Cleaning hdpe tubes

[PyroNASH]

How often do you guys clean your hdpe tubes and how do you do it. I've seen someone just use a toilet brush but I'd like other opinions.

[rfgonzo]

I clean after every shoot with a rag and water. Then blow it out with air compressor. However I only have 1 big show a year.

[PyroJoeNEPA]

Clean out the lift cups with a stick with a nail in it---then put them away. Anything more than that is needless expenditure of energy & time. This applies to 1.4 and 1.3 tubes as well.

[PyroNASH]

This is my first year doing big displays so I wasn't sure if the little buildup I got on them would affect the lift. Thanks for the reply Joe, happy new year

[Crush630]

I use this to clean tubes thoroughly in the off season, these also work wonders on cleaning sinks and toilets

http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=5485&stc=1

[WithReport]

Unlike an actual gun chamber that you may be worried about corrosion, they don't need cleaning.

Other than lift cups, or wraps and cardboard disks on consumer cans, they are never cleaned. I may use compressed air to blow some spiders off now and again.

[displayfireworks1]

I have to agree with PyroJoeNEPA on this. As long as your remove visible paper and lift cups , you are good . I guess you have to work in the display industry to understand. I still feel to this day one of the best directives issues to pyro-technicians over the years came from Zambelli Fireworks. The directive was, once you finished your display and ready to load the racks back onto the truck, they have to be loaded upside down. Gravity and the drive back to the plant did what most of the pyro-technicians couldn't find time to do. I covered in this in some of my videos over the years. I felt so strongly about it , I thought all display companies should adopt that technique. I would love to hear if other display companies ever adopted this policy. My guess is most were too stubborn to do so, because they did not think of it.
Back to mortar cleaning , other than visible paper , proper storage to protect from weather and the elements will help longevity. This assume you have HDPE racks with proper plugs.

[displayfireworks1]

Wow , when I went to look for one of my video that describes this. I see I have it as an unlisted video from 2015. If you go to 4:23 in this video you can see and hear me reference the upside loading of the racks. Now that it has been 5 years , I am more than curious what if any display companies also adopted this method.
.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey7u3r8jsME

[PyroJoeNEPA]

I have to agree with PyroJoeNEPA on this. As long as your remove visible paper and lift cups , you are good . I guess you have to work in the display industry to understand. I still feel to this day one of the best directives issues to pyro-technicians over the years came from Zambelli Fireworks. The directive was, once you finished your display and ready to load the racks back onto the truck, they have to be loaded upside down. Gravity and the drive back to the plant did what most of the pyro-technicians couldn't find time to do. I covered in this in some of my videos over the years. I felt so strongly about it , I thought all display companies should adopt that technique. I would love to hear if other display companies ever adopted this policy. My guess is most were too stubborn to do so, because they did not think of it.
Back to mortar cleaning , other than visible paper , proper storage to protect from weather and the elements will help longevity. This assume you have HDPE racks with proper plugs.

The "down side" of this is that you may have guns falling out of the racks if they are not seated very tightly in the racks. We have a mix of both HDPE & fiberglass guns--What we do for gun cleaning is when we arrive on site the racks are off loaded in the relative position they will be built into pods at. They are stacked on their sides on top of each other about 6-8 racks high. Since I am one of the "old guys" and can't haul racks like the young bucks my primary job on initial setup is to clean the guns while the other guys are unloading. we pretty much have all the guns cleaned by the time the guys are ready to assemble the pods. Seems to be an efficient method for us.
Now, with 1.4g consumer racks it is a different story. HDPE can be screwed to the bottom board and easily turned upside down. That is how I store mine..Like With Report said, it helps keep spiders [and an occasional snake or field mouse] out of the guns.
FYI--if storing in a shed, putting dryer sheets around keeps the field mice out of the works!

[CMiller]

We use a broom handle with a nail and clean the lift cups out after we have the racks set up. Thats it and we shoot thousands of shells a year.

[BMoore]

I've never cleaned a mortar. Consumer racks i just turnover and shake them out. For 3" and up, the previously mentioned broomstick and nail to pull out the lift cups works great. What I will do after every shoot though is shine a light down each gun and look for obvious defects and broken plugs.

[pyrobeef]

Similar to what has been mentioned by others. For the display company we look at every tube after the show, use a broom stick with nail and pull out all the lift cups. Once the rack is cleaned and cleared, we flip one tube upside down to show it has been cleaned. For my own personal consumer tubes, I just use a shot of compressed air after the show to push any paper out. I have never scrubbed my mortars clean as some have indicated they do...I guess it could get the carbon and dirt off. One thing I have learned and appreciate others doing though is cleaning them out after a show (whether it is the day of or a few days later) so that when you go to use them again you don't have to spend a lot of time cleaning them out. The last thing you want is to be running a bit late and then have to clean them before you can use them. That is something I have learned over the last couple of years.

[ND Pyro]

I use a wire brush to get grime out of tubes or else shells can get stuck in there and I don't like forcing it down.

[bani]

I always store my tubes upside down, after having them fill with water from a leaky roof where they were stored!

The only reason to clean guns is to have shiny guns. Dirty guns wont affect performance in any way. At most a blast of compressed air to remove any debris is all that is needed.