How’s your progress??

[Mattp]

It just hit me today how behind I am,, I just got my music done, show scripted, uploaded and tested,, so that’s all good… but,, I’ve been working literally 18 hours a day for the last 30 days straight,, all of my product is in another state and I haven’t even opened one case yet,, like not even separated, labeled , poked,, NOTHING!!! I took a few days before the fourth off to hopefully get out there and get it done .. but usually by now I’m way further ahead.. and am starting to panic.. LOL ,, how’s everyone else doing??

[PyroWalker]

Well, I am pretty much ready to drop product in the field, hook it up, and fire it!
I had my design completed this winter (nothing better to do) and most of my product in by January 1st. I had a few loose ends to wrap up here and there, but I had backup product if I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. I finished poking and fusing the igniters (they are all shunted) a few weeks ago. They all have their trusty address labels on them as well. Product is sorted by position and ready to be put in the field. My modules are all synced and set to their proper channels and even labeled for their positions. My camera batteries and the drone batteries are all out and charged. I have the last 14 artillery shells that I still need to secure down so they don't pull the igniters out of the module, but other than that, I am good to go.
My To-Do tomorrow/this weekend (Since it is finally going to be cooler weather) is to pull out my PA system and do a run through with my audio box and once again run my flame machines to make sure they are finally ALL working correctly.
I absolutely HAD to have things done early this year as I have family coming to stay with me and I wanted to make sure I can spend time with them, and not be stuck with last minute things to do. It is bad enough I will be away for the setup and tear down day of/after. I am feeling pretty okay about it, with 15 days to go. We will see how I feel come Shoot day! July 1st!!

[BeerGuyEd]

I also feel like I am behind. I have been so busy lately that I have not had time to do much. My music is set. I have started scripting and about 1/3 done. This is not a huge deal as I fire cakes and 14 12 shot racks for the show. I have started poking cakes but I would like to have a lot more of them done at this point. I have a get together with some folks to help me out with cue labeling, and putting everything on boards. I have a lot to do, but I think I am in decent shape. We will see over the next week.

[Birdman]

Got a late start scripting since the first show I scripted had to be scrapped because of supply issues with AOP. I didn't script a new show until late winter but had my order in and delivered by spring. About 75% of my product is at the shoot site, poked and waiting, as I normally do over the memorial day weekend. Only thing left to do with product is prep the shells and cakes in my finale. Plus wire a few roman candle bundles I need to use connectors on since they can't be poked.

Still deciding how to script the finale. Not sure if I want to use step scripting and manually fire the finale or try to use timed events and hope I get the timing right. I'm only using about 45 cues this year so I didn't do any labeling. I will just print out the script and use it during setup. Really just waiting on finalizing the script for the finale and getting it loaded onto the R2 so I can test it with the mods. My son will be fusing my racks this year again. I'm expecting setup to be pretty easy as I'm not really dealing with as many cues. I'm also not really doing anything all that new that will require any extra thought. Procrastinating a bit this year but still have plenty of time to sew up the loose ends.

[Jordan0885]

I don't do a pyro musical so I never start things too early. I built some racks yesterday, might do a few more more today and some stands to hold single tubes. I'm planning on poking stuff this upcoming week, modifying some cakes and sticking shells in racks. The thing that is hanging over my head the most is getting the script done as I bought a crackle cube this year, but like I said, no music, so it's just getting the right time entered for the cakes. I'm not a stickler about a bit of overlapping or black sky, so I'm thinking it won't be bad, but we'll see.

[Jay_]

I've got 8 racks/boards down and 20ish more left to build/fill/get wired.

Doing a lot of single effect stuff this year and 31 separate stations, so it is all adding up. Actually less product than I shot in 2020, just more spread out due to me converting everything to slats.

I don't feel like I am behind as I am tackling the hardest boards first and saving the gravy (like cake boards) for last.

I am taking off the week before the 4th (and 2 weeks after :)) so I will have 9 days in a row to work on it before day zero.

Hope to even have some time in there to hit some semi-local stands and continue to destroy my "budget"

[morrison2951]

10 cakes and 3 fountains all mjg wired up so far. :)

[Rick_In_Tampa]

300 mortars wired. 35 cases of cakes poked. Script written. Music file created.

3 fan racks left to build. 12 Cobra mods to charge. Script still to test. 5 more cases of product to poke. A dozen or so boards to build.

I don't think I've ever been this far behind this late in the season.

[Pyro Paul]

This years show is slowly coming together, I finally finalized my script due to a last minute impulse cobra purchase and a lot of "tweaking" that I've been doing to simplify some of the setup. I've got most all of my one shot racks loaded and matched and am building a few more to handle some comet runs that I added last minute. Now I need to build some slice racks for all the slices I'm shooting in conjunction with several cakes I'm shooting a row at a time then I'm on to laying out all the cake boards. I ended up with 31 positions. I'm forced to do my musical the Saturday after the 4th due to working a professional display the Saturday before the 4th that I've been helping out with for about 6 years now since it ties up one of my busiest setup days. I'm trying something new this year as I had trouble locating slices from the 2 importers that I normally order from were out this year. I spent several weekends building slices from 1.4 pro one shot items and cakes. As usual I'm down to crunch time and busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest lol. So I'm basically where Rick_in_Tampa is in my setup feeling like I'm way behind. I can't believe Rick is building racks :O

[Sassy Hatter OZFL]

110 of 125 cakes matched. 60/40 500/200grams. 150 shot false finale racks fused, couple misc racks fused. Half set pieces built (waterfall and 12 or 16ft chromatrope.)chromatography.. songs and script 95% due to product changes). BP mixed for match. Need to finish building drying rack to finish match. Then because of initiator availability need to remap layout. Cameras ready, having catering (finger foods/burgers/dogs.) Unfortunately my grill is close to my shoot site so no grilling once product out. Only about 25 invited on property guest but the road and water fill up with neighbors and they use their air boats like stadium seating Ala redneck yacht club style. And ehile cool as shittakes to have people boat up for your fireworks, it eliminates me using the water to launch from. So really all left to do hrrm 2-5 hours of script revisions from paper to show creator, 8 hours build time (5 kids from 10 to 23 so I have help). Match/fuse making hrrm 3 hrs x2 days. Loading around 120 comets 2hrs, bios update remote and 1 of my 2 modules 1hr, install dmx kit into module, learn to use dmx flame machine, and add those times to script. So about 45 hrs labor time left depending on dmx.

[MontanaMike]

Since we had to cancel ours last year, it's pretty much ready to go -- except I added in about 3 cases of cakes, because I ordered fireworks for a friend and we were about $500 short of the next discount level, so.... you do what you gotta do!

Music is done, script is done, and last night we recorded a 90 minute "pre-show" which is just my friend and I playing some of our favorite tunes and DJ'ing between. The purpose of this is to get people to turn on their radios for the show music. All that's left is to get the cakes plugged into the slats, haul everything to the field and set'er up. We're in a much better location this year, so it's an exciting time. I'm dreading looking at the price list next spring.

[Engineer Cat]

Since we had to cancel ours last year, it's pretty much ready to go -- except I added in about 3 cases of cakes, because I ordered fireworks for a friend and we were about $500 short of the next discount level, so.... you do what you gotta do!

Music is done, script is done, and last night we recorded a 90 minute "pre-show" which is just my friend and I playing some of our favorite tunes and DJ'ing between. The purpose of this is to get people to turn on their radios for the show music. All that's left is to get the cakes plugged into the slats, haul everything to the field and set'er up. We're in a much better location this year, so it's an exciting time. I'm dreading looking at the price list next spring.

Nice. How are you broadcasting your music random radios?

[R. Derrick]

I have no idea where I am at this point! I feel behind and definitely behind of where I wanted to be this year at this time. The script is all but finished, but I'm adding some mortars periodically throughout by adding a 2nd initiator to the cues already scripted just to give some dynamics.

I will be pulling all fireworks today and sort out on boards. according to the 3 firing locations. I'm debating about poking but I have to move it all to the firing site a few miles down the road. So, I may just wait to poke and just gain access to each cake for now and slap my label on each piece with the initiator.

I will be testing the script this weekend -

This is my 2nd show - and first true pyro-musical. I have 280 cues over 5 songs at 20 minutes with 9 mods and I'll be using 10 slats over 3 firing stations + 2 additional extensions for the finale shots. YIKES! I'm so nervous!

Last year I had only 3 days to prepare and it went off just fine, barely at the last minute and I had to scrap some things but I have time on my side this year. I'm well ahead of where I was last year, just now where I want to be... Maybe this weekend will provide the time!

[Mattp]

I feel so much better,, went down there today,, 7am-3pm non stop no breaks..got everything separated, labeled, and got all the cakes matched. And on pallets (one for each mod) what a relief!!!! Now I have the tedious stuff,, comets, slices , mines, shells,, but one more full day like today,, should be able to get it all done!!! .. I changed my equipment for quick plugs this year,, so all igniters are shunted and should install pretty nicely on shoot day

[R. Derrick]

I feel so much better,, went down there today,, 7am-3pm non stop no breaks..got everything separated, labeled, and got all the cakes matched. And on pallets (one for each mod) what a relief!!!! Now I have the tedious stuff,, comets, slices , mines, shells,, but one more full day like today,, should be able to get it all done!!! .. I changed my equipment for quick plugs this year,, so all igniters are shunted and should install pretty nicely on shoot day

I worked last night too for about 6 hours straight. I too, feel soo much better - but I ran into a hiccup! Some inventory I thought I had, I didn't - so now I'm having to find replacements.... thankfully, I have things to put in their place and I don't think it'll take too long to do. However, this is my first year doing mines and comets - so I'm not sure what to expect lol

[Engineer Cat]

I worked last night too for about 6 hours straight. I too, feel soo much better - but I ran into a hiccup! Some inventory I thought I had, I didn't - so now I'm having to find replacements.... thankfully, I have things to put in their place and I don't think it'll take too long to do. However, this is my first year doing mines and comets - so I'm not sure what to expect lol

Last year all my product was located at the persons house who purchased it. I was shooting the show for that person. I scripted everything and on the day I went there to poke and prep I couldn't find 3 cakes. Ends up the guy was bored so he shot those off one night. Hard to be annoyed with him being he paid for everything but I worked on the script for a long time and then had to quickly make script changes to fill in for those missing cakes. LOL

[Greenville Pyro]

I have no idea where I am at this point! I feel behind and definitely behind of where I wanted to be this year at this time. The script is all but finished, but I'm adding some mortars periodically throughout by adding a 2nd initiator to the cues already scripted just to give some dynamics.

I will be pulling all fireworks today and sort out on boards. according to the 3 firing locations. I'm debating about poking but I have to move it all to the firing site a few miles down the road. So, I may just wait to poke and just gain access to each cake for now and slap my label on each piece with the initiator.

I will be testing the script this weekend -

This is my 2nd show - and first true pyro-musical. I have 280 cues over 5 songs at 20 minutes with 9 mods and I'll be using 10 slats over 3 firing stations + 2 additional extensions for the finale shots. YIKES! I'm so nervous!

Last year I had only 3 days to prepare and it went off just fine, barely at the last minute and I had to scrap some things but I have time on my side this year. I'm well ahead of where I was last year, just now where I want to be... Maybe this weekend will provide the time!

When is your show?

[Birdman]

Last year all my product was located at the persons house who purchased it. I was shooting the show for that person. I scripted everything and on the day I went there to poke and prep I couldn't find 3 cakes. Ends up the guy was bored so he shot those off one night. Hard to be annoyed with him being he paid for everything but I worked on the script for a long time and then had to quickly make script changes to fill in for those missing cakes. LOL

Oh man that would frustrate me. But it was his fireworks so what ya gonna do. Just have to bottle it up and make a plan B. Only those of us that have done it can truly appreciate the effort it takes to script a show. I really believe most audiences wouldn't care or even notice if you just fired stuff randomly, especially if there is a bunch of sky puke at the end. I do find though that it is much more appreciated if they watch a video after the fact. I enjoy the scripting as much as the show but one would not be as fulfilling without the other. There's something about designing a show and then seeing how it looks when actually fired.

[Mattp]

Oh man,, it’s a pain with timed scripts and our visions,, to just swap something out … funny I printed my labels,, and then went in and changed a whole lot of things ,, tweeked times and cue numbers and stuff,, but forgot that I had already previously printed the labels,, luckily I caught it after the first few cakes ,, other wise it would’ve been all screwed up

[Schooter4]

I have had my show scripted for a couple of months now. I have been fine-tuning it though! I picked up all of my product on Thursday and spent all day yesterday sorting, taking the tops off, poking and wiring cakes, and then got all my racks fused. Today I will finish putting them on the boards and will be done until the 4th when I will place them in the field. Since we have a big party at my place every year, I have a little honey-do list to complete before the party. I work overnights and 2 hours away from home and I work the 30th-2nd, so I need to get everything done in the next few days.

[Berserker23]

Friends and family have no clue how much time and money goes into these shows, only if they knew I’m taking a break this year and doing a small show with 12 cakes and 100 Excaliburs all leftovers from last Fourth of July.

[PYRODAN]

Haven't done a show in 2 years. Last minute, "Hey we should do a show this year!" No 1.4 pro available locally, sold out. No firewires available locally, sold out. All consumer stuff so a whole lot of pokin' to do. Luckily I find I have 3 boxes left and I found a box with 20 Dominator comets in it. Picking up fireworks tomorrow. Work Monday, off the rest of the week. Laying out the show and writing the script now. I think I will get it all done in time.....Party is Saturday.

[Jay_]

Haven't done a show in 2 years

That is crazy, I literally just got done watching your 2019 video before I flipped over here. Your fast start to that show inspired the way I am starting my show this year.

[Engineer Cat]

That is crazy, I literally just got done watching your 2019 video before I flipped over here. Your fast start to that show inspired the way I am starting my show this year.

Where's that link to PyroDan's video? :confused:

I'm in good shape. Got cakes on boards ready to go now. Just need to wire up a handful of cans.

6280

I should only need about 3 hours on the day of the shoot.

[PYRODAN]

2019 show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=999JFqHLcGE

[PYRODAN]

Thanks! There were supposed to be 2 runs. second one didn't fire. My fault though. Mod was set to fire talons. I have already double checked all mods this year.

[Engineer Cat]

2019 show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=999JFqHLcGE

Fantastic! Great show.

[Tmaas77572]

I scripted out a beautiful 20 minute show that included a 5 minute "show starts soon" intro that included some gag MP3 files (Pyrocast for the folks across the lake). Scripted a 15 minute show on top of that. Found out during my dry run of the DMX this morning that I had one of the gag MP3 tracks cued up to play twice in a row.

Long story short, I spent the last 5 hours rebuilding everything in Creator at the correct cue times, minus the extra track in the beginning.

Boards are ready to glue and fuse, and all the product is still in the boxes. Did go through the 9 cases of mortar shells and pull/sort everything. RWB shells are being used heavily during one song, so those are all parted out.

Cake board layouts are drawn, just need to transport/glue/poke/fuse/shoot on Monday.

[PyroWalker]

I am all set, but the pre-show jitters are getting the best of me. I can't get my last flame machine to fire (see separate post I made about this). I have rescripted a backup with 4 flame machines, but we know even numbers suck! Rain is now in the forecast for show-day, so that has me freaking out a bit! Luckily, I have help this year, so if I need to set the show later, I can wait out some rain. Meanwhile, it hasn't rained in 2 weeks, and we NEED rain badly! Guess I will be setting out the sprinklers at the shoot site this week.... What we do for the love of the show!

[R. Derrick]

When is your show?

The 2nd - The jitters are kicking in! lol

Do you have a show this year?

[R. Derrick]

Thanks! There were supposed to be 2 runs. second one didn't fire. My fault though. Mod was set to fire talons. I have already double checked all mods this year.

Very nice show - Man, that intro!! Hard to believe how few cues in the description for that show! MAybe I'm doing something wrong lol

But how far apart were your firing zones?

[Robbro097]

I really didnt plan on doing much of a show this year was gonna keep it simple (like last years) 5 or 6 minutes nothing special just something for the family and a few friends then about 3 weeks ago a family friend whos attended my shows over the years said he was wanting to do fireworks and had 2k $ and was hoping id get fireworks and help him set up etc. So i said y not. So i got his fireworks shortly after threw in mine and today got all the cakes matched and most of it glued to boards and wired in2 slats. Just an ez day of gluing and wiring in2 slates and few odds and ends and should b ready. Working with dif ppl excited enough to spend some $ at a diff spot (an excellent property for fireworks) and im excited about fireworks again. Paying for everything myself really sucked the excitement out after prices went up. But im feeling new life again especially after his fam seen the stash and said they wanna throw a cpl 1,000 next year and him saying hes gonna up his budget for next yr and get cash to gether sooner if he does ill up mine again as well since all my normal fam/crowds been invited to his spot thats actually a little closer to home anyways. So progress is great and feeling the spark again.

[Fox One]

I have everything planned out and everything that I need purchased. I just picked up a bunch of new batteries today. I still haven't fused my racks yet. I have about 228 shells to do. I'll try to do as many as I can Thursday evening and do the rest on Friday. I figure I can use my cool down breaks during the setup to fuse up some racks. I originally wanted to do my party on Saturday night, but the weather forecast for that day/night remains crappy with a 60% chance of thunderstorms. Sunday looks no better. And I will be working on Monday, so no time for setup that day. So I am going to play the odds and shoot on Friday night. The forecast for that day isn't perfect either (30% rain chances), but it has been a rare Fourth of July season in which there wasn't a 30% of greater chance of rain in my area. I can live with this. It doesn't look like a total rain out, maybe just a few widely scattered showers/storms. I'll cover my stuff with tarps/plastic during the day as I set it up just in case, then see what things look like later in the evening. The show should last about 20 minutes, so I have a 1.5 hour window to play with regarding start time (9:00 to 10:30 pm) just in case I have to deal with a stray storm.

I am also feeling lazy this year and just decided to use the MJG initiators with the visco connectors rather than poking the cakes. Poking cakes is so time consuming and gets boring fast. I have 120+ cakes to do and some of them are the molded cakes (plastic innards instead of cardboard) which makes for challenging poking anyway. I cut my teeth on Talons and Red Dragons, so I am used to can live with the slight delay in firing between pairs, especially considering all the work and time I'll be saving by not poking. I'll have all day Friday to do the setup, so I don't feel overly pressed for time. My biggest concern is the possibility of rain, but I'm not overly worried about that either. Unless it comes a long duration, intense downpour, the tarps should keep the moisture off my stash.

[PYRODAN]

Very nice show - Man, that intro!! Hard to believe how few cues in the description for that show! MAybe I'm doing something wrong lol

But how far apart were your firing zones?

If I remember correctly, they are 40-50 feet apart.

[PYRODAN]

Ok, after much frustration, most of it my fault, show is laid out. Script wrote and loaded. After some coffee and breakfast, time to start pokin'! Using 5 18Ms. None of them are full.

[R. Derrick]

UPDATE:

I have all comets and mines angled and loaded. I still have about 200 cans to go through but only a quarter of those are color-dependent. I tell you what! That was my first time doing that and it was not as easy as I thought... I didn't take into account how many spots I had available for each angle etc and had to change up some things. I also realized that some of the mines that I planned on using was 76mm vs 50 vs 35mm - I wanted the effect to be similar in size, so I had to adjust there too. (at least that's the way I imagine it goes with the size of break or spread or height)

Nothing is matched yet - just because of the extra safety. I see many of you do but I'm not there yet, even if shunted. lol I have 12hrs at in the field to poke and match 305 cues. They have all been cleared of paper and cardboard and are ready to poke. (that part took about 2 hours with 2 people). But I hope that 12 hours will be long enough.

I feel pretty good. I'm soooo late to testing the script! I still haven't done it and I should have weeks ago just in case; but, that will be done today.

I'm enjoying reading everyone's progress!

[Engineer Cat]

Mannnnnn, the perfect weekend weather is now predicting thunderstorms on Sunday which is my shoot day. I had to go through a lot of BS last year with the rain all day and it stopped 1 hour before the show but was still a pain to deal with. Hopefully it blows out the day before or earlier in the day so I don't have to deal with that. I only need a few hours to connect everything to the mods. If I can get 2 - 3 hours of no rain to setup I'll just tarp it all and hope it stops by shoot time. So annoying.

[Birdman]

Those that may not have seen in a different thread, my show was put on hold because I rely on boats to get people a safe enough distance away. It's looking like we will have enough boats now to get most everyone offshore. Plan B is to ferry people over to the other shoreline. I don't mind having one or two of the guys on shore to serve as the safety crew and put out any fires etc.. I would like to stay on shore but can't because I also have to deal with audio on our "sound boat".

Got my mods set to the right channels and loaded my script. Ran threw a few tests yesterday and today. Charged the mods that don't use 9v batteries and checked for power levels. One mod and my remote will be getting new batteries this year. Placed an order on Amazon for those and I also ordered a female to female DB25 connector that I may not use. I would prefer to use a slat to fire the last 8 cues on the one slat mod rather than trying to wire into those little on board cues. I don't want to use my 50' cable since I don't need any distance from the mod and the slat.

I decided to just use time events for the finale rather than step scripting. It's mostly sky puke and not set to music at that point so I figured I'd save myself some additional responsibility. Worse case I may have a little more dark sky then I'd like or things run too closely together, which my audience would probably prefer anyway. As always my concern is cakes coming close to the duration times I'm expecting. Because I don't have a lot of overlap I could end up with some dark sky if something doesn't fire or is much faster in duration than expected. I need use visco connectors for more things then I would prefer. I've only had a few misfires using them and some minor timing issues because of the fuse delay. But I should have plenty of time to give them extra attention during setup.

I still need to fast fuse some of my 200g cakes together that are in the finale, which shouldn't take long. I also need to fuse or wire up my racks. My son is tasked with fusing the finale racks so that is a big time saver. Other than that I just hope nothing unexpected comes up, otherwise it should be a fairly easy set up

[R. Derrick]

Those that may not have seen in a different thread, my show was put on hold because I rely on boats to get people a safe enough distance away. It's looking like we will have enough boats now to get most everyone offshore. Plan B is to ferry people over to the other shoreline. I don't mind having one or two of the guys on shore to serve as the safety crew and put out any fires etc.. I would like to stay on shore but can't because I also have to deal with audio on our "sound boat".

Glad you're able to go through!! I read your previous post on whatever thread. Hope you'll be posting a successful video :)

[Engineer Cat]

Those that may not have seen in a different thread, my show was put on hold because I rely on boats to get people a safe enough distance away. It's looking like we will have enough boats now to get most everyone offshore.

Awesome, glad to hear you don't have to put it on hold!

[Walt]

I have poked and prelabeled all my cakes. Made bricks of 3x/4x cakes wherever possible to make setup easier if it correlates to a module.

All modules are programmed and labeled, and all MJG is programmed and labeled.

Still need to load about 250 mortars, fuse up about 200 of that, and then about 50 will be direct matched.

Everything is being transported unmatched, so I will be doing final matching and cue wiring starting around noon day of. Everything has a unique cake ID that is written next to each poke hole, on each initiator, and on each cue at the speaker terminal, so hookup should be pretty straightforward.

[PYRODAN]

All set! Set up tomorrow, tarp everything, shoot Saturday.632163226323
A much smaller show than normal. But I think it will be OK.

[Birdman]

Glad I did one last test of my script! I did some cleanup of the audio in audacity, which really wasn't needed, and it changed the timing of the soundtrack enough that it no longer matched the script. Easy enough to just go back to the original soundtrack but wow....that was a close one. The other good news is that I realized I had one slice of a fan cake that I never scripted. Probably going to just parallel wire that slice with my first finale rack.

Just goes to show that you can never test and review things enough.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Still have 3 boards to build but I'll knock that out tomorrow. Other than that, I think I'm ready to roll. My HOA is giving me grief, but it wouldn't be the 4th without it.

Not that anyone cares, but here's my design for this (final!) year.

6331

[PYRODAN]

All set! Set up tomorrow, tarp everything, shoot Saturday.632163226323
A much smaller show than normal. But I think it will be OK.

Calling for thunder storms tonight with possibility of hail. Decided to just get an early start tomorrow. Supposed to be very nice Saturday.

[PYRODAN]

Calling for thunder storms tonight with possibility of hail. Decided to just get an early start tomorrow. Supposed to be very nice Saturday.

Good call, it rained like a mother! And some serious wind.

[Jay_]

I could have gotten pretty close to finishing today, but just ran out of steam. It was about 600000 degrees and will be for a while so that makes it kind of a drag.

Need to finish tomorrow so I can start hauling my junk to the site.

[Mattp]

Looks good,, nice layout. What website Do you use to draw that?? And what did you mean about (Final) year????

[Mattp]

That $hit is neat,, like OCD kinda neat ,, looks great.. and ya god call holding off on the weather

[Mattp]

Got all my stuff done today,, poked, matched and shunted ,, Sunday we just put it out to the field and connect ,, weather called for rain,, so I bought all these bags to cover each cake,, now it’s calling for beautiful weather,, I’m not complaining one bit,, but Murphy a law,, I know if I didn’t get all those bags it would probably downpour

[Fox One]

I did my show tonight. I did the entire set-up today and it was brutal. I worked non-stop from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM. I bet I consumed at least a couple gallons of water and Powerade today. There was a 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms, so out of caution, I decided to tarp my stations. It was a good thing I did. It rained twice throughout the day, one a pretty good shower.

The show went relatively well, though I had a few issues with the MJG visco initiators. Because I have been so busy this year with little time for prep work, I wanted to give these a try. But I had a few cakes that didn't go off because the visco slipped out of the little shroud sometime between the final check and the firing. The bigger 3mm fuse that we fuse mortar racks with works perfectly. But the smaller 2mm diameter fuse on most cakes fit really loosely. I used tape because of this to help secure them in place, but even so, the diameter of the shroud makes it difficult to get the tape to stick to both the shroud and the fuse. So some slipped free anyway. It looks like I'll be going back to poking cakes and using standard MJG initiators, though the MJG for visco works really well on the mortar racks. And I never again want to be in a situation where I have to do as much work as I did today in getting set up. If in the future I find myself so busy that I can't spread the prep work out over several days, then I'll just do tiny shoots instead of large ones. Today just flat kicked my arse.

[Engineer Cat]

Glad it went well. I found some of those in my stash from last year. They worked well with the fast fuse. I also got some of these https://electricmatch.com/pyrotechnics/see/15/5/visco-clip

They work good for the 3mm but not so much for the 2mm.

Before I bought the visco initiators I was cutting up pieces of plastic and slipping them over the shroud on the standard initiator. They fit nice and snug. Then you can tape the visco to the inside and it compresses the straw to make good adhesive contact unlike the space between tape / fuse and hard plastic. So I bought them thinking I would save time from cutting straws. They worked fine but I rather buy the regular ones and if I have to fuse stuff to it use the straw method.

[Birdman]

I did my show tonight. I did the entire set-up today and it was brutal. I worked non-stop from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM. I bet I consumed at least a couple gallons of water and Powerade today. There was a 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms, so out of caution, I decided to tarp my stations. It was a good thing I did. It rained twice throughout the day, one a pretty good shower.

The show went relatively well, though I had a few issues with the MJG visco initiators. Because I have been so busy this year with little time for prep work, I wanted to give these a try. But I had a few cakes that didn't go off because the visco slipped out of the little shroud sometime between the final check and the firing. The bigger 3mm fuse that we fuse mortar racks with works perfectly. But the smaller 2mm diameter fuse on most cakes fit really loosely. I used tape because of this to help secure them in place, but even so, the diameter of the shroud makes it difficult to get the tape to stick to both the shroud and the fuse. So some slipped free anyway. It looks like I'll be going back to poking cakes and using standard MJG initiators, though the MJG for visco works really well on the mortar racks. And I never again want to be in a situation where I have to do as much work as I did today in getting set up. If in the future I find myself so busy that I can't spread the prep work out over several days, then I'll just do tiny shoots instead of large ones. Today just flat kicked my arse.

I avoid using those connectors unless there are no better options. They are not reliable unless you really take care to secure them well. That's why I find poking the better option. I'm using more product that need connectors than usual but scaled back my show enough this year that I should have plenty of time to everything I can to make sure they connected well. Totally understand wanting to scale back. Your story sounds similar to what I went through last year which is just one of the reasons I scaled back.

[Engineer Cat]

I finished the prep that I needed to do tonight and decided I didn't have an opener that would draw peoples attention to the dock before the music starts and the first shot is fired. So I had a bunch of random pinwheels, fountains, smoke bombs and roman cables and a 100 shot barrage and screw some 4 x4's together to create a totem pole like display.

My one buddy said it reminds him of burning man.

6332

I don't know why the image is sideways. Pretty annoying.