How to Make Fireworks | Skylighter Fireworks Making

Make Black Powder: Quick, Cheap, Easy and High Quality

17 December 2010

At some point fairly early in every pyro career we realize we need to be able to make good black powder (BP) from scratch. BP is used in aerial fireworks shells as lift and burst powder. It is also used, in one way or another, in almost every other pyrotechnic device and component--mines, stars, black match, and the list goes on.

Everything You Need to Know to Start Making Fireworks Rockets

5 October 2010

22 Comments

Everything You Need to Know to Start Making Fireworks Rockets

Obviously, in this introduction to rockets, we won't be discussing military rockets, which have a long and rich history. Neither will we be discussing rockets designed for space exploration, which we'll leave to NASA. But leaving those aside, there is a wide variety of rocketry that folks can and do explore for purely recreational purposes. Such rockets include model rockets, amateur rockets, high-powered rockets, and fireworks rockets. The purpose of this article is to discuss fireworks rockets. However, in order to distinguish fireworks rockets from the other types, we will briefly mention and define each of these.

4-Ounce Black Powder Rockets

20 August 2010

50 Comments

"4-ounce" rockets? What does that mean? Well, if you're interested in the history of the term and some further background information on rockets in general, you can find it in the Introduction to Rockets article. But if you're more interested in getting started, let's go! Specifically, in this project we are going to make a 4-ounce (1/2-inch ID), nozzled, cored, stick-stabilized, black-powder skyrocket with a bag-shell heading.

New Products Announcement

6 August 2010

11 Comments

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.

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.

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 [...]

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

6 October 2009

100 Comments

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 [...]