Confessions of a Fireworks Man

Make a Festival Ball Fiberglass Mortar Rack

The Mighty Fourth is closing on us and you haven't even begun designing your fireworks display, right? "I've got plenty of time," you say.  And every year, you think to yourself, "Man! I need to buy more mortar racks." And every year you wait 'til the eleventh hour, and end up either reloading your mortars during the show, or worse, using the cheap cardboard mortar tubes that come with your reloadable shells! Well, why not invest an hour or two right now to get ready? Here's a nice little "do it yourself project" that you can finish in about an hour if you have everything ready to go.  This year you can get started early and paint the sky with festival balls the night of the Mighty Fourth of July!

20 shot, festival ball, fiberglass mortar rack

Materials needed:

• Baseboard:  1 pc. 1 x 5 plank, 23 inches long.
• End boards:  2 pcs. 1 x 5 planks, 11 inches long
• Center rails: 2 pcs. 1 x 2 furring strips, 21-1/2 inches long
• Side rails:  4 pcs. 3/8 inch thick plywood, cut
  2-1/2 x 32 inches
• 20 fiberglass festival ball mortar tubes (#PL3182)
• 46  pcs. 1-1/2 inch drywall screws

Tools Needed:

• Wood saw (table-saw or chop saw if you cut your own wood pieces)

Assembly:

Figure A:  Use mortar tubes to support
1 x 2 furring strip center rails while attaching to base.

Attach the end boards.  Screw the two 5 x 11 end boards to the outside edges of the 5 x 23 base board. (Set your screws through the bottom of the base board into the each end board--see figure A and B.) 

Figure B:  Screw placement for 1 x 2
center rail

Next, install the center rails.  Place one of the 21.5 inch furring strips on its edge, directly in the center of this base (see figure A). It's helpful to lay the base on its side and use several tubes as spacers to support this bottom center rail.  Then attach the rail by screwing through the ends and bottom, as shown in figure B. Attach the top center rail frame as shown in figure A, screwing into it from the end boards.

Figure C: Mortar tubes should fit flush
with each side of the base board in the unfinished frame

Check your spacing.  You should now be able to place mortar tubes on either side of the center rails with the edges of the mortar tubes flush with each edge of the base board as shown in figure C.

Figure D: Placement of lower side rail

Attach upper and lower side rails.  Stand your mortar rack up on its base (see figure C).  Screw one of the 2-1/2 x 32  plywood side rails to the base and end boards as in figure D. Once the lower side rail is screwed in place, attach one side of the upper side rail flush with the top corner of one end board as shown in figure E. If the rack is not completely square, pull in the opposite end flush with the side rail to square the sides--attach that end. Flip your mortar rack and attach side rails to the other side as well.

Figure E: Plywood side rails
screw attachment

Test fit the tubes in the finished frame. They should fit snugly, but you should be able to remove them for cleaning later on.

Safety:

The mortar rack you just finished may feel stable on a perfectly level, flat surface.  But it will need to be supported when it is in use. This can be done by adding support legs or braces to the ends of the mortar rack, or staking the mortar rack in place, or screwing several mortar racks together to form a larger footprint. It's not important how you secure your mortar racks, just that you do secure them.

The orientation of your mortar rack to the audience is critical to their safety. If a shell explodes inside a mortar tube, it will tend to blow out the weakest part of the mortar rack. The weakest part of this rack  are the plywood side rails. And if the side rails are blown out, this could mortar tubes to fall over. So, it is important to orient your mortar rack so that any falling tubes would be aimed away from your audience. This prevents mortar shells from being fired directly into the audience, which can be very dangerous. Therefore, when you set up your display, orient your mortar rack so one end board is facing the crowd.  See figure F below.

Figure F: Safest mortar rack orientation toward audience--perpendicular to them. In the
event of a failure the mortar tubes will fall parallel to your audience. Note stabilizers
on each end and stakes holding the mortar rack in place.

Connecting Electric Matches to Visco (Cannon) Fuse

About this time of year we get lots of questions about attaching electric matches to consumer fireworks. That's because more and more people are using electrical firing systems to fire their 4th of July consumer fireworks shows, even at home.  Here’s how to do it.

The Problem:
Electric matches made using Skylighter’s Electric Match Dip Kit (GN5050) and Electric Match Blanks (GN5040) put out a good amount of fire and can directly light visco fuse when connected end-to-end. Visco fuse is the green fuse used in most consumer fireworks (it is also called cannon fuse).  But just taping the electric match to the visco fuse is not 100% reliable, so the connection technique you use is critical. Here's a little trick that works quite well for me when connecting electric matches to visco fuse and has given me 100% ignition so far.

Materials needed:

• Consumer fireworks
• Electric matches ("ematches")
• Roll of clear packing tape or masking tape.
• Roll of quickmatch (GN3001) or Super-Fast Firecracker Fuse (GN1205)
• Razor blade

Assembly:

Cut visco fuse at an angle. Cut the firework's visco fuse on a sharp angle (as seen in figure A). This will expose more of the fuse's black powder core. If your device comes with a long visco fuse attached, you may want to cut it down to about an inch to reduce ignition delay.

Figure A:
Cut visco fuse at an angle

Create a quickmatch sleeve. Using a razor blade, cut a length of quickmatch about 1 inch longer than the fuse supplied with the consumer firework device.

Note: It's best to cut quickmatch with a razor blade or anvil cutters. Quickmatch can ignite from the friction of scissors cutting through it.

Slide quickmatch over device's fuse. Carefully slide the device's fuse into the center of the quickmatch sleeve. Slide the quickmatch sleeve all the way down so it covers the firework’s entire fuse.

Figure B:
Slide quickmatch over fuse

Insert electric match into quickmatch. Outside and away from people, hold the device so it is pointing away from you and any flammable material. Insert an electric match into the open end of the quickmatch to a depth of an inch (as in Figure C). You may need to slide back the electric match's protective plastic cap.

Note: Removing the electric match's protective cap may make inserting the ematch easier, but can cause ignition by friction. Insert the ematch's head slowly and gently.

Figure C:
Insert electric match

Tape quickmatch, and electric match to device. Secure the electric match to the side of the firework with clear packing tape covering both ends of the quickmatch, as in Figure D. Add a couple of extra wraps of tape to secure the electric match in place.

The tape serves two purposes:
1) It confines the burning gasses, increasing the burn rate.
2) It secures the ematch in place.

Tip: If you've never done an electrically fired fireworks display, just imagine people moving about in complete darkness with dozens of wires all around. It's inevitable that if you don’t completely secure each and every electric match someone will trip on "that" wire and pull the electric match free causing a misfire.

Figure D:
Tape electric match in place

How does it work?
When the electric match fires, the ematch sparks for only an instant. If the ematch sparks and fire do not directly hit the visco's black powder core, the electric match may fail to ignite the firework device. The blackmatch inside the quickmatch sleeve prevents this problem by carrying the fire forward, and increasing the amount of fire given to the visco fuse. This ensures that the slightest spark from your electric match will pass fire to the visco. The quickmatch’s outer paper wrap directs the fire downward through the tube like a flamethrower, lighting everything in its path, including the visco.

"But, I live too far away to pick up quickmatch..."
Having quickmatch on hand does make this process faster, but all you need to make this work is blackmatch and a homemade tube to direct the fire. Skylighter's GN1205 is a great source of blackmatch, unless you want to make your own.

What is GN1205, Super-Fast Paper Firecracker Fuse?
Well it's our fastest, shippable fuse. It burns at 1 foot per second! It consists of 3 strands of blackmatch with a light tissue paper wrapping. This tissue paper wrapping gives it a controlled fast burn great for chaining candle batteries, adding leaders to homemade festival balls, even chaining up your finale.

Harvesting blackmatch from GN1205. Gently peel the tissue paper off of the Super-Fast Firecracker Fuse as shown in Figure E.

Figure E:
How to remove blackmatch from Super-Fast Firecracker Fuse

Make a thin walled tube. You'll need a thin walled paper tube to hold the blackmatch, visco and electric match all in place. For this cut a 3 x 3 piece of copy paper, and roll it on a 3/8th inch dowel or anything about that diameter (a Bic pen works well). Use glue or tape to keep it closed.

Insert blackmatch into thin walled tube. Insert 6 strands of blackmatch into a thin walled paper tube (as seen in Figure F). If the blackmatch is long, cut it flush.

Figure F:
Insert blackmatch into tube

Continue by following quickmatch instructions above.

The proceeding tip provided by,
Brian P.
Skylighter

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