Upcoming Shell Building Class Notes
I wanted to post this for all of you who have signed up for this seminar.
You need to Bring: Your own pair of safety glasses, some sort of sharpie marker pen, bring your own water, or drinks = we will send out for a lunch, but you should have something to tide you over if you need.
Since there are a number of new persons coming, this is going to be "Ball Shells 101" - we will NOT be allowing any manufacturing of stars, or other components - that is a time consuming process, and could be the subject of future seminars. I also do not want to concentrate on Canister shells or multi-break canisters, as that is a totally different animal, and there are a number of different methods of construction - pasted Italian style, or renfasciture style (I think I spelled that right!)
We will have a selection of stars for you to work with, and I have all shell semis prepped with the proper spollette tubes. I have some multi-color stars that were sourced from a bunch of different shells, that have been sized, in order to be fairly uniform, and I spent nearly two months this winter rolling some different stars, in a number of effects. Rolling stars is fun, but it is time consuming, and sort of like watching paint dry at times!
We will be working with 4" and 5" shells, and possibly a few 6" as well.
I have also made a 5 - gallon bucket of rice hull burst, and a 5 - gallon bucket of Cork burst (for the 5" shells) - so I hope we have enough - the burst is one thing that we will use a LOT of!
DAY ONE will be spent construction the shells, and getting them ready to paste on the WASP machine - we will go ahead and WASP as many as we can the first day, and start getting them drying.
DAY TWO will be for finishing the WASP operation, assembling the time fuses, getting them glued in place, weighing out lift, preparing the leaders, and putting all of that onto the shells, finishing them, so they will be ready to fire!
I need to split this into a 2 - day event, because after the last class, it took me nearly a week to finish out all the shells, and nobody got to participate finishing out their shells! Just like most anything pyro - it takes time!
I will have several different stations set up for groups of 4, or 5 persons. This way we will not have too much live materials out at any one area. I have enough room to spread this class out a bit, in order to be as safe as possible. I hope to have one or two "monitors" to sort of keep an eye out on you guys to keep things going, and answer questions or make suggestions as we go along.
Building your own shells is not really that difficult, but it has to be done right, in order for them to perform they way they are supposed to. For those of you who were at the last Fall event, where we fired almost 100 shells that were all member built - we launched some really nice shells! it is very satisfying to spend a couple hours building shells, and them watching them go up in a matter of seconds!
If you have any questions, comments of need any additional information you may call me at 336-247-2212.
IF you will need directions, get to the EAST side of LEXINGTON (I-85 at Exit 96) and then call, we will direct you into the secret lair!
See you soon!
Jeff Hale