Consumer Artillery Time Fuse

[displayfireworks1]

Here is a picture from a ball 1.75 artillery shell. This looks more like a 1.3 shell spolette. I tore into it a little and you can see a piece of string or a piece of fuse. Any comments, it seemed unusual for a consumer shell to have this.
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[chriskrc]

When it comes down to it Dave it seems the industry is making consumer products perform more like display products. I personally like it because it makes the effects nicer.

[ras1986]

I took some brothers American chief shells apart and they are the same inside

[PyroJoeNEPA]

I think this might be evidence of an attempt at "semi-automation" at some of the smaller factories in China where they may be able to utilize a machine operation [in this case, the making of the time fuse] to allow for greater and faster production. Since the shells [1.4g balls] are basically assembled by hand putting this spoolette type fuse in the one half of the hemi would eliminate needing a person to measure, cut, & prime individual pieces of time fuse for each shell. And I am sure a machine would be much faster and accurate at a task like this.
Just my humble opinion--not based on any "insider information". LOL.

[displayfireworks1]

I had these shells from years back, someone used my racks and piggy backed a large number of shells. Just before I returned my racks back to storage I turned them over and some shells minus the fuse fell out. I decided to finally separate the stars and black powder. That is how I discovered this. These were part of 9 total shells. Externally they all look like they were from the same brand. The had various generic color coverings but were essentially the same. Three of that total had this type of delay fusing, the others had more of the traditional consumer delay fusing. I guess it is further proof that consistency varies with most of the lower end consumer fireworks. These were inexpensive shells used for show filler. I remember year back tearing the paper off of the top off a Brothers cake seeing recycled Chinese newspaper in the tops of all the mortar tubes. I bet there is a funny story out there somewhere on something found inside of a fireworks product.

[chriskrc]

I think this might be evidence of an attempt at "semi-automation" at some of the smaller factories in China where they may be able to utilize a machine operation [in this case, the making of the time fuse] to allow for greater and faster production. Since the shells [1.4g balls] are basically assembled by hand putting this spoolette type fuse in the one half of the hemi would eliminate needing a person to measure, cut, & prime individual pieces of time fuse for each shell. And I am sure a machine would be much faster and accurate at a task like this.
Just my humble opinion--not based on any "insider information". LOL.

That's a great assessment, I am actually surprised that there hasn't been more in the way of automation already.

[Pyro Llama]

We received some shells like this awhile back out of Beihai. The powder in the plastic tube is actually for the tail as the shell is going up. There is the piece of fuse as well but the tail burning also serves as the timing fuse.

[RalphieJ]

I had these shells from years back, someone used my racks and piggy backed a large number of shells. Just before I returned my racks back to storage I turned them over and some shells minus the fuse fell out. I decided to finally separate the stars and black powder. That is how I discovered this. These were part of 9 total shells. Externally they all look like they were from the same brand. The had various generic color coverings but were essentially the same. Three of that total had this type of delay fusing, the others had more of the traditional consumer delay fusing. I guess it is further proof that consistency varies with most of the lower end consumer fireworks. These were inexpensive shells used for show filler. I remember year back tearing the paper off of the top off a Brothers cake seeing recycled Chinese newspaper in the tops of all the mortar tubes. I bet there is a funny story out there somewhere on something found inside of a fireworks product.

When I was a young lad of 12 my Dad bought me a brick (80/20) of Jet Bomber brand 1 1/2" crackers and they were all rolled from Chinese newspapers. Man, I haven't thought about that for decades. Thanks.........

[displayfireworks1]

Great information on that fuse adapter used to make a rising effect. While we are all getting educated, I heard the name and formula of that powder used as break change and forgot the name and formula. It was H something. Look at this picture, I believe that is what was used on these same shells inside . Comments welcome.
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