I was wondering if you could give a bit of insite into the different types of woods used for charcoal. A long time ago I was able to find a website (about pyro golf) that compared nearly every type of wood imaginable but unfortunately, I can’t seem to find it anymore. There was a huge variation between some of the different types of wood and it would be great to know which ones to use and which ones to stay away from!

In this article I see that you prefer Willow as the “pyro’s choice”, but it seems that your Pine works very well also. I purchased a large quantity of Airfloat at this year’s PGI Convention (great price!) not giving much thought to its results as lift powder.

I initially purchased the airfloat simply for stars and prime, but now I am wondering if it will be suitable for lift or not. The bags are labeled “Poplar Airfloat” however I have not seen anyone speak of Poplar (good or bad) and just wondering what your experience is with it if any. I am also very curious as to how you create your “pucks”, do you have access to some type of machine shop that tells you how many PSI you are applying? Again, as an amateur I don’t have all the resources that you and the rest of the master builders have and am left wondering if there is a more simple way using some type of cheap press? Or even making my own with a simple hydrolic jack?!

Thanks again, I look forward to hearing your response! (even if it isn’t what I want to hear…)

I think, that you can answer my really unusual question. I just want to shoot up a big cylinder shell and I have almost no idea about the amount of the lifter charge. I have searched a lot after this, but there was almost no helpful information, so I need to ask someone who is much more experienced than me.
The shell has a 400mm diameter and a 550mm height. The wall of the shell is 8mm wide and it is made from sticked wrapped paper. At the bottom it is 12mm and there is also an 8mm extra plywood layer.

The effect will be
-46 piece of 90mm x 125mm multi break cylinder shell with 1,5 second delay in 4 colors.
-4000g off D1 stars
-2 piece of 90mm x 125mm salute shell with 4 second delay.
-1000g of bursting charge what will be black powder coated rice hulls.
The total weight of the bomb will be 31000-32000 gramms.
At the end there will be 5 centimeters of extra wave board layer to the bottom as a pressure inhibitor.

The question would be the amount of the lifting charge.
The fireworks what I made the amount of the lifting charge was 8% of the bombs weight. This was fairly enough at the 150mm shells.
The gunpowder what I use is +50% stronger than the Chinese one. The measurements were made in a pressure chamber, so with equal amount of black powder my one produced +50% pressure.
If I calculate on the same way as I did with the smaller shells, than 2500g of black powder would be needed, what is so much, that there is no shell what would survive it.
If I calculate the amounts as a maltese firework, than for the 30000g weight shell only 600g black powder would be needed what is not enough as I think, because the maltese bomb has only 200 diameter, so it don’t have so much air drag and in that case not just the lifter charge lifts the bomb, the additional explosions after the shoot up also helps the firework to get up.

I will make a test shoot also. The test bomb will be filled with sand powdered paint.

And there would be another question, about the delay charge. As I calculated 5-6 seconds would be enough. What do you think?

With greetings,

Csaba Csörgő (col100000) Hungary