing.

eart Pattern Shell


 
 

 
I want to make a blue star-pattern shell. I don't want to make my stars much smaller than 3/8inch in diameter, so that they burn long enough to allow the pattern to show up. Additionally,
ball shells break more symmetrically than cylinder shells. For these reasons, I've settled on
assembling an 8-inch ball shell for this project. With 3/8-inch stars, a smaller shell simply
wouldn't allow the use of enough stars to create a nice star pattern.

he general construction techniques I'll be using when assembling and finishing this shell were
detailed in Fireworks ips #92, #93 and #94. I'll be using 1/4-inch time-fuse in this shell,
though, instead of a spolette. he use of time-fuse was explained in Fireworks ips #99.
he first thing I did was draw a pattern of the stars that would fit the inside diameter of one of
my 8-inch shell casings, which has an I0 of 7.25 inches. 360 degrees divided by 5 gave me 72
degrees between each of the points of the 5-pointed star, which I measured out with my
protractor.
y 3/8-inch pumped stars actually end up being about 7/16-inch in diameter once they are
primed, so I drew lines of that size star on my pattern. Precision in these initial planning stages,
right through the actual construction of the shell, will result in a more precise star-pattern in the
sky when the shell bursts.

Star Pattern for an 8-Inch Ball Shell

I took a piece of tissue paper, cut a circle out of it about 1/2-inch larger in radius than my
drawing above, and traced the star pattern onto it.

Star Pattern Traced Onto Tissue Paper

hen I made some blue stars. Fireworks ips #92 and #93 included instructions for making and
priming pumped stars.

Although I didn't need a large number of these stars, it was important that all the stars were
consistent in size. For this reason I used a 3/8-inch star plate to make a pound of the Shimizu
xlue star included in the table of formulas in Fireworks ips #97.

Shimizu xlue Star Formula

Potassium Perchlorate
Copper Carbonate
Parlon
Red Gum
0extrin

Percentage

16-ounce batch

0.61
0.12
0.13
0.09
0.05

9.75
1.9
2.1
1.45
0.8

ounces
ounces
ounces
ounces
ounces

450-gram batch
274.5
54
58.5
40.5
22.5

grams
grams
grams
grams
grams

I dampened this composition with an additional 10% water, and pumped and dried the stars. I
primed them with the black powder "meal prime" which is also in that formula table cited above.
I add an additional 5% of 200-mesh magnalium to the prime, which improves the ignition of
perchlorate stars.






As I said above, the shell was constructed in the standard fashion, except for the details below.
Once I had the time-fuse and passfire-tube installed in the shell casing, I hot-glued a 1.5-inch
wide tissue paper ring inside each hemisphere at the equator. hese bands served the purpose
of locking the shell's contents into the hemispheres later on when I closed the shell.

Tissue Paper Bands ot-Glued at the Equators of Each emisphere

hen I filled the fused hemisphere with black-powder-coated rice hulls, folded the tissue-paper
band over onto the hulls, and hot-glued a tissue-paper disc onto the whole shebang to cover and
seal it. As I loaded the hemi with the coated hulls, I packed them tightly one layer at a time to
make sure the casing was solidly filled. I also filled the hemi slightly higher than the equator.
his half of the shell held 29.4 ounces (825 grams) of the coated hulls.

Fused Shell emisphere Filled With Black-Powder-Coated Rice ulls

hen I filled the un-fused hemi with coated rice hulls up to within about 3/8 inch of the rim. I
made sure the rice hulls were tightly packed and very level. his filling was loosely capped off
with the tissue paper disc which had the star-pattern traced on it.

Second Shell emisphere Filled to Within 3/8 Inch of Rim, and Capped With Star Patterned Tissue
Paper Disc
Starting with the points of the star, blue stars were lightly hot-glued onto the tissue pattern.
hese stars only had a small dot of hot glue put on them where they touched the pattern. Just
before the shell bursts, the tissue paper disintegrates and the stars are free to fly out in the star
shape.

ot-Gluing Blue Stars Onto Tissue Paper Pattern

hen I filled in around the stars with more black-powder-coated hulls, tightly filling all the voids
and bringing the level of the rice hulls slightly above the rim of the casing. his hemi actually
took about 35 ounces (1000 grams) of the coated rice hulls, for a total of about 4 pounds (1800
grams) in the whole shell. his was all capped with another hot-glued disc of tissue paper.

Black-Powder-Coated Rice ulls Filled in around Blue Stars, Both emispheres Capped and Ready to
be ated

xecause the tissue paper rings and discs were glued to the shell casing hemispheres, it was easy
to flip one of the hemis over onto the other and close the shell up, ready for pasting, lifting and
leadering.
With the blue stars sandwiched between the layers of tissue paper, with the rice hulls really
packed in tightly and the hemis overfilled and slowly tapped and brought together, the star
pattern was held firmly in place.
I've developed a nifty trick for bringing the stuffed hemis together at the equator. I use 4 strapclamps, available at Home 0epot or stores which cater to woodworkers.
As the clamps are slowly tightened, tapping the shell with a solid, heavy rod brought the two
halves together and solidly packed the contents. hen the joint was closed with strips of
masking tape. his method is so much easier than "laying" on the shell while tapping it in order

to close it.

Closing an Aerial Shell Using Strap-Clamps and asking Tape

]
 I use a non-sparking, aluminum rod for tapping on the shell. xut, the metal strapclamp parts are not non-sparking. I'm working around relatively exposed black powder on rice
hulls during this process. I'm very careful to avoid smacking the metal clamp ratchets, which
could potentially cause sparks.
hen I pasted the shell, allowed it to dry, and lifted and leadered it. A small rising comet tail was
attached to direct the viewer's eye toward where the shell will break.

Completed 8-Inch Star Pattern Aerial Fireworks Shell

When I shot this shell, it did indeed break a bit on its "side" relative to the camera, as shown in
the photo below. here were viewers down and to the left of the shell-burst, and they said that
the star really looked nice, big, and symmetrical.

Star Pattern Shell Bursting

Oh, well, maybe I'll get to see it next time.

Here's a link to a video of the shell in action.