The smokey smell of success!

[JmFnG]

We've been pretty busy for the last couple of weeks, so I'm kinda late checking in after the 4th. I want to say thanks again to everyone who has shared their knowledge, techniques, and experiences with those of us who are just taking the plunge. Thanks to the availability of this info, I was able to successfully plan, prep and shoot my first *real* show.

We headed up to TN a week early to enjoy some family time and mountain air. That gave me plenty of time to build racks, assemble boards and generally obsess over the show. I had enough in the stash to shoot a mini show each night (we let the kids pick from the *extra* stuff and assembled their chosen pieces on boards each night). It was a great way to test out my firing system (24 cue Chinese) and let other folks get a chance to push some buttons. Plus, we got to blow stuff up 7 nights in a row! :D

Here's the stash before our final shopping trip:

http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=1275&stc=1

We had a total of 96 tubes (86 hdpe & 10 fiberglass), so I built a 50-shot fanned rack, 3 12-shot W racks and 2 5-shot fanned racks. I also slapped together a pair of fanned roman candle racks to add in some low-level filler to accompany cakes/mortars. With so many shells (120 excal, 72 goliath, 24 super magnum, and 24 Pyro Junkie) we had enough to load all the racks twice and then some....great for experimenting with different fuse speeds and schemes. Here are the racks:

http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=1274&stc=1

And here are the racks all filled up for the grand finale:

http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=1276&stc=1

Crap....gotta run for the moment, but I will be back soon to post a follow up with some more pics and possibly some video (partially out of frame and largely out of focus, unfortunately)

[Capt.Rob73]

looks great, more pics! we love pyro pics!

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Very nice stash!! Looking forward to watching the video of it all going up.

I also love the idea that you're getting your kids involved in your pyro hobby. Personally, I think it's a great way to do some family bonding, and the memories you create will last a lifetime.

[JmFnG]

Thanks, guys!

It was a LOT of fun. My cousin came down from WI with his 2 boys, so my son was thrilled to have a couple cousins to run around with. Plus, I had an extra set of hands (and a good brain) to help out with show prep.

I was so caught up with the work to be done that I didn't really take many pics. Next time I'll make a better effort to document. Especially video. I have to get the vid together...but in the meantime, here are a couple more pics.

Board 1/Phase 1:

http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=1282&stc=1

Saturn missiles/staggered trio of Red, White & Boom -> Staggered trio of Emerald City -> Staggered trio of July 4th Jubilation -> Fortress of fire/NY Salute Finale


Boards 2 & 3/Phase 2:

http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=1283&stc=1

Boom Chicka Bomb Bomb/Road America/Kaboom -> Road America/Glory/Whack -> Charge/Neon Stars -> Turning Heads/Americana -> AI/Perfect Palm

Boom Chicka Bomb Bomb/Road America/Pow -> Road America/Glory/Bam -> Charge/Pyro Power -> Turning Heads/Extreme -> AI/Wicked Willow


And here are boards 4, 5 & 6/Phase 3 waiting for assembly:

http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=1284&stc=1

Saturn/Pyro Pro -> Rain of Fire/Colors x2 -> Proud/Wicked Pissa


Phase 3 was followed by the Grand Finale pictured in my first post:

3x 12-shots -> 50-shot/candle racks -> 2x 5-shots w/comets -> 3 #500 tubes


I replaced almost every factory fuse with a couple inches of orange fury to get quicker ignition. I also split the business ends of the fuse to expose plenty of powder for the talons to ignite. Worked like a charm.

The only fuses I (regrettably) didn't replace were for my final shot - 3x #500 Wicked Willow tubes in a W pattern. Only the left fired. Dammit. Factory fuse ignited and burned out right where it entered the tubes (later on, we fired them by poking in a bit of new fuse).

Overall, I was very happy with the results. I knew going in that internal fusing would result in less than perfect coordination (to say the least), so I just accepted that fact and moved forward.

That issue revealed itself during phase 3 - Board 6 ended about 20 seconds earlier than expected, with board 5 about 10 seconds behind...so board 4 had a 10 second 'solo' before phase 3 was complete. Not thrilling to me, but of course nobody else seemed to mind.

During the finale, the candle racks ran too long, resulting in a couple of stragglers after the botched final shot. Also, a bit of a delay in the fusing on my last 2 cues threw my timing off. Bummer for me, but again, nobody else cared.

The firing system worked without a hitch. Gonna order 2 more 12-cue systems to double my cues for next time.

Gotta get my vid together....I'll be back!

[chriskrc]

Great stash brother can't wait to see the video of the show

[JmFnG]

Thanks, Chris. I actually got rained out of work tonight, so I'm gonna try to finish getting the video taken care of. Unfortunately, it's pretty low quality, but I was glad to have something to review the timing of each cue. I'll post it asap.

[JmFnG]

Sorry for the poor framing and focus. The focus improves around 3min, but goes back out during the finale. Here you go:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIgISsHucew

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Very nice JmFnG!! Even the blurry parts. lol...

[JmFnG]

Very nice JmFnG!! Even the blurry parts. lol...

Thanks, Rick. Unfortunately, my designated camera attendant thought everything was already set so they just hit record and never double checked. I guess if I want a job done right, I'll have to do it myself. :)

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Thanks, Rick. Unfortunately, my designated camera attendant thought everything was already set so they just hit record and never double checked. I guess if I want a job done right, I'll have to do it myself. :)

lol... Lesson learned. I had the same problem last year. I fixed it myself this year!

Your show looked good regardless.

[displayfireworks1]

Great pictures, those racks look solid. If I may ask, what is that circle fuse on top of those roman candles in post #1 third picture down. Is that a delay technique?

[JmFnG]

Great pictures, those racks look solid. If I may ask, what is that circle fuse on top of those roman candles in post #1 third picture down. Is that a delay technique?

Thanks. I had a good time putting those racks together and look forward to making more. Not so much fun lifting them, though. :)

Yes, that loop of fuse was a 30-second delay. We wanted the candle racks to last about a minute, and they did. So it was good in that respect.

BUT...

Unfortunately the 50-shot they were accompanying finished in 20 seconds, and I was left with a long patch of black sky before the final shot...which was also botched by an unexpected delay on the 3 #500 tubes (of which only 1 fired). Triple whammy.

A pretty crummy punctuation mark on my finale, but a valuable lesson.






And those damn roman candle racks still hung in to get the last word. That'll teach me to put anything like that so dangerously close to the ending. Rookie mistake. :o