Design specifics and inflation

[PG2159]

I see quite a few mines/comets in these shows, and man are they very cool. My supplier doesn’t directly provide them, but there are quite a few cakes that have them, I figure I can make some fan slices out of them. The other very nice effect I see are tails on various breaks. How drastic of an angle would you be willing to fire these at to get a full spread effect or a pseudo-mime effect?

Inflation is real. Has anyone considered buying before the new year in preparation for next July?

[Engineer Cat]

Yea that's the rub with AOP. Not everyone stocks it and you need a AOP Cert to get them if your suppliers have them.

I harvested comets from cakes this year and if I can't get my hands on AOP next year I'll be doing it again.

As far as full spread I'm sure someone else can answer that better than me with the exact angle to use.

I'll buy if the price is right no matter what time of year. However there is a store about 1 1/2 hours from me that has crazy good deals around Memorial day when they do a demo shoot. I believe a few of us are looking to take advantage of that deal for next year. As well as trying to get other product from our vendor that has AOP.

[WithReport]

...
As far as full spread I'm sure someone else can answer that better than me with the exact angle to use.
.

It simply depends on how much room you have. You could safely skip them across the ground if you had clearance.

If you are up on a tower, you could go all the way around.

[Birdman]

It simply depends on how much room you have. You could safely skip them across the ground if you had clearance.

If you are up on a tower, you could go all the way around.

I recall looking into this at one time and believe I found in a discussion the consensus was that effects placed in a fan shape should be at least 30 degrees from the ground and apart in most cases. This is mostly to account for breaks. If you use tighter angles breaks bleed too much into each other or would be too disrupted by the ground to look appealing. Otherwise, if you have the proper site or are just fanning comets or something without breaks you could put them in any arrangement. It really just depends on what you can do safely and aesthetics. Again, this was just a consensus of opinions I recall reading at one point but seemed reasonable enough to me to commit it to memory.

[WithReport]

For comets and mines without breaks, there really is no limit.

Some examples would be to just look at and watch videos of pro fan slices. The individual tubes are not spaced 30 degrees apart. If so, you could get maybe 6 tubes max on a slice.

The angle is typically based on how many shots in the slice - the more shots, the wider the spread of the full effect, and the angle from the tube to the ground on the end is more acute.

pardon my scribbles - 13 shot and 5 shot.

6377

6378


As for items with breaks. A "bombardment" slice may be a good example to look at. Here is one from Sof76 - with rough angle measurements done off vertical.


6379

[schmidlapp]

6380
Last weeks purchase, definitely a good idea.
That's about 1/3 of my show next 4th.

[PG2159]

6380
Last weeks purchase, definitely a good idea.
That's about 1/3 of my show next 4th.

I just committed to a fishing trip to San Juan in February for a bachelor party, I have to have a closer look at the finances to see if its feasible to make a purchase in the end of the year/before they change their wholesale pricing. It will be interesting to see what the change will be.

[PG2159]

I recall looking into this at one time and believe I found in a discussion the consensus was that effects placed in a fan shape should be at least 30 degrees from the ground and apart in most cases. This is mostly to account for breaks. If you use tighter angles breaks bleed too much into each other or would be too disrupted by the ground to look appealing. Otherwise, if you have the proper site or are just fanning comets or something without breaks you could put them in any arrangement. It really just depends on what you can do safely and aesthetics. Again, this was just a consensus of opinions I recall reading at one point but seemed reasonable enough to me to commit it to memory.

30 degrees. Got it. The 5-shot fan I made this year, I didn't specifically measure the angle, my most drastic wasn't even close to 45. I still have the template/jig I used. That had plenty of clearance.

[Stang]

Just did a quick measurement of a 13s dominator slice. It was ~42 degrees from vertical. This is measuring to the edge of the tube. So if everything is even its about 7 degree or so per tube in each direction.

[Birdman]

For comets and mines without breaks, there really is no limit.

Some examples would be to just look at and watch videos of pro fan slices. The individual tubes are not spaced 30 degrees apart. If so, you could get maybe 6 tubes max on a slice.

The angle is typically based on how many shots in the slice - the more shots, the wider the spread of the full effect, and the angle from the tube to the ground on the end is more acute.

pardon my scribbles - 13 shot and 5 shot.

6377

6378


As for items with breaks. A "bombardment" slice may be a good example to look at. Here is one from Sof76 - with rough angle measurements done off vertical.


6379

As a good example of what can be done with comets, mines etc I would suggest watching your show video (https://youtu.be/QKND-EnL43M). The discussion I was recalling was primarily a discussion of general fanning of effect which included shell and cake fan racks and was full of varying opinions and nuance like this discussion is heading. The "degrees apart" is really only about aesthetics and the "look" someone wants so I probably should have just left it at 30 degrees from the ground. Even that was a general consensus I took away from the many opinions I read and not necessarily my opinion. I personally wouldn't shoot anything with breaks at less than 40-45 degrees (not apart but from ground).

The fact is that this is an art with very few rules carved in stone. Even rules about safety are often up for debate. For example someone could load their finale shells upside down in racks on purpose and fire it safely and some would think it was awesome or maybe even beautiful, while others would be appalled or simply not impressed for varying reasons.