Well, anyone who's ever set something off knows that the right casing can be the difference between a bang and a whimper. Furthermore, some are more dangerous then others. So, today, I'm going to cover the production and use of various casings. Now, not all of this info is mine, a fair portion of it has been written by a number of my colleagues; but it's open-web info that is designed to help so it can be spread like this.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...aeI/image1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...aeI/image2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...aeI/image3.jpg

Here is a small selection of the various casings available to most pyro hobbyists. Click for more detail.

Cardboard tubes are the most preferred kind of casing for a firework. They are strong, cheap, and most of all, they don't throw shrapnel.



Dowelling is very important for rolling your own casings, ramming compositions, or using slices of it for endplugs. However Paper endplugs are preferred.

My next post will cover making good paper endplugs.



Plastic casings are okay, but can pose a shrapnel risk. Some people like to make some cheap bangers out of these, but they are not very high quality. You should rather save these for storing reactants ect. rather than using them as salutes.



Beer Widgets are very good casings, probably the best kind of plastic casing for making "cherry bomb" style slautes. Various brands of beer have them in the aluminum cans (the tall ones). They are pressurised, so when you beer is opened, it rel;eases pressure from the tiny hole in the top, creating bubbles, thus resulting in foamy beer. Next time you are at a drunken party, start collecting these! Not - these are NOT pingpong balls! Do not confuse the two!



Used estes Rocket motors are a great source of high quality tubing. All you really need to do is drill out the nozzel, and clean out the tube.

They can be made into simple salutes such as this example above.



C02 Casings are quite dangerous casings because, when made into a COB (C02 casing filled with Black powder and fused) they throw metal shrapnel, that can injure you, that is why these are used from behind cover. If you were wondering where the huge C02 casing came from, it was from a lifejacket. For a good report on cratermaker shrapnel testing, head over here: http://krimzonpyro.com.ve.carpathiah...l_Testing.html

Paper endplugs!

Materials:





* A tube for the endplugs (size can vary)
* Glue
* A piece of dowelling that is about 1mm smaller than the inside diameter of the tube you are using. It helps if you taper the top of the dowelling a little.
* 8 pieces of Kraft paper (I used grocery bags)

Step1: Place a blob of glue on each piece of kraft paper and push them all together. Now you have a 4 layer thick piece of kraft paper.

NOTE: I should have used smaller paper squares, when I took these photos, because a lot of the paper went to waste.



Step2: Place the piece of Kraft paper ontop of the piece of dowelling, and press it over it, untill you form it to the dowelling.

Step3: Slowly press the whole thing into the tube (it helps if you squeeze the paper tighter to the dowelling, so it will push in easier.

REPEAT STEPS 1,2 and 3, for the second endplug.



Step4: Push in the other endplug and let it stand for 5 minutes.


Step5: After your 5 minutes are up, remove the endplugs and let them dry overnight.


Step6: Once dry, cut off the excess paper off of both of the plugs and you are done!

StepX: Whenever using paper, wood, or epoxy endplugs, it is ALLWAYS a good idea to score the inside of the tube, so the glue will hold the endplug in better

bravo,very very nice

Made this off of a drawing i made sorta sketching out what i wanted to end up with. Not sure if the booster igniter is "work-ok" for an ANFO fuse but just passing it about. And on scale this would be about the size of a soda can or smaller on my idea. The case would be made of a hard plastic or metal and would probably be round or like a soda can PVC shape but with MS Paint squares work!



BTW, the squares on the outside are just shock absorbers like wood frames etc or something so if you throw it, the fuse wont be bend or be damaged while rolling and bouncing.

No, it wouldn't work. If you were igniting an LE you wouldn't need to step FP to BP; which won't det ANFO. You'd need Fuse > Blasting Cap/Primary > ANFO.

i guess i was wrong. so ill change it to saying this. so i dont sound quite as dumb

ANFO needs very high confinement; and AP -could- work but it's a little tricky. Better to use a MF blasting cap to APAN to ANFO.