Microstars

From PyroGuide

Posted on behalf of MDH (Composition Creator) @ www.pyrosociety.org

I kept the "Average user" in mind when making these star compositions. Meaning that making these stars is fairly simple.

Anyways, to the formulas:

Red, Green, Yellow, Pink/Orange Microstars

Potassium perchlorate	70
Shellac	10
Parlon	10
Metallic Carbonate	20
Dextrin	3-5

Note

Metallic Carbonate refers to the carbonate of the metal of the desired colour i.e. barium carbonate for green, strontium carbonate for red etc.

Method:

Diaper or screen the components together. Once they are thoroughly mixed, dampen it with water and mix it until it is like a wet dough (not a slurry). Press the composition as a dough onto a flattened piece of wax sheet. Once the composition is dry, bend the wax sheet to granulate the composition.

Blue Microstars

I tried making blues with the above composition but they came off more as off-lilac. Not a very good colour...

Potassium perchlorate	70
Parlon	10
Copper sorbate	20
Dextrin	3-5

Method

Same as above. Screen it through a 100 mesh screen until no lumps are visible, which should be easy to tell as copper sorbate has a vividly candy blue colour, then wet it to a dough. Roll it into 3mm stars or granulate it once dry. Leaves a bit of black ash showing an excess of fuel, but the blue colour is at its best with this composition.

And the burst composition for these, which I have mentioned before but has been optimized quite a lot:

Potassium perchlorate	60
Potassium sorbate	38
Iron oxide (red)	2

Method

Crush the potassium sorbate into a fine powder and gently diaper the ingredients together. You could probably granulate it with dextrin but it is not necessary. Adding higher fuel values such as 50-48-2 will actually increase the burn rate significantly and may suit salutes better.

IMPORTANT NOTE

This composition is extremely powerful, much like flash powder in its behavior. Take caution while handling it. Be gentle. It may also be necessary to replace 50% by weight of this composition with green mix to slow it down in smaller devices.

Substituting 50% of the copper sorbate in the blue formula with other chemicals will yield variants of blue such as aquamarine or purple but may also decrease the burn rate.

These stars are good for inserts. I'm producing a star mine of about 20-30 small 3/4" cardboard inserts which will open into hundreds of blue, green, yellow and red stars at apex.