Festival Balls

[kessie]

I began my fireworks hobby fusing together 200 gram cakes. Timing the fuse according to the duration of the cake. Well my town just enforced this new Trash policy, and my uncle who's a plumber is giving me a whole lot of PVC pipe that he can't throw away. I've got way more than enough to make some mortar racks. These pipes don't look big enough for the good canister shells you'd find in an Exterminator kit, but they should fit smaller ball shells no problem.

I heard festival balls are typically 50 cents each, but all I'm finding are 6-packs for $6 at best, the rest are $10 or even $20! What's the best and cheapest way to use these mortars?

[RisingComet]

Please don't use PVC. Ever. Under no circumstances should you use it. Even for consumer festival balls. It shatters and can send sharp shards of shrapnel if one of them flowerpots, it can even break from the lift charge. Yes even the thick stuff. Yes even with class C fireworks.

Use HDPE instead and... you know... keep living to watch fireworks without dying or adding scars and pvc chunks to your body.

[RisingComet]

I don't meant to embarass you with your first post and all... I just want you to be here to enjoy fireworks with us.

[Pyro Nation]

+1 on not using PVC...PLEASE PLEASE DONT... I really dont want to read on a accident involving PVC and fireworks. I KNOW I KNOW others have used it, but it only takes once.....

PLEASE USE HDPE, FIBERGLASS, or even STEEL

[PyroJoeNEPA]

Ditto on what everyone else said. Forget about the PVC. PM me your address & I will send you a couple fiberglass tubes free next week when I get back home.

[CafreakinBOOM]

put an add out on craigslist for some excal tubes you will be supprised how many you can get free.

[kessie]

Actually, it's quite hard to find Mortar tubes here in Massachusetts. I can't order anything. I'm quite thrifty. And I thought PVC would be more durable than the cardboard tubes that ball shell kits usually come with.

[Kickthefog]

That's the problem actually, PVC is very hard. It doesn't have any give to it at all. Instead of stretching or bending... it WILL shatter WHEN ( I don't say if) a ball goes off in the tube. Sure you might get lucky and send up a few hundred of them with no bad luck, but one WILL go off in the tube at some point.

I echo everyone else. Please, please please don't use PVC. I've seen it explode and it isn't pretty and Lord help anyone who is within 100 yards in any direction when it does.

It isn't worth it.

[kessie]

Alright. I won't use PVC, although it's not glass... and I just wanted to use it as a substitute while I got the HD ones. Just an idea for a finale. Body of entire show be Cakes, then to fill the sky just various size cakes with small ball shells. I can't get my hands on the HD stuff though, what's a good substitute for the time being?

Oh and I need to know how to PLUG any good tubes I may find. Like I said, using the sand in my yard is just another thrifty substitute.

And nobody really answered my question about the prices. No point in getting HDPE mortars without shells.

[RisingComet]

And I thought PVC would be more durable than the cardboard tubes that ball shell kits usually come with.

Actually it's the opposite. Because of the sudden and abrupt impact of the blast, the material needs to stretch just a little every time a shell gets lifted. PVC even on a hot day in the sunlight doesn't do this. Any crack or fissure can act as a nucleation point and when one starts to appear it spreads and the whole thing goes in decently sized chunks.

If a crack or fissure starts to appear on the aforementioned materials, it is usually small, and any particulates are so small or so light that they lose velocity fast. And when that happens the tube stretches instead of cracking into chunks. It can still shear and it is still dangerous when this happens, but it is MUCH MUCH MUCH less risk. Think of the difference of risk being the same as the difference between a loaded gun pointed toward or away from you.

Save those cardboard tubes of yours and use them. And if you can find more thick walled flat-parallel-rolled (not spiral, convoluted) tubes then go ahead and use them.

Here's a way to even make them last longer.
http://www.pyropage.com/Misc/cardboard.html

[RisingComet]

If you have a hole saw or any method of making a wooden disk that doesn't have a hole in it, you can jam fit it in the end with glue, and then staple or drill screws. Almost any wood works. 2x4s are great for consumer sized mortars.