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View Full Version : Fun bicolor FX with Zinc/Mg


Xenodius
April 14th, 2007, 02:11 AM
Hey all.

Recently I made some of the following, admittedly k3wlish, but certainly fun formula:

NH4Cl 1.8%
NH4NO3 16.8%
Zinc 41.4%
Mg, coarse 16%
Sr(NO3)2 20%
Hexamine 4% (Optional, use +4% mg if you skip hexamine, I read it slows burn rate :confused: )

This mixture is water-sensitive if you add NH4Cl, so watch out. I think HCL might ignite it too if you skip NH4Cl, but I haven't tried it. Either way, this is just a 60/40 mix of the classic, so called "Negative-X" mix with a 50/50 mg/nitrate comp.

I don't have a video,(We don't have a digital camcorder) but I noticed a very interesting effect: The sparks emitted from the coarse (10-60 mesh) Mg were distinctly blue, while the strobe itself burned a deep red. Since it was so bright, it was sort of red, white, and blue, but thats a hair of a stretch. :cool: :D In any case, I soon tried a 7/3 mix using 400 mesh atomized Al, and with a small amount of zinc/mg (mixed out of hand) mix added in, and lo and behold, I got nice blue sparks again.

Apparently, the zinc I am using (From Firefox) is fine enough to coat the Mg and 'stick' to it enough to produce visible color. Overall, a neat effect. I just got some dry NC and I already have some acetone so I would like to try coating some +5 mesh chips in a similar formula and breaking them up later and see how that works in comparison. It was recently brought to my attention that our digital camera has a short video feature, so I might be able to get a quick (hopefully not low quality) video of the NC Laquer chips.

I searched for anything with "zinc" or "nc laquer mg" in it before posting, to the 3rd page. I know your hungry NBK ;)

peppovsky
April 15th, 2007, 07:37 PM
Just a quick note - Hexamine slows down the burn rate, probably due to the fact it's organic - it's well known that organic materials burn much slower, generally, then inorganic ones (try add some sugar to any flash powder and notice the effect ;) )