Can mere mortals make sky lanterns?

I gotta admit, I’ve seen sky lanterns around for several years. I’ve seen ‘em advertised right here by Skylighter. Have seen them at displays and club events. But, honestly I never gave them much thought, and I wasn’t much tempted to buy any.

But, then I saw the latest Skylighter ad for them, and I thought, “I wonder how sky lanterns are made.” Ya see, one of the things I enjoy most is learning how something is made. I watch This Old House and The New Yankee Workshop, just to see how they do stuff, even though I’ve been doing that kind of work myself for a living for 30 years.

So, I had Harry send some of the flying lanterns to me. By the time they arrived on my doorstep, I was excited to see them. I opened the package up, looked at the treetops to make sure there wasn’t too much wind blowing, and I hustled my wife and granddaughter outside to fire the first one up.

I enjoyed finding out how to light the paper lantern, and how to let it inflate and launch it. And, the three of us really did have fun watching it lift off, and then gazing at it for minutes until it flew out of sight and we couldn’t see it any more. Then I quickly got another one out and launched it as well.

My son and his family came over last Sunday, and I knew I just had to demonstrate these new toys for my grandsons. The photos below say it all.

So, now, back to my original quest: How to make sky lanterns.

Note: I’m gonna tell you how I ended up successfully making these homemade paper hot-air balloons. But, as with any pyro project, I learned some lessons the hard way, and I had some significant failures. I’ll note these as I go along in this hot paper tale.

Sky Lantern Autopsy

Bamboo is about 1/16″ x 1/8″

X of thin wire tied to hoop

X of wire is “woven” through waxed cloth and paper “burner”

The burner is composed of a 2.5″ x 17″ piece of wax-impregnated cloth, folded in Z-fashion back on itself 5 times.

In between each Z-fold of the waxed cloth are five 2.25″ x 3″ pieces of thin, coarse-fiber paper, about the weight of 40# kraft paper.

(The cloth/paper burner smells “nice,” sort of like the scent of roses. Maybe the young Chinese lady who made this one was wearing some fragrant perfume.)

Note: I have also seen sky lantern burners, which resemble fiber-reinforced blocks of wax. I don’t know how they are made and have not tried to duplicate them.

The “bag” of the balloon is made up of white tissue paper. This paper has been treated with a fire retardant; it does not catch fire when touched by a flame. It just scorches a bit.

The tissue paper bag weighs 1.5 ounces.

There are four panels (called gores in the ballooning world) that make up the balloon, and they are glued together and to the bamboo hoop.

Here’s a sketch of one of the gores, with a bit added to the edges to allow for gluing.

I flew one of these fire-lanterns in my high-tech, windless wind-tunnel (actually my garage, emptied of any gas cans or other combustibles). I tethered the Chinese lantern to a weight with some very thin, light string as it burned. The fuel pack burned for 4.5 minutes.

I added 0.05-ounce pieces of wire, one at a time, to the bottom wire “X” of the balloon as it “flew,” and found it would carry 0.25 ounce of payload before starting to sag toward the ground garage floor. That 0.25 ounce, added to the paper-lantern’s original weight of 2.7 ounces, added up to a maximum flying weight of 2.95 ounces for a lantern with this internal volume.

It is the internal volume of a paper hot-air balloon, and the heated air it can contain as well as how much that air is heated, which determines its maximum carrying capacity.

Note: The information above is important. These flying lanterns are delicately balanced for flight, and they are just light enough to allow them to fly. If they were much heavier, they would not leave the ground. Due to some circumstances, which I describe below, my first balloon ended up weighing 3.9 ounces, and obviously would not have flown.

So, let’s make a paper sky lantern

I went up to my local Hallmark store and bought some nice tissue paper in different colors.

Some checking online produced some leads on products designed to flameproof paper. One company, Universal Fire-Shield (www.firechemicals.com), sells a product, Universal Paper Shield P-3000, designed to fireproof paper products. I ordered some. They sell a quart spray bottle for about $30, including shipping. This would be enough to treat about a dozen paper hot-air balloons.

I hung 4 pieces of the red tissue paper on a clothesline, and sprayed them with the Paper Shield until they were saturated. After they were dry, I tried to burn a little piece of the paper, and it only scorched like the original fire-lantern paper, but it would not burn.

Note: On my third attempt to make one of these paper lanterns, I decided to try to spray the untreated bottom half of the balloon after it was assembled, in order to skip the step described above. I hung it up, slightly inflated it with my heat-gun, and started spraying it. The tissue paper soon started to weaken, sag, and tear, ruining the balloon. Crud! Another lesson learned.

I decided that the process of hanging the panels like laundry works best. The upper corners of the sheets will be cut off when the gores are cut out, so I don’t spray those areas because they get weak when they are wet, and allow the clothespins to tear through the paper and sometimes that has the paper to tear loose from the string.

Warning: Paper Shield has an acid in it, and it will damage a concrete garage floor slightly. It’s best to have a plastic drop cloth under the clothesline to protect the floor. Don’t breathe its fumes or get it on your skin.

The red tissue will be the bottom of the paper hot-air balloon, which will be the only part that gets exposed to the flame. The top of the balloon will be blue paper, and it does not need to be treated.

I glued a piece of the red paper to a piece of the blue with thin stripes of Elmer’s, and I did that four times for the four panels, and let the panels dry.

Note: The Elmer’s glue tends to wet the tissue paper, bleeds through, and tries to stick to the other stuff around it. In an attempt to avoid this problem, I used hot glue when building my first balloon. This worked nicely during construction, but when I fired that baby up, the hot-glued seams at the top of the balloon let go completely. I did not think the internal temperature would get high enough to cause this problem. I was wrong. (My wife, Molly, told me later on that she wondered about me using the hot glue, and that she thought it would melt when the burner was lit. Oh, well.) The hot glue, which is significantly heavier than the dried Elmer’s, also contributed to the excess weight of the first model.

After gluing the red and blue sheets together and letting them dry, I cut the four panels out with scissors, using a kraft paper template that I made based on the sketch above. Folding the kraft paper in half lengthwise, and then every 6″ made the pattern transfer easy.

Then it was time to glue the lantern gores together to form the Thai-lantern’s “bag.” I laid one of the gores, unfolded and open, on the worktable with the inside up. (The outside of the gore is simply the side that I think looks best.) Then I laid a gore, outside up, on top of the first gore, weighed the two down, and glued the right sides together with a thin stripe of Elmer’s. The table had waxed paper on it so that any glue that seeps through wouldn’t stick to it.

I then folded the top gore’s loose side over on itself, so that half’s inside was facing up, inserted some waxed paper between the glued side and this loose side, and laid the third gore on top of that one. I glued those two loose edges together, inserted more waxed paper, folded the loose half of the third gore over, laid the fourth and final panel on top, and glued those loose edges.

Then the last step was to fold the loose half of the top, fourth gore, over on itself, and fold the loose half of the bottom, first gore over onto it, and glue the loose halves together. (This all sounds much more complicated than it actually is. Once you try it, it’ll all make sense.)

Then I pulled the glued edges up and off all the waxed papers, propped the panels apart from each other and from the table, and allowed the seams to dry.

Another Failure Note: On my first attempt to build one of these, I tried gluing the bag together with the panels inside out. I let the seams dry, and then I tried to turn the bag right side out, so that the seams would be hidden. This probably would have worked OK, but the fireproofed red tissue paper was somewhat brittle because of the fire-treatment, and as I tried to turn it inside out, it started to tear and crack at the bends and creases. I had to try to repair these tears with clear packing tape, which increased the lantern’s weight, and made it ugly, and not something to be proud of. I decided to simply allow the seams to be on the outside of the bag in future models, and avoid the “turning inside-out” step.

Making the sky lantern’s bamboo hoop

Home Depot had some 1″ diameter bamboo poles in their lawn and garden department. I bought one and carefully split it into thin strips. I took one of the strips and smoothed it with sandpaper and a razor knife until it was about the dimension of the original lantern’s bamboo. I only sanded the “interior” side of the bamboo because I did not want to weaken the smooth, exterior side of it. Then I glued it into a hoop with the same circumference of the original.

Another source of good bamboo strips is from a “Tiki-Torch” pole. These are often split to obtain bamboo strips for girandola frames, wheel frames, and the like. (Or you can steal some green bamboo from Harry Gilliam’s bamboo-infested front yard.)

Making the Sky Lantern Burner

I had some blue, industrial paper-towels, and I decided to melt some grocery-store canning-wax, and impregnate the towels with the wax in an attempt to duplicate the waxed fabric that I found in the original fire-lantern’s burner.

Warning: Canning (paraffin) wax is very flammable, and should only be melted over low heat in a double boiler. It should never be exposed to open flames or high heat.

I took a strip of this waxed paper towel, and burned it alongside a strip of the waxed material from the original lantern’s burner. Both samples burned identically and for the same amount of time.

I had some coarse, recycled kraft paper, and cut it into rectangles to match the original burner’s paper layers. Then I cut some strips of the waxed paper towel to match the original burner, and sandwiched 5 pieces of the kraft paper in between each layer of the waxed paper-towel.

Then I stacked the layers of the burner together, punched 4 holes through all the layers with an awl, and threaded two pieces of wire through the holes.

The ends of the wire were then wrapped around the bamboo hoop and twisted tightly to secure the ends. The hoop was then carefully glued into the end of the lantern’s tissue paper bag, and the glue was allowed to dry.

A simple alternative burner can be made by simply installing a plain X of wire on the bamboo hoop. Then strips of cotton-ball like material can be saturated with rubbing alcohol, draped over the center of the wire X, and ignited when launching the balloon. But keep in mind, you have to use this method right away; the alcohol fuel evaporates, and these have no “shelf life.”

All that remained, then, was the installation of the “FAA” aircraft identification numbers, and a flight in the “test chamber.”

This paper hot-air balloon’s final weight was 3.0 ounces. At about 50-degrees F in my garage, it was able to carry a payload of .55 ounces of the wire pieces before it started to sag toward the ground.

After this testing, some soot and moisture condensed on the inside of the lantern. I was able to allow it to dry out, attach a new burner, and fly it outdoors for real. It was about 40-degrees F outside on the evening that we flew it, and it really took off for the heavens very quickly.

Note: The flying lantern in on the right, Molly is on the left. The fact that Molly’s attire matched the balloon she was launching was entirely coincidental. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Conclusions

This was a fun and educational project. I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do, when making one of these little hot-air balloons. This project was not as easy as it might look.

Based on my experience with flying the paper lanterns tethered in my garage, I think it would be fun to fly one outdoors in windless conditions, tethered by a short wire leader and a roll of light thread. It could be flown like a kite, reeled back in when the burner burns out, reloaded and flown again.

This project resulted in me having a high amount of respect for the folks overseas who turn these things out by the thousands, which fly successfully every time. I’m continually amazed by the low cost of a device like this, sold by Skylighter, compared with the time and materials I invested in producing a successful one.

It was fun to make these lanterns, and I enjoy knowing how to do it. If I had to come up with a bunch of ‘em for an event like a wedding, holiday, or memorial service, I sure wouldn’t be making them, though.

Happy Flying, and Stay Green,

Ned

How to Make Chinese Sky Lanterns is a post from: Confessions of a Fireworks Man

Consumer Fireworks Display: Firework Waterfall, Firecracker and Star Set Pieces is a post from: Confessions of a Fireworks Man

Many of us really enjoy producing a nice fireworks display to entertain our family and friends, and to show off our pyro talents.

Over the past few weeks we’ve discussed making small Cremora fireball pots for such a show, and electric matches to use when firing them.

For many years a buddy of mine has hosted a large party, with a hog-roast and a bonfire, which has brought in hundreds of folks. I’ve presented a fireworks show annually at this event to cap off the festivities.

There’s nothing quite like putting in many hours of work and to have it result in that many people-adults and children-sitting in rapt awe as the show goes on, and erupting in joyful cheering at its completion.

I’ve had many folks compliment these small shows, comparing them favorably with the huge, commercial, downtown displays on the river. There’s just something about a small, intimate, family-and-friends setting, ending up with a nicely planned pyro display, all resulting in a really memorable event.

In the end, this demonstration of our pyrotechnic creativity, talent, hard work, and experience, and the entertaining of others with all of it, is really what this art form is all about.

To insure a safe and successful consumer fireworks display, there are some topics which merit consideration in the planning process:

• What are the laws governing such fireworks displays in my particular state, county, or city? Is there a requirement to have insurance for such a show?
• What is the site like where the display is to be presented? What sorts of fireworks devices will be appropriate and safe at that site?
• What is the budget for the show? Who will be paying for the fireworks, and when?
• Will the display be shot with accompanying music or not?
• Will the display be fired by hand, electrically, or with a combination of the two?
• Who will be helping with the display?
• What will be the length of the show?
• What devices will be employed in the show, and how will they be laid out at the site?
• What safety precautions are necessary?
• Will there be any reloading of fireworks during the show?
• How can we prepare for inclement weather?

All of this might sound like a bit of “overkill” to some of you. Having been involved in the planning and production of many small “backyard” displays and large commercial ones, I have learned the value of planning and getting as much of the work done prior to the day of the show as possible.

It’s quite amazing how much work there is to be done on the day of the show. If the above topics are addressed beforehand, and if enough work is done before the day of the show, then the chances of a safe, successful and enjoyable show are greatly improved.

This ain’t a fun subject, but it might be the one which can save you a lot of heartbreak and wasted money.

In the USA, there is no federal law regulating the use of consumer fireworks, only their production and sale.

But laws vary widely from state to state, and from locality to locality. In my state of Ohio, the display of all but “safe and sane” consumer fireworks is illegal. But around the Fourth of July many local law enforcement agencies look the other way unless they get a lot of complaints from neighbors.

In some other states anything goes. In others if you fire off a bottle rocket you’ll end up in the slammer pretty quickly, have all your fireworks confiscated and perhaps your car and home as well.

Only you can research your state and local laws, and determine for yourself what you can and cannot do.

Here in Ohio, I’ve chosen to get my state fireworks display operator’s license, to procure the necessary fireworks display permits, and to have a certificate of insurance for any display I produce. This gets the authorities-having-jurisdiction (AHJ’s) on my side, and I avoid having to be looking over my shoulder and waiting for the cop cars to pull up during the show.

And, if God forbid, there’s any property damage or injury, my permit and insurance are there to back me up.

Where will I be shooting the display? How big is the area; where will the spectators be; how close are the nearest structures and trees; how dry is the surrounding vegetation; and what sorts of fireworks will be safe to display there?

Some measurements with a measuring-wheel, and a simple sketch of the site can help a lot with the planning of the show.

On the sketch, I define the areas where the crowd will be. I show where I’m going to erect a barrier of stakes and caution tape, beyond which the spectators will not be allowed.

I also measure off the minimum distances needed to maintain safe separation between the crowd and the various fireworks devices. NFPA 1123 is the code which establishes these distances. These measurements not only insure compliance with the law, they also help insure the safety of the crowd during the display. These distances are as follows:

75 feet for ground display fireworks like fountains, strobes, small wheels, etc.

125 feet for large wheels with powerful drivers, and other powerful ground fireworks.

125 feet for smaller multi-shot cakes, etc.

70 feet per inch of tube ID for Roman candles, aerial shell mortars, larger multi-shot cakes, etc. (i.e., 125 feet for 1.75″ artillery shells, 210 feet for 3″ shell mortars, etc.)

I then determine the maximum size of the fireworks that I can use in a display fired at this site. I keep these limits in mind as I select the product for my show.

These separation distances assume that mortars, cakes, etc., are securely supported and/or barricaded. This protects the crowd from debris fallout and from a falling “dud” shell or device. If a mortar is not securely supported, falls over, and fires directly at the spectators, these distances will not insure their safety. Therefore, care must be taken to securely place and support mortars and cakes in the field prior to firing.

You’ll notice that rockets are not mentioned in the above safe-distance specifications. Rockets are not typically used in professional displays any longer due to safety issues regarding the fallout of sticks and spent-motors. Rockets are used often in consumer fireworks displays, though.

Often the flight of a rocket is unpredictable even if it is fired from a secure, stable, and vertical launch support. I personally would not fire rockets in a show unless I could insure that the spent rockets absolutely would not be coming down on the upturned faces of spectators as they watch the show, or on parked vehicles. Injury and insurance claims are not on my list of “fun things” at a fireworks show.

You can see from all of the above that I take all of this seriously. Many of us see multiple examples every year of folks who have had a bit too much to drink, take some cakes and mortar tubes out to the back yard or into the cul-de-sac, have adults with kids standing in front of them about 30 feet away, and start firing away, whooping and hollering.

Most folks get away with this. Some do not. They either hurt themselves, or worse, some innocent bystander. And, as a result, fireworks get more of a bad reputation. Nothing would take the fun out of all of this more quickly for me than hurting some kid with my “hobby.” I suppose I can’t emphasize the safety aspects of this enough.

How much can I spend on fireworks for my planned display?

Really! We’ve all gone into a fireworks shop, planning on picking up a couple of bags of fireworks for 50 bucks, and have walked out pushing two shopping carts full of brightly colored boxes after writing a check for $250.

Do you want your wife to be talking to you on the day of the show, and sitting there enjoying your artistry, with the house payment paid in full? Yeah, sometimes all of this feels a bit like an addiction, but I have to balance it in with all the other responsibilities in my life, and I hate fighting with my wife.

It might be $200 or $2000, but the budget helps a lot when it comes to actually picking out the fireworks to be shot the night of the display.

Will I be paying for the fireworks all by myself, or will some friends be pitching in? It is probably a good idea to get a commitment, and even the cash up front before the shopping trip.

Just a few things to think about.

It can be a lot of fun to record a soundtrack to be played during the fireworks show. On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice to just shoot the fireworks all by themselves, enjoying their rhythm and beat, and playing the whistles, reports, soft fountain hissing, color breaks, and rocket whooshes one after another.

I like to shoot a show to music if possible. In the kind of show we are discussing, I’ll simply choose some music based on the following criteria, and pick product that goes along with it. I don’t try to get pin-point precision choreography. I’ll save that for large, computer-fired shows.

Individual song download services like Napster and ITunes can be invaluable for finding and procuring great soundtrack songs.

One thing that I really think keeps an audience interested and entertained is variety. Folks are used to watching movies and television where there are ups and downs of emotion and action. Drama involves tension and relaxation, hard and soft, loud and quiet, slow build-up and climax. A good fireworks display will include the same.

We have found that, in general, 1-2 minutes of a particular song will keep an audience’s attention. After that length of time, their minds will start to wander.

I think it’s also important to keep the music recognizable. There are going to be loud fireworks going off which will obscure any music playing. I like to use a lot of hard-beats so folks can at least hear the beat of the song, and I also like to incorporate music in the soundtrack that folks will easily recognize and be able to follow along with.

Here are some possible musical themes to which appropriate fireworks can be choreographed:

• Patriotic songs: National Anthem, Taps, America the Beautiful, I’m Proud to be an American, etc. (Red/White/Blue fireworks, fountains, waterfalls, etc.)
• Kids’ songs: Lion King’s “Circle of Life,” “Ghostbusters,” “Linus and Lucy,” theme from Charlie Brown, etc.
• Slow beginning beat: The beginning of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (strobes)
• Light, humorous songs: YMCA, disco songs, etc. (aerial shells, cakes)
• Soft operatic songs: “O Mio Babbino Caro,” Andrea Bocelli’s “Por Ti Volare,” Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Over the Rainbow” (falling leaves cakes/shells, soft shells one at a time)
• Dramatic songs: “Theme from the Last of the Mohicans,” Pirates of the Caribbean music, etc. (cakes and shells)
• Hard-beat finale songs: Hard Rock, Led Zepplin, Iron Butterfly, Queen, Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” etc. (hard-break and report finale cakes and shells,firecracker wall/tree)

There are, of course, too many songs and types of music to even begin mentioning them all, but the list above might suggest a place to start. One facet of a fireworks display which I really enjoy is the editing of a soundtrack which includes parts of 10-20 songs which I hope will entertain the crowd as fireworks go off to them.

I use Sound Forge
audio editing software to cut, splice, and edit my soundtracks. I’m sure there are other programs out there, many of which can be obtained for free, with which we can assemble a fun soundtrack for our show. A final firing-script with firing times is used to fire the show.

Large, precisely-timed displays are typically fired electrically, and often the firing is controlled by a computer program. This is a bit out of the range of most small display operators. But manual electrical firing can easily be incorporated into some or all of the show to improve the pace and the timing of the show, and to insure that particular fireworks are fired at exactly the desired moment.

The size of the firing system(s) will determine the number of cues (individual ignitions) you can incorporate into the display. If you only have a 12-cue system, there will be a maximum of 12 individual firings that you can have in the show, and the same goes for a 144-cue system.

But with creative fusing techniques it is possible, to greatly expand the number of fireworks and the duration of the display segment that is fired with each cue, though. We will be expanding on that idea in a soon-to-come Fireworks Tips article.

Some local fireworks clubs have yearly competitions in which a whole show is laid out on a sheet of plywood and the fireworks are fused together using various techniques for timing of the effects. The whole shebang is ignited using one firework fuse or firing cue.

Next week’s article will focus on tips for wiring a display with various firing systems and include some tips for fusing fireworks together to expand the versatility of the electric firing cues.

If some or all of the display will be fired by hand, it’s a good idea to have a scripted firing order and to have a firm idea of who will be helping to fire it. Rehearsing the firing of the display with all of the shooters will insure a smooth display after dark.

Hand firing safety is greatly enhanced by the use of a flashlight and propane torch, or a road flare taped to a stick. Head or helmet mounted flashlights are great during firing and post-display cleanup.

If there is to be any reloading of artillery (festival ball, reloadable) shell mortars during the show, this needs to be thoroughly planned. Safe ready-boxes, which will contain the product to be loaded during the show, and their locations need to be planned. Segments during the show, when product is being fired in areas other than the area where the reloading is going on, are the only safe way to perform this operation.

How long do we plan on having the fireworks show last? While it may be fun for us to take fireworks one at a time out to the shooting area and light them for hours on end, this may not be as entertaining for the crowd as it is for us.

Folks are used to being entertained for a half hour at a time with well scripted TV shows. A fireworks show that lasts 15, 20, or 30 minutes and has a lot of variety in it can easily keep folks entertained. Beyond that amount of time, you will probably start to lose folks’ attention.

Of course, the length of the show will depend on your budget. It’s a good idea to keep at least 25% of the product for the show’s finale, which might last a minute or two. So scripting the rest of the affordable fireworks in an entertaining way, overlapping their durations just a bit to avoid unplanned “dark sky,” will determine the show’s duration.

One way to increase the duration of the show, yet not put much of a dent in the budget, is to choose long-duration fireworks like fountains, strobes, wheels, and waterfalls, which can fill minutes of the display for a minimal expense.

This all leads us to a discussion of the actual product we will be firing during the display. All of this will be determined by the show’s budget, site constraints, choreography, and personal tastes.

One fun addition to a show can be some pre-dusk firing of daytime effects. There is an increasing variety of daylight devices: smoke, Sky Lanterns, and streamer and parachute cakes. Kids love to run, chase, and try to catch the parachutes and streamers. Just make sure that the cakes produce fallout which is not still hot or otherwise dangerous for this kind of activity.

One really great way to pick out the product for a show is to attend the product demo at your local fireworks store. My friend Brian Lynch owns a store nearby in West Harrison, Indiana, Half Price Fireworks. Brian actually goes to China and hand-picks his favorite new devices for his shop. Often, these local, independent shops can give you the most bang for your bucks.

I attended one of Brian’s product demos recently, and was handed a checklist/note-taking-sheet to use during the demonstration. Before the devices started to be fired, I organized my note-taking to include notes about these various aspects of the product:

• Height of fireworks display–low-medium-high (one way to increase the variety in a show is to use various parts of the background (the sky): ground level, low sky, and high sky
• Loudness of the firework (more variety can be planned if soft-medium-loud sections of the show are scheduled)
• Quality of the firework, rated on a scale of 1-5
• Duration of the display of a firework device (I brought a stopwatch to use to record this time)
• Notes of the crowd’s reaction to a firework (laughter, WOW applause, quiet awe)
• Cost of the firework, and its value for the money, (i.e. 12 seconds of a nice cake for $16, a line of soft-strobing fountains which last over a minute for $4)

Based on all of the above information from the demo combined with the show budget, site limitations, and choreography, I now select my product for the show, getting the plan down on paper before strolling down the aisles of the shop.

One additional nice feature that many shops provide, including Brian’s, is a label near each item which indicates the product’s duration, effect, and often an actual photo of the firework in action. This info can add to that which was gained at the product demonstration.

The layout of the planned devices can then be added to the sketch of the display site. Device variety, loudness variety, display height variety, and changes in durations and pace, all serve to keep the crowd interested in the show.

The safe use of some homemade firework devices, such as the Cremoras detailed in Cremora Fireballs, can really enhance a display while only lightly impacting the budget.

If there is to be hand-firing during the show, safety gear such as safety-glasses, hardhats, gloves, long-sleeved cotton shirts/jackets, and hearing protection will be in order.

A five-gallon bucket of water for cooling off any possible burned hands, etc, is a good idea. Pump-up garden sprayers or a pressurized garden-hose/nozzle serve as fire extinguishers.

Have a first-aid kit on site.

Small radios or walkie-talkies can enhance communications between shooters during the show.

A barrier of caution-tape, stretched between fence posts, serves to keep the spectators in their designated areas before, during and after the display.

Thorough cleanup after the show, and a careful inspection of the site at daybreak following the display, serve to keep unfired fireworks out of the hands of children, who love to find and light or disassemble such items, often with disastrous consequences.

What are we going to do if it rains? A few years back I helped on a show worth tens-of-thousands of dollars. It was a hot, sunny July day, and the weather forecast predicted the same weather right through the evening. A half-hour before show time, a black, rolling wall of clouds formed on the northern horizon, and within 15 minutes the wind was howling and a hellacious thunderstorm rolled in.

In the wind, there was no way to use tarps or plastic to cover our mortars and cakes, and the long waterfall and the set pieces were completely vulnerable. We lost the whole show, and had stacks of wet aerial shells and box-cakes that had to be somehow salvaged or disposed of safely. A real mess!

These types of experiences motivate most of us experienced display producers to take precautions against the ravages of inclement weather, no matter what the forecast is. I like to say, “If you don’t want it to rain, cover everything up. If you want it to rain, act as if it’s not going to.”

Rolls of plastic or aluminum foil, and plastic tarps, work well to cover racks of mortars. Large plastic bags cover up individual cakes, and rolls of plastic stretch-wrap can be used for mortar racks, lines of fountains, etc. It can be hard to cover and protect a firecracker wall or a waterfall or set piece, so sometimes it’s best to leave them lying on the ground and covered with plastic until the last minute if there is a questionable forecast.

With planning centered around all of these subjects, a successful, relatively stress-free, safe, and fun fireworks display can be produced. Most folks will never know the amount of work that goes into a good show, but they also will never get to experience the satisfaction that comes from creating such a work of art and hearing the audience’s cheers during and after it.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be focusing more on the electric wiring and fusing of a display, the assembly of mortar racks and supports for wheels, firecracker walls/trees and waterfalls, and the actual layout/placement/assembly/support of a consumer fireworks show.

Stay tuned and stay green,

Ned

Planning a Consumer Fireworks Display is a post from: Confessions of a Fireworks Man

If you don’t know what Sky Lanterns are, click here to check out the Sky Lantern Festival videos on YouTube.

Of course, I will tell you to order them right away.  You know that.  But honestly, I really don’t  care if you do or not.  I’m having too much fun lighting them every night myself.  Here are some pictures of the ones that Anne and I launched last night.  The damned things are addictive: I can’t do just one; I gotta do ten at a time!

These are absolutely wonderful little gizmos, and I am positively high on them. I brought 15 of them back in my suitcase from Hong Kong to try out over here. Everyone who has seen them has gone ga-ga over ‘em. Nobody doesn’t like ‘em!

Every time I tried to light one myself last night, Anne snatched the lighter away from me!  She wanted to do it!

A few things to know:

WHAT THEY DO 
- The "fuel" for the fire is cardboard square soaked in wax. You light it, the balloon fills with hot air, and up they go.
- They fly a mile or more up and God knows how far.
- They burn for about 4.5 minutes.
- Once the fire goes out, they drop to the ground.
- They are completely biodegradable.

CAUTIONS
- Launch them only in still air. If you have enough wind to make them difficult to lift off, don’t let them go. The wind actually deflates the lanterns, and then there’s not enough hot air in them to lift off.
- Only when they burn out will they drop. But if you launch them in a wind, they can be blown down or sideways and possibly start a fire. Don’t launch them when the wind is blowing. Got it?
- The paper shell of the balloon is fire retardant. You can burn/char it, but it does not catch fire.
– They may be illegal some places. Check your fire code and fireworks laws to be sure they’re legal in your area.
- Don’t tie anything to them. They are finely balanced–almost anything adding weight to them will cause them not to lift off. 

WHEN & HOW TO USE
- Anytime, nighttime or daytime. This variety looks best at night, but you will undoubtedly want to see what they do in daytime, so you can follow them visually.
- Weddings: launch them after the wedding vows in an outdoor ceremony, or as the bride and groom exit the reception.
- Funerals: I want them used at mine. You probably will, too.  I am not kidding.  Think about the soft, glowing, fading light as your Sky Lantern goes slowly toward heaven.
- Fireworks events: as a daytime and nighttime feature.
- July 4th: start or finish your July 4th fireworks with Sky Lanterns.
- Parties: add them to give your outdoor party a very special quality your guests will not forget.
- Anyplace you want really quiet fire effects.
- When you need to create a swarm of UFOs in your neighborhood.
- For the pure fun of it. They are absolutely wonderful.
-Watch a video of a Sky Lantern being lit.

SHIPPING
- Anytime, anywhere on the planet. No restrictions, not a hazmat.  Regular shipping or overnight.  Domestic US or to any address in the world.

Watch for more from us on these. I will be running a photo and video contest for Best Sky Lanterns, so be sure and take pictures and videos of your’s when you use them.

We only got 1500 of these in this first order. I expect we will run out before we get more. We will do our best to get another, bigger stash well before the Mighty Fourth, but one never knows, do one?

Our current Sky Lantern inventory is very limited. Order these right away! Click

NV5001, 10 Sky Lanterns $69.40

Or click here to order them one at a time 

NV5000, 1 Sky Lantern $9.79

Enjoy.  I think you will find, like I did, that these are safe, quiet, beautiful, and a lot of fun for everybody.

Now here’s the question:  what is the best way for one person to launch 10 of them at a time?

Harry Gilliam
Chief Cook & Bottlewasher

Sky Lanterns Are Available at Skylighter is a post from: Confessions of a Fireworks Man

Currently sitting in the Lucky Shamrock Irish Pub in the Changsha airport waiting for my connection.  The Shamrock’s décor is somewhere between a purple and a pink–that’s what Irish green morphs into after it’s been in China awhile.  On the menu are 14 kinds of tea.

"Make mine oolong," I I say to Su Ling, the pretty waitress.

Big steaming beer mug o’ oolong lands on the table with about a pint of loose tea leaves inside.  Mmmm.

Today started with emails at 5:45 am.  Then, breakfast with Matt where, as usual, we plot the complete overthrow of the fireworks industry. 

If we ever do 1% of what we dream up at these breakfasts, we’ll die rich men, and be interred in burial mounds outside Liuyang.  They’ll surround our central tomb areas with thousands of cakes, fountains, and sparklers all laid out in the outline of the United States.  Our actual bodies will be draped in great lengths of Tau strings, and protected forever inside locked forty foot cargo containers, with two ATF-approved 1/4 inch thick steel covers over the locks, to protect from tomb robbers and 27th century archeologists.

After breakfast, we say our goodbyes and Matt hands me off to the same lunatick driver we had the other night, who just dropped me here at the airport.

Shortly, I am to meet David, the chemical guy, here at the airport to examine an assortment of rare and unusual fireworks chemicals, many of which we haven’t seen in the US in 30 years.  Stuff like realgar, which we cannot find anywhere, anymore, at a price mortals can afford.  He wants to sell me vast quantities of them.  Let’s see, two guys in the parking lot in front of a big airport hunched over a plastic baggie of white powder…. hmmm.  I can see how this could go… 

"It’s not what you think it is, officer.  Officer?  Officer?  Officer, do you speak any English?"

Blank stare.  Uh, oh.  More officers.  No smiles.  Oh shit.

After I meet David and hopefully elude the chemical police, my plane is supposed to leave at noon for Shenzhen down on the coast right next to Hong Kong an hour and 15 later.  If… all goes according to plan and schedule.  Then catch a shuttle bus from the airport to the Hong Kong Ferry, which leaves at 2:30–tight connection.  If not, wait around for the next one to leave at 4:30.

As soon as I know which ferry I’m on, I’ll call Mark on my cell phone using my China phone chip and tell him my arrival time in Hong Kong.

He will then leave from somewhere inside China, and drive to Hong Kong with a box of Sky Lanterns for me to see.  As soon as I get off the Ferry, I will quick scramble out and up the street to the cell phone store and hope to God it’s still open Sunday afternoon, and get more minutes put onto my Hong Kong phone chip, because the China phone chip does not work in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong chip is outa minutes, which I cannot just replenish with a simple phone call to an 800 number with a credit card.  Noooo.  Then switch chips on the phone and wait for him to call me.

Then I will scurry further down the street and check into my hotel.

Once Mark arrives, me and him will go out on the parking lot on top of the big cruise ship pier sticking out into the harbor in front of the hotel, with ocean liners on each side, and light one or two of those suckers and send ‘em up into the air over the middle of Hong Kong and find out if you can get put in jail for violating some arcane law against launching UFO’s in the middle of one of the most densely populated cities on the planet called Earth.

Then we will slink back into the hotel and get drunk, laugh at our good fortune, speculate on what laws we may have violated, and do a deal on some Sky Lanterns.

Somewhere in all that, I will need to find Ricky Law, and confirm that I will meet him at the Ferry dock in Zhu Hai tomorrow morning, so he can give me a tour of his mammoth tusk carving factory.

I’ll let you know what percentage of all this stuff actually happens.

UFO Seen Over Hong Kong Harbor!!!!

Everything worked according to plan.  It’s now around 8 PM.  Mark has arrived with the Sky Lanterns.

Now, gaze down from your imaginary hotel room upon the concrete toppa the pier stretching out before you perhaps a football field long.  Many Chinee-Sunday-shopper BMW’s parked thereupon.  Three cruise ships flanking the swanky cars.  Two guys, hunkered over a glowing flame-bag.  Coupla Indonesian women standing by, watching, waiting.

What the hell is that?!  Combo parking lot attendant, uniformed security guy with rank-stripes on his shoulders semi-authoritatively moseys over (this IS Red China, donchu forget) to the flaming bag guys.

"Howda hanga pitty banga row!" assertively wagging one finger first AT the glowing bag, then side by side as if to censure the thing.

"Uh huh, just watch," instructs the Virginian to the Chinaman, bluffing, not knowing at the time if he is dissing a cop or ignoring a parking lot attendant, the Canadian still trying to wrassle the glowing bag in the 10-knot wind, the two Indonesians expertly saying nothing.

The glowing bag sways, starts to lift.  The wind smooshes the hot air out of its soft sides momentarily.  Then the Canadian, adept at bag launchings, feels the sensual swell of the hot air as it fills the paper to bursting, as it nears its climactic rising… rising, ever hotter, swelling, swelling against the strong Chinaman’s censorial finger, the finger wagging, wagging, instructing the keepers of the bag-flame to cease, to somehow stop this thing, right now, for it must be illegal, and then…. and then, right at the edge of all sanity…

Right on the edge of all control, the Canadian yields to the softness of the hot bag, to the throbbing heat on the sides of the softness he gently holds in his hand, and he knows, as only a man can know, that the release is near.  So very near, and he simply takes his hands away.

And she soars; she soars out over the rail of this giant concrete pier, up, up into the night, as only the lightness of a woman can.  But then she drops, as if abandoned at her moment of ecstasy by her lover, she drops.  Getting colder now, she drops over the side, and down toward the cold of winter’s South China Sea.  And all, even the wagging fingered Chinaman, all watch to see her as she is about to drown in the cold of the harbor, and she dips ever lower, grazing just past the incredulous lower deck man and his wondering gaze.

And she goes right for the water, as if to drown her sorrows, her sadness at losing the Canadian’s soft caress… and then… and then… she lifts just an inch or two above the water.  And holds herself there, quivering there, for a moment.

And then, she swells, she swells as a woman’s breast swells at the touch of her lover, and she heaves another precious foot above the grasping wave tops, as all on the pier wait breathlessly.

And she lifts yet another foot or so, swelling even more.  And the wind catches her and starts to move her flaming, glowing swollenness out across the light green of the harbor, and finally… UP!  She lives!  She LIVES!

She was still going up when we lost her among the clouds, out about a mile from the pier, her spirit soaring perhaps two thousand feet above and out and away from all her earthly bonds.

And this night, we were not consigned to the jail of the Red Chinee.  Once again, the pyros triumphed.

Click here to view a video of a Skylantern being lit.

Question for all of you:  What are the best uses for Sky Lanterns?  Do you need to know anything more about them?

Harry Gilliam
Chief of UFO Launch Facility, Hong Kong

An Improbable Travel Schedule is a post from: Confessions of a Fireworks Man