Harry Gilliam | Skylighter Fireworks Making

Author Archives | Harry Gilliam

Harry Gilliam - who has written 81 posts on Skylighter Fireworks Making.

New Products Announcement

6 August 2010

Realgar & Orpiment My old pal Bob Winokur has been doing some pyro-sleuthing and came up with a small stash of two pyro chemicals which are largely unobtanium now: Realgar and Orpiment, both arsenic compounds. He was able to supply us with a little of each. You can order it below. This has been an interesting process. Both of these chemicals are naturally occurring minerals.

Making 1.75-Inch Bag & Piston Mines

10 June 2010

2 Comments

This nifty new project shows you two methods for making mines. To make this project, you need: The supplies shown in the project below. Black powder, which you can make or buy locally. If you want to make your own, check out the Red Gum Black Powder project. Stars. This particular mine is small, and uses 3/8" stars. The two projects for making Rubber Stars are perfect for these, but any small stars will work.

What ARE you gonna do with all those Rubber Stars you’ll be making? Huh?

9 June 2010

10 Comments

What ARE you gonna do with all those Rubber Stars you’ll be making? Huh?

If you don't already have specific plans for them, you're gonna love the next fireworks projects from Ned Gorski. They can all use your new Rubber Stars. For Ned’s next act this week, he's gonna show you how to make two different kindsa mines.

How to Make a Rainbow of Rubber Stars

4 June 2010

42 Comments

The "rainbow" of star colors I'll be discussing here builds on the methods detailed in the How to Make Screen-Sliced Brilliant-Red Rubber Stars project to expand your color palette of star choices. Note: Be sure you learn and are familiar with that new way of making and priming stars before starting on this project! The screen-sliced rubber stars production method has significant advantages for the small-scale hobbyist:

How to Make Screen-Sliced, Brilliant-Red Rubber Stars

25 May 2010

100 Comments

Overview At a certain point, whether for fireworks aerial-shells, mines, roman candles, or rocket headings (or all of these), you’re going to need stars, and lots of them. In addition to spark-producing charcoal and glitter stars, you are going to want to be able to produce brightly colored stars to enhance and add variety to [...]

Stars & Shell Inserts: Garnitures

24 May 2010

24 Comments

“Garnitures.” Kind of an old-fashioned word, not heard very often in conversation. But, as used to describe the class of fireworks components we are about to look at, I’ll be darned if I can find a better word. From “Traditional Cylinder Shell Construction, Part I” by A. Fulcanelli, found in Pyrotechnica IX: “Garnitures. The general [...]

Star Warts

21 May 2010

68 Comments

I was in pig heaven when I got my new star rolling machine from John Smith. But the very first batch of stars came out looking like they had contracted a king-hell case of warts. Looked like raspberries – all bumpy all around. Actually, there was an easy fix, but I didn’t have a clue [...]

Insane Fireworks in Tultepec

10 March 2010

29 Comments

Every year about this time, the good people of Tultepec (about an hour north of Mexico City) stage the wildest and craziest fireworks event literally on the planet Earth. Click here: TultepecFireworks A whole buncha my pyro pals from the Florida Club are down there as I write this. And I am NOT. I HATE [...]

How to Make a Smoke Bomb the Failsafe Way—We Thought!

6 October 2009

102 Comments

How to Make a Smoke Bomb the Failsafe Way—We Thought!

Sometimes, learning how to make a smoke bomb using colored smoke can be tricky. Even if you already know how! Because even if you really do already know how to make a smoke bomb, you can still have problems getting your colored smoke to work…problems you may not expect. How to Make a Smoke Bomb [...]

Fireworks Chemical Milling – Fast

6 October 2009

14 Comments

Chemical milling, that is, reducing the particle size of powdered chemicals is part of fireworks making. No matter how find and free flowing chemicals are when you first buy then, many of them can and will turn to stone like blocks over time. And as you can read from the little lesson above, they can [...]

Give Me Just 30 Days & I Will Teach You How To Make Incredible Fireworks That Will Amaze You, Your Family & Your Friends...

	Even if you are a complete beginner
	Even if you know nothing about fireworks today
	Even if you have tried to make fireworks before and failed (it's NOT your fault, I'll show you why)