NightHawkInLight It has been so long since your last fire work video! I am so glad. These were why I originally subscribed....Well fireworks and pheasants. Do you still keep pheasants?
I've been attempting to perfect Senko Hanabi for about 15 years now. The charcoal is the most important component, I've had some great success with charcoal from pine cones, but only one particular batch worked better than just radiata pine charcoal. Vegetable black from one particular brand of art pigment worked well also. I tried realgar once, not worth the toxicity fears, especially inhalation of the smoke! I use high purity recrystalised potassium nitrate and resublimed sulfur, but it doesn't seem to make any difference compared to fertilizer grades. I've tried many kinds of paper. The crepe of streamers works as you suggest, as does genuine Japanese washi. The best paper I found was a bleached kitchen paper, thin and smoothly calendared. The brand may only be available in Australia, it has a tiger on the wrapper. Haven't tried to find a US substitute yet, still using my original roll. Another paper that was exceptional was that which a particular brand of glass microscope slides were packed in, a sheet between each slide. A little too small for comfortable hand-held sparklers, but really excellent for some reason. Composition wise I use 60:24:16 KNO3:S:C as a starting point.
Hey there! Hoping to make Senko Hanabi soon, and I was looking into papers to use, and you seem to have had good results, so would you by any chance remember which brand of kitchen roll you had? If not, one more question, was the picture of the tiger on the wrapping animated?
Me and my brother made these are few years ago, we got the composition from some Chinese website. I still got the composition saved as a .txt on my old hard drive, it's: 55 potassium nitrate 22.5 sulfur 22.5 charcoal we also made the powdered charcoal ourself, we tested both pine and coconut shell. I would say pine worked better. We also tried to add some icing sugar, the "glob" was bigger tho it seemed like it produced less sparks. For the paper we used brown sandwich wrapping paper. Tissue paper also works but burns faster.
This as absolutely amazing to see!!!! Well Done!!! As a welder, one of the most fascinating and magical parts of the process is having your welding helmet on and seeing the molten metal in the puddle, its like controlling lava. It makes you feel like a wizard to turn a solid piece of metal into a molten puddle. And what you have done with this sparkler, is make that molten puddle completely visible in daylight without being too dangerous. Seeing that ball of slag on the bottom consuming itself is absolutely magical. I love it!!
日本のテレビで見ました！！ 熱心で人柄溢れる性格に感動しました！ これからもがんばってください！ また、日本へ来て下さい！ I watched japanese TV program!! I was very impressed by your passion and persomality! Please keep doing a good job! Please come to Japan again!!!
Evan Blenkinsopp oh that's easy just roll The spark wheel of a lighter into the joint without lighting will make sparklers when lit. I wouldn't inhale that though
It's actually very common in Japan and is a huge part of a Japanese childhood. I really think these kinds of fireworks should be spread throughout the world since it's really beautiful and amazingly calming
I watched a Japanese TV program. You learned the technology from a Japanese craftsman. I expect your new sparkler video. The distribution of gunpowder is a secret.
I had an old fireworks manual, published 1934, which said the best results for senko hanabi were realized using a mixture of particle sizes in the charcoal. Fines insured quick combustion and slag formation, larger particles threw more and bigger sparks. The author speculated that rubbing charcoal fines into the paper beyond the composition mixture would improve the endurance or 'climb' of the slag. Good job, I never got mine to work.
I play this firework when i'm 7 years old, gift from my japanese friend. Now i watch your video make me miss that moment...thx for your tutorial video....two tumbs up....
Senko Hanabi is an art, and your work is admirable. I have tried, but not having the patience, I resorted to the more simple and loud shells and rockets, whistlers and salutes... Thank you for the video!
"what might help?" well all sparkler compositions that i worked with and are similar to BP the amount of sparks and their time of burning off is dependent on the size of the charcoal particles size... grind the charcoal separately, then sift it, use the fine dust for the composition your making and add some of the larger charcoal particles for the sparks... try using ball mill for few hours to grind the composition...
These sparklers seem to work independently of charcoal particle size because the composition itself has burned long before the sparks begin to form. I have tried coarse charcoal a number of times just to be sure and it makes no difference.
you are most probably right... i never ever seen this type of sparklers and i dont know how they work... above all when i make compositions with potassium nitrate if they make such droplet it means the composition is not mixed very well (to little time in the ball mill) or there is excess of potassium nitrate, but thats not the case in the sparklers type your making it seems... maybe try to moist the mixture with 50/50 water/alcohol before making the sparkler? btw can you be so kind to tell me what video compression are you using for your videos? i found it strange but some of the channels (crazy russian hacker, slingshot channel... and your channel) upload videos (most likely depends on the video compression) that cant be watched on firefox using the youtube html5 player... this goes for some time and i reported it many times but it seems google doesnt care and forces you to use chrome...
I have tried solidifying the grain of the sparklers by wetting them with alcohol and even adding a binder, it doesn't seem to make a difference. For my video compression I'm just rendering to an .mp4, that's a strange issue you're having.
I saw an article on NHK covering a maker of these and his special ingredient was the pine charcoal. The wood he was using had been seasoned for 20 years.
Your explanation of the effects of the flame retardant paper wrapper was the most interesting part of the video. I think that the counterintuitive nature of it is genius, if only of a low order.
Have you tried monitoring the temperature of the bead of dross with an IR thermometer? Maybe the amount and volatility of the sparks has a relation to the temperature of the reaction taking place and knowing this could help you narrow down to some solutions. If not that I'd suggest brainstorming some independent external testing to compare differences and similarities rather than relying so heavily on what goes into it and then when you've found some of these variances you can work on what goes in. Some other thoughts are timing the reactions so you can arrive at a weight/time assessments, determining cross sectional area of the sparkler prior to lighting vs the final dross, a way to quantify the shape of the sparkler (is the material in a cylinder, tear drop with small side up, tear drop with small side down, etc.)
Nice slow-mo close-up @0:24 where I seem to observe: 1) the sparks originate not from the "slag"-bulb nor the firework-body alone, but from the interaction of the two. 2) There is a blue flame around the bulb. 3) Cohesive surface tension in a somewhat viscous liquid. 4) Dark spots and turbulence in the liquid bulb. 5) An excess of ~2.5x more sulfur in your formula compared to gunpowder. This suggests that the excess of sulfur makes a reducing environment in the bulb and the blue flame suggests the sulfur burns off when it meets the air. Sulfur boils at only 445 °C, which I'm guessing is much less than the bulb temperature judging by its apparent incandescence. Presumably the heat from the sulfur flame and its shielding effect helps maintain the hot reducing environment in the bulb, and might even drive endothermic reduction reactions. Apparently, surface tension pulls the bulb up. The bulb acts a bit like the wick of a candle, (an inverted candle). Heat from the bulb melts the KNO3 oxidizer and other materials in the firework body. These presumably have laminar flow, flowing fastest down the center-axis and into the center of the bulb. In the bulb, I suppose the mixing of oxidizers and reducers initiates the (redox) reactions that lead to sparking. The temperature of the body-materials increases as the reaction proceeds and as the materials move from the stem into the bulb. They change from a cool powder, to a warm liquid, to hot redox reactions, and to a boiling phase-change and/or oxidized outgassing (SO2, N2, CO, CO2). I'm imagining the way a lava-lamp works. Presumably the inverted temperature gradient (hotter on the bottom, cooler on top) and the decrease in density with temperature causes a strong convection current and bubble-pump effect causing higher turbulence in the liquid and more vigorous mixing, and a faster reaction rate. Presumably as a bolus of oxidizer liquid enters the reducing environment, I guess the surface where the oxidizer and reducer meet will react to form the K2S "slag". I'm guessing this may tend to shield the two so that the inner part of an oxidizer-bolus won't immediately react with rest of the reducer. Then turbulence, convection and outgassing will cause mixing. I'd speculate there are non-homogeneous positive-feedback effects, where local turbulence/convection/mixing may likely cause increased: local mixing, exothermic reactions, thermal expansion and outgassing. These in turn cause more turbulence/convection/mixing. I guess one theory is that this causes a type of "rocket-propulsion". Perhaps effects like this shoot the sparking-materials out, or perhaps cause a local bulge in the bulb surface which then further reacts with the flaming sulfur vapor and air. But I'm only speculating... it could be completely wrong, haha.
Sugar will end up producing water that will destroy the Potassium sulfite. But making german dark aluminium with pine charcoal and add some can be a good idea.
Any metal powder added burns away long before the drop forms that makes the sparks. The reaction that makes these sparklers work is very different from normal sparklers.
the ash thing last for as long as heat is on it,,, but you need to try this ,,just get zig-zag papers twist one very loose and put a flame to it and keep it on the ash that forms,, see it get brighter and go solid,,,,
Here in Japan, when making Senkou Hanabi we use Shouen (松煙) which is a type of charcoal made from pine that was originally used as a pigment. This type of charcoal has much more sap than other types of charcoal which is why it is so good at making sparks. To make sure it has lots of sap, the part of the tree around the roots is used, rather than branches. In Japan, you can buy Shouen powder but it might be hard to get outside of Japan.
Thanks for the info! I think the English name for the type of charcoal you're describing is 'lampblack'. I may try making pine charcoal from near the roots as you suggest, and try lampblack also.
You need to be a little careful as in "lampblack" often refers to the name of the pigment color. It could be any powdered soot made using the lampblack method, or it could be real Shouen made from the part of the pine tree that is rich in sap. Under a microscope, the particle size of soot using the lampblack method is much smaller than that of real Shouen. So YMMV...
Thank you so much! you have made me a fan of both your channel and senko hanabi! Very tricky chemistry mine want to flare like flash powder so I tried suppressing the flare with a little sugar, very little, and it seems to work to hold the glob but it sparks less. I still can not thank you enough for your tremendous effort, it has made the learning curve shorter by several years. Just like you I will share my findings and credit you for the insights in this amazing craft.
I just made some today using some formula online, was having an issue keeping the tissue paper from losing the molten blob, a way to fix it is to make a borax and water mix and dip the paper into it, then let it dry. Not getting fancy sparks like your example but the tissue paper is doing a good job at holding together.
I suggest going to Tsutsui Tokimasa and hooking up with a Japanese Master fireworks craftsman.....ROFLOL, but hey, IMO you did great with that and although as you have found, not quite the same, the streamer idea appears to take a lot of the skill out of the equation. I'd say that's a big win! Nice follow up video on today, Jan 28, 2020. A follow up to the follow up. Nobody can accuse you of giving up.
This is the coolest thing I have ever seen. The effort put into this must be unimaginable. Amazing job. I hope to see cool project as cool or cooler than this in the future.
Wow thanks for another great video! I know I've of the comments said that any metal would burn to quickly but for better sparks you might try a number of strands of ultra-fine wire (maybe aluminum, iron, magnesium, etc)! I'm thinking that the wires will burn more slowly than powdered metal!
Coming around full circle for me.. was the original reason why I subbed.. someone who made real fireworks. Nice job! :) I would think that your one success back in the day was due to some extra impurity that was present in the mixture. I doubt it was metal filings, but something that was in the charcoal. Since sappy wood seems to work best, I might suggest timing your charcoal production so that you stop the conversion slightly early to leave more sap residue in/on the charcoal. Might be a bit tricky, but that's about the only thing I can think of outside of getting a specific wood charcoal they probably use for them from Japan.
what if you added less ground up particles of charcoal above that mixture? so as it burns upwards it gets to burn charcoal. I just pulled this one out of my ... but it sounds plausible :D
It's a good thought, it makes sense that it might work to feed the ball of slag fresh charcoal as it burns. Unfortunately I've already thought to try it and it doesn't work.
It looks like titanium sparks in your 2008 result. That means the sparks are hotter than usual, so maybe tweak the recipe or paper to get them to burn much hotter?
I absolutely love your channel. Your videos are easy to follow and I have now made both types of sparklers you have made. Thank you for the great ideas!
Nighthawk I have been typing this every once in a while on your videos. I was here when your channel had like 5 subscribers. I remember you wanting to quit your job so you could do more youtube. What was it, around 2009? And here you are, freaking 2.7M subs. You made it bro!
I think your old pyrotechnic videos are how I originally found your channel, many years and several accounts ago. When it cools, is the slag just kind of crumbly, or does it have a more ceramic characteristic like welding slag?
Great to see these on TH-cam. I first read about these in Ron Lancaster's book "Fireworks, Principles and Practice" which includes a chapter by Takeo Shimizu describing several compositions and the mechanism of operation.
yeah, that video is helpful for us europeans which has much stricter laws on chemicals, although getting sulfur (powder) is still hard though because it does not occur everywhere, and it cant really be easily produced naturally such as nitrates can.
Must say, your project are things I have deep interest in, I have a recepy for those , gonna try them now that you have sparked my interest. Keep the videos coming.
you can't just buy it in a store you need to order it, just look who supplies your local schools/universities then you should be able to get small amounts
Thanks for this. I've been experimenting with senko hanabi for over a decade now too and the streamers is an interesting tip worth further investigation. Making my own pine branch charcoal to see how that works. Very exciting stuff!
Does this mean the charcoal is being made at a carbonization temperature closer to 300 ° C than 1000 ° C ? That is about the only way that the wood species would matter, because the composition of charcoal depends strongly on the carbonization temperature. ukrfuel.com/news-chemical-properties-of-charcoal-23.html
That's actually amazing. And the way it works is so weird in a molten drop that gets carried up. I've been wanting a mortar and pestle for a long time and this might finally be the deal breaker
add some kind of mix that produces sparks like the ones you want, (but which of course would normally be burnt away and not join the slag ball) and encase it in a coat of clay or enamel. get the thickness of the coat right, and the outer coat only melts away once inside the slag ball, bursting out and creating the sparks. since this method uses more conventional explosives, you could probably control the size of the sparks, temp and even color!
DeceptiveReptile Yes basically fireworks need to be made by a company and inspected. An individual can't make fireworks even though fortunately we are able to create model rockets.
Your p[rojecs are so awesome. I think fireworks is what brought me to your channel a few years ago. I'm a subscriber from way back and it's really cool to see the evolution of your videos. Please keep up the good work!
VERY well put together instructional video! I respect the time and your dedication perfecting the Senko Hanabi! The history and nostalgia is making me want to try these. I have read a couple articles on these,this one being the best,however i have not tried yet. As with anything i do PYRO wise,it's research,research R&D R&D.
thatsNothingProgrammersWriteLikeThisItsCalledCamelCaseFightMeBro and that lowercase "t" at the start is intentional. we_sometimes_also_write_like_this_its_called_snake_case
I remember once many years ago I threw some of these sparklers on an order from Canonfuse to meet the free shipping minimum. I'm kinda sad they don't sell them anymore! Also glad to see more fireworks videos from you! It's been a long time!
When I saw this I though it was a re upload, shows how long I've been subscribed. I may have accidentally made these years ago when I was making paper fuse with a craft tissue paper and a delay comp.
Another cool vid. You could wet the paper with alcohol, coat it lightly with extremely fine aluminium/magnesium/iron oxide powder, let it dry and then use that to make the sparkler with. Or you might even be able to just use a Pritt Stick type light paper glue to stick the powder with. That should generate the sparks you're looking for. I believe in the original sparklers that the sparks were down to the choice of charcoal used.
10 years to perfect something that is just for fun and beauty of things (And maybe a little for science aswell), that's true dedication, all my respect! You should try to find a way to hang lots of them aside and to light them all up to see how it looks like :D
I have seen some very nice sparks on aussie hardwood...when the firebox is opened after a slow burn the charcoal will start firing off long sparks that break again at tge end. You may find larger charcoal poweder grains will change the effect.
Great video I want to try. You asked for ideas to help...Perhaps less oxygen exposure in making your charcoal by sealing your tin after the white condensation smoke ends, or if that does not work, sealing it right after the browns gas is depleted? Or activating it via a lye solution? As to the paper, If you fireproofed it yourself with different formulated strengths on even thinner walled tissue paper?
The fact that he found out that party streamer paper works shows the dedication he put into a project he's excited or fascinated about. It's wonderful i wonder how many types of paper he tried. Not only paper, the composition ratio and background research work... It's just Fantastic
I've made lots of improvements since this video. Here's a playlist of all my senko hanabi videos: th-cam.com/play/PL1a2HkcVbmAVW5LBBThCdHPD3BKDd03Tj.html
@@Nighthawkinlight it worked fantastic for couple minutes (which is satisfying enough for me) I lit matchstick in the glass to burn away all the oxygen first instead of flushing it with propane.
You could try with a mixture of 4 parts of Charcoal , 3 of Potassium nitrate and 1 of Sulfur. If this mix doesn't work well you could use 1 of Potassium nitrate and 3 of Sulfur. This is based in the rarity of the materials and in the difficulty to extract them in old ages. Thanks for your videos ,i hope this can help you.
I just recently got into black powder and things related just because. I stumbled upon your video and took some pointers. The only thing there is left of the tips is the actual composition mixture. 52% potasium nitrate(spectracide stump remover is pure), 28% activated organic charcoal(Azdent teeth whitening online), 20% sulfur(bought online 99.9% pure). The tissue paper i use comes from a dollar tree which has nice size bundles for 1$. I cut a strip of paper exactly the width of a dime and a dollars lenth long rectangular strip. 1/2 inch from one end, after folding like you do in the middle longways, i put about a peas size pile of the comp. Maybe just slightly smaller. Then pinching the end i twist to capture the composition between the paper and twist/roll the paper the rest of the way. Tight but not extremly tight. Kinda loose tight if that makes any sense. Then in the middle i use my forefinger and thumb to tightly roll between them a real tight spot only about a grain of rices with in it. This i call a start/stop that if your slag that forms has momentum it'll recharge, so to say, at that spot and give a round two to the sparkler. Also after twist/rolling the sparkler it will be roughly half as long as the paper it started from. Dont trim the end just light it. P.S. I began learning this this weekend. I have aquired savant syndrome. TBI.
Interesting beautiful and non-violent firework. I suspect the humidity makes a difference. Putting the finished squibs in a sealed container with desiccant before use may help with consistency.
Wow! Ten years of trial and error! Way to stick with it. Very cool result.
Make Build Modify how was this written two days ago?
Make Build Modify patreon is how
That is wat I thought
Purple color is from the sulfur which burns blue. The old one only looks different because of the camera I was using.
NightHawkInLight It has been so long since your last fire work video! I am so glad. These were why I originally subscribed....Well fireworks and pheasants. Do you still keep pheasants?
I've been attempting to perfect Senko Hanabi for about 15 years now. The charcoal is the most important component, I've had some great success with charcoal from pine cones, but only one particular batch worked better than just radiata pine charcoal. Vegetable black from one particular brand of art pigment worked well also. I tried realgar once, not worth the toxicity fears, especially inhalation of the smoke! I use high purity recrystalised potassium nitrate and resublimed sulfur, but it doesn't seem to make any difference compared to fertilizer grades.
I've tried many kinds of paper. The crepe of streamers works as you suggest, as does genuine Japanese washi. The best paper I found was a bleached kitchen paper, thin and smoothly calendared. The brand may only be available in Australia, it has a tiger on the wrapper. Haven't tried to find a US substitute yet, still using my original roll. Another paper that was exceptional was that which a particular brand of glass microscope slides were packed in, a sheet between each slide. A little too small for comfortable hand-held sparklers, but really excellent for some reason.
Composition wise I use 60:24:16 KNO3:S:C as a starting point.
I'll have to try pine cone charcoal, I have 4-5 different species in my yard so I can find out if one is better than another. Thanks for the info!
Seriously look into cedar charcoal... Lots of sap!
Hey there! Hoping to make Senko Hanabi soon, and I was looking into papers to use, and you seem to have had good results, so would you by any chance remember which brand of kitchen roll you had? If not, one more question, was the picture of the tiger on the wrapping animated?
Another Australian pyro? Btw just curious, where did you source your potassium nitrate?
Cool! Love the time you put into the process to figure it out.
next up on the KingofRandom: What would happen when you combine COOL sparklers and liquid nitrogen?
oh hi, you should maybe try to feature this on your channel?
The king of random, I was just watching one of your videos before I watched this.
Favorite I am your favorite
maybe you should put a little p
more process into yours?
Me and my brother made these are few years ago, we got the composition from some Chinese website. I still got the composition saved as a .txt on my old hard drive, it's:
55 potassium nitrate
22.5 sulfur
22.5 charcoal
we also made the powdered charcoal ourself, we tested both pine and coconut shell. I would say pine worked better. We also tried to add some icing sugar, the "glob" was bigger tho it seemed like it produced less sparks. For the paper we used brown sandwich wrapping paper. Tissue paper also works but burns faster.
Adding icing sugar adds cornstarch which would slow down the burn rate and less sparks. Generally avoid powdered sugar in pyrotechnics and rocketry.
You've gotten way more comfortable in front of the camera over the years and it's doing wonders for your videos. Keep up the good work!
These are beautiful. Even more "magic" than normal sparklers in how the sparks seemingly come from nowhere. 10/10.
This as absolutely amazing to see!!!! Well Done!!! As a welder, one of the most fascinating and magical parts of the process is having your welding helmet on and seeing the molten metal in the puddle, its like controlling lava. It makes you feel like a wizard to turn a solid piece of metal into a molten puddle. And what you have done with this sparkler, is make that molten puddle completely visible in daylight without being too dangerous. Seeing that ball of slag on the bottom consuming itself is absolutely magical. I love it!!
日本のテレビで見ました！！
熱心で人柄溢れる性格に感動しました！
これからもがんばってください！
また、日本へ来て下さい！
I watched japanese TV program!!
I was very impressed by your passion and persomality!
Please keep doing a good job!
Please come to Japan again!!!
Blunt rolling with Nighthawkinlight
+Unmasked Eagle Damn, I just want him to make a blunt, that shoots sparks when you smoke it. Hey, it'll get you noticed during 4/20...
Evan Blenkinsopp oh that's easy just roll The spark wheel of a lighter into the joint without lighting will make sparklers when lit. I wouldn't inhale that though
Spark it up
Duck
its pretty lit fam
I have so much respect for the fact that you spent 10 years on this and am so grateful that you decided to share the result with us. You're awesome.
It's actually very common in Japan and is a huge part of a Japanese childhood. I really think these kinds of fireworks should be spread throughout the world since it's really beautiful and amazingly calming
Your tenacity to to make the fireworks is highly commendable and the end result beautifully simple. Well done.
I gotta say, the firework videos are what got me into your channel back the days. Seeing this one today made my day!! Love it! Please make more :)
I love this so much. Anytime there is a chance for knowledge of an ancient craft to be kept alive and passed down is a treasure to us all.
I watched a Japanese TV program. You learned the technology from a Japanese craftsman. I expect your new sparkler video. The distribution of gunpowder is a secret.
I had an old fireworks manual, published 1934, which said the best results for senko hanabi were realized using a mixture of particle sizes in the charcoal.
Fines insured quick combustion and slag formation, larger particles threw more and bigger sparks.
The author speculated that rubbing charcoal fines into the paper beyond the composition mixture would improve the endurance or 'climb' of the slag.
Good job, I never got mine to work.
Would be interesting to get Cody's lab and Nerd rage to join this, maybe even a co-lab!
They both make stuff like this too, lol
I play this firework when i'm 7 years old, gift from my japanese friend. Now i watch your video make me miss that moment...thx for your tutorial video....two tumbs up....
Very good video, excellent presentation skills, interesting and well produced! Thank you for the time and effort you have spent to produce it!
Senko Hanabi is an art, and your work is admirable. I have tried, but not having the patience, I resorted to the more simple and loud shells and rockets, whistlers and salutes...
Thank you for the video!
"what might help?"
well all sparkler compositions that i worked with and are similar to BP the amount of sparks and their time of burning off is dependent on the size of the charcoal particles size... grind the charcoal separately, then sift it, use the fine dust for the composition your making and add some of the larger charcoal particles for the sparks... try using ball mill for few hours to grind the composition...
These sparklers seem to work independently of charcoal particle size because the composition itself has burned long before the sparks begin to form. I have tried coarse charcoal a number of times just to be sure and it makes no difference.
you are most probably right... i never ever seen this type of sparklers and i dont know how they work... above all when i make compositions with potassium nitrate if they make such droplet it means the composition is not mixed very well (to little time in the ball mill) or there is excess of potassium nitrate, but thats not the case in the sparklers type your making it seems... maybe try to moist the mixture with 50/50 water/alcohol before making the sparkler?
btw can you be so kind to tell me what video compression are you using for your videos?
i found it strange but some of the channels (crazy russian hacker, slingshot channel... and your channel) upload videos (most likely depends on the video compression) that cant be watched on firefox using the youtube html5 player... this goes for some time and i reported it many times but it seems google doesnt care and forces you to use chrome...
I have tried solidifying the grain of the sparklers by wetting them with alcohol and even adding a binder, it doesn't seem to make a difference. For my video compression I'm just rendering to an .mp4, that's a strange issue you're having.
I saw an article on NHK covering a maker of these and his special ingredient was the pine charcoal. The wood he was using had been seasoned for 20 years.
have you tried wet bamboo as a wood for the charcoal? It's a quite waxy wood/grass.
Nice to see a full circle back to the roots of the channel.Looking forward to more video Ben !
Everyone leave a like on his video he deserves it for 10 years of dedication.
the way the ashes rise up in a little dab is awesome, the spark at the end is the cherry on top
basically i liked :)
keep up the good work
Man your voice is so relaxing, maybe if I upload it to my GPS I'll be less angry 😊
Your explanation of the effects of the flame retardant paper wrapper was the most interesting part of the video. I think that the counterintuitive nature of it is genius, if only of a low order.
His voice is so relaxing
Was NOT expecting that when you first lit it! Thats so cool! Thanks for the tutorial.
Have you tried monitoring the temperature of the bead of dross with an IR thermometer? Maybe the amount and volatility of the sparks has a relation to the temperature of the reaction taking place and knowing this could help you narrow down to some solutions. If not that I'd suggest brainstorming some independent external testing to compare differences and similarities rather than relying so heavily on what goes into it and then when you've found some of these variances you can work on what goes in. Some other thoughts are timing the reactions so you can arrive at a weight/time assessments, determining cross sectional area of the sparkler prior to lighting vs the final dross, a way to quantify the shape of the sparkler (is the material in a cylinder, tear drop with small side up, tear drop with small side down, etc.)
Interesting thoughts
Nice slow-mo close-up @0:24 where I seem to observe: 1) the sparks originate not from the "slag"-bulb nor the firework-body alone, but from the interaction of the two. 2) There is a blue flame around the bulb. 3) Cohesive surface tension in a somewhat viscous liquid. 4) Dark spots and turbulence in the liquid bulb. 5) An excess of ~2.5x more sulfur in your formula compared to gunpowder.
This suggests that the excess of sulfur makes a reducing environment in the bulb and the blue flame suggests the sulfur burns off when it meets the air. Sulfur boils at only 445 °C, which I'm guessing is much less than the bulb temperature judging by its apparent incandescence. Presumably the heat from the sulfur flame and its shielding effect helps maintain the hot reducing environment in the bulb, and might even drive endothermic reduction reactions.
Apparently, surface tension pulls the bulb up. The bulb acts a bit like the wick of a candle, (an inverted candle). Heat from the bulb melts the KNO3 oxidizer and other materials in the firework body. These presumably have laminar flow, flowing fastest down the center-axis and into the center of the bulb. In the bulb, I suppose the mixing of oxidizers and reducers initiates the (redox) reactions that lead to sparking.
The temperature of the body-materials increases as the reaction proceeds and as the materials move from the stem into the bulb. They change from a cool powder, to a warm liquid, to hot redox reactions, and to a boiling phase-change and/or oxidized outgassing (SO2, N2, CO, CO2).
I'm imagining the way a lava-lamp works. Presumably the inverted temperature gradient (hotter on the bottom, cooler on top) and the decrease in density with temperature causes a strong convection current and bubble-pump effect causing higher turbulence in the liquid and more vigorous mixing, and a faster reaction rate.
Presumably as a bolus of oxidizer liquid enters the reducing environment, I guess the surface where the oxidizer and reducer meet will react to form the K2S "slag". I'm guessing this may tend to shield the two so that the inner part of an oxidizer-bolus won't immediately react with rest of the reducer. Then turbulence, convection and outgassing will cause mixing.
I'd speculate there are non-homogeneous positive-feedback effects, where local turbulence/convection/mixing may likely cause increased: local mixing, exothermic reactions, thermal expansion and outgassing. These in turn cause more turbulence/convection/mixing. I guess one theory is that this causes a type of "rocket-propulsion". Perhaps effects like this shoot the sparking-materials out, or perhaps cause a local bulge in the bulb surface which then further reacts with the flaming sulfur vapor and air.
But I'm only speculating... it could be completely wrong, haha.
A pinch of magnesium, and do 70/30 charcoal and sugar in my opinion
Vasily B how much is a pinch
Around a pinch
Sugar will end up producing water that will destroy the Potassium sulfite.
But making german dark aluminium with pine charcoal and add some can be a good idea.
Any metal powder added burns away long before the drop forms that makes the sparks. The reaction that makes these sparklers work is very different from normal sparklers.
the ash thing last for as long as heat is on it,,, but you need to try this ,,just get zig-zag papers twist one very loose and put a flame to it and keep it on the ash that forms,, see it get brighter and go solid,,,,
The magic of chemicals and 10 years work wow ... Respect man ! :)
On this episode of "Cooler King of Random Without Clickbait", NHIL Shows us how to roll a funky ass joint. Stay tuned for more
Four years later and it's still true
In fact it's even more true today. TKOR has gone hella downhill 😔
Here in Japan, when making Senkou Hanabi we use Shouen (松煙) which is a type of charcoal made from pine that was originally used as a pigment. This type of charcoal has much more sap than other types of charcoal which is why it is so good at making sparks. To make sure it has lots of sap, the part of the tree around the roots is used, rather than branches. In Japan, you can buy Shouen powder but it might be hard to get outside of Japan.
Thanks for the info! I think the English name for the type of charcoal you're describing is 'lampblack'. I may try making pine charcoal from near the roots as you suggest, and try lampblack also.
You need to be a little careful as in "lampblack" often refers to the name of the pigment color. It could be any powdered soot made using the lampblack method, or it could be real Shouen made from the part of the pine tree that is rich in sap. Under a microscope, the particle size of soot using the lampblack method is much smaller than that of real Shouen. So YMMV...
Let me guess. It needs an oxidizer i can't get in europe?
Anton Helsgaun correct
>muh nitrate salts
learn how to make it out of chicken shit! its not that hard
Anton Helsgaun Nope I live in holland and I get in from dedumpschuur.nl
Go to naturalspices.eu. Then search for E252
You can make potassium nitrate yourself. Just need a few rotting corpses. Ive found that this makes the best pottasium nitrate.
Thank you so much! you have made me a fan of both your channel and senko hanabi! Very tricky chemistry mine want to flare like flash powder so I tried suppressing the flare with a little sugar, very little, and it seems to work to hold the glob but it sparks less. I still can not thank you enough for your tremendous effort, it has made the learning curve shorter by several years. Just like you I will share my findings and credit you for the insights in this amazing craft.
Be sure to check out my senko hanabi playlist. I've made a lot of progress since this video that will help of you try to recreate them
This is awesome.
I just made some today using some formula online, was having an issue keeping the tissue paper from losing the molten blob, a way to fix it is to make a borax and water mix and dip the paper into it, then let it dry. Not getting fancy sparks like your example but the tissue paper is doing a good job at holding together.
Ask NurdRage for help. He might know what exactly is happening in the reaction and he can probably give you a suggestion.
Martin Dimitrov yes
Or NileRed.
Even the experts might not know, but try google books, google scholar.
GOOD TO SEE YOU MAKING FIREWORK VIDEOS AGAIN! I have missed that series!
I suggest going to Tsutsui Tokimasa and hooking up with a Japanese Master fireworks craftsman.....ROFLOL, but hey, IMO you did great with that and although as you have found, not quite the same, the streamer idea appears to take a lot of the skill out of the equation. I'd say that's a big win! Nice follow up video on today, Jan 28, 2020. A follow up to the follow up. Nobody can accuse you of giving up.
This is the coolest thing I have ever seen. The effort put into this must be unimaginable. Amazing job. I hope to see cool project as cool or cooler than this in the future.
Great video! Very cool.
Glad to see you're back at it again with making fireworks :)
Add sugar, it probably sounds dumb but sugar sparks when you let it burn for a while
Alfredo Pantoja
Sounds like a first class ticket to the ICU
Hector Grijalva how!
did you even watch the video hector? he used like a half teaspoon worth of composition.
urjnlegend he is making a mean joke about how his name sounds Hispanic. Nothing to do with sparklers.
+Melody
No, he's referring to molten sugar burns.
Wow thanks for another great video! I know I've of the comments said that any metal would burn to quickly but for better sparks you might try a number of strands of ultra-fine wire (maybe aluminum, iron, magnesium, etc)! I'm thinking that the wires will burn more slowly than powdered metal!
If this needs to be really precise then you must be good at rolling joints
I think that parrot is talking to me, it said: "You wanna get high?" :)
Coming around full circle for me.. was the original reason why I subbed.. someone who made real fireworks. Nice job! :)
I would think that your one success back in the day was due to some extra impurity that was present in the mixture. I doubt it was metal filings, but something that was in the charcoal. Since sappy wood seems to work best, I might suggest timing your charcoal production so that you stop the conversion slightly early to leave more sap residue in/on the charcoal. Might be a bit tricky, but that's about the only thing I can think of outside of getting a specific wood charcoal they probably use for them from Japan.
Your dog is so cute :3
your creativity is unlimited and I hope to see great things from your creativity
what if you added less ground up particles of charcoal above that mixture? so as it burns upwards it gets to burn charcoal. I just pulled this one out of my ... but it sounds plausible :D
It's a good thought, it makes sense that it might work to feed the ball of slag fresh charcoal as it burns. Unfortunately I've already thought to try it and it doesn't work.
Bro you're so good at making stuff you have influenced me so much that I now make your inventions
It looks like titanium sparks in your 2008 result. That means the sparks are hotter than usual, so maybe tweak the recipe or paper to get them to burn much hotter?
Ever thing is so fantastic to watch and learn...so precise and organized and easy to watch .
thank you for making these videos
Maybe add some magnesium powder
I absolutely love your channel. Your videos are easy to follow and I have now made both types of sparklers you have made. Thank you for the great ideas!
Very cool!
Nighthawk I have been typing this every once in a while on your videos. I was here when your channel had like 5 subscribers. I remember you wanting to quit your job so you could do more youtube. What was it, around 2009?
And here you are, freaking 2.7M subs. You made it bro!
I think your old pyrotechnic videos are how I originally found your channel, many years and several accounts ago. When it cools, is the slag just kind of crumbly, or does it have a more ceramic characteristic like welding slag?
It's like welding slag
Well, you just saved a lot of people 10 years, will have to try this out myself
Now that is LIT 🔥🔥🔥
one of your best videos/projects yet, anyone can do it. thanks for sharing.
When you run out of bud but still want a toke. 5:47
damn! i never thought to roll like that. I can't do it the regular way haha.
Great to see these on TH-cam. I first read about these in Ron Lancaster's book "Fireworks, Principles and Practice" which includes a chapter by Takeo Shimizu describing several compositions and the mechanism of operation.
if you don't know where to find these ingredients then watch cody's lab and make your own. 😊
wow, cody even teaches you how to get pottasium from your piss
aldos s You realize it takes like half a year to a year or more to do that right? Lol
Well, that's better than not being able to get it at all, right?
aldo s not potassium, he uses the urine to produce nitrate.
Then he adds potassium ions to it to form potassium nitrate.
yeah, that video is helpful for us europeans which has much stricter laws on chemicals, although getting sulfur (powder) is still hard though because it does not occur everywhere, and it cant really be easily produced naturally such as nitrates can.
I'm impressed with your dedication to this project. Kudos.
Why don't you go to a forest and collect some pine resin then? Try to add that into your coal mixture.
Must say, your project are things I have deep interest in, I have a recepy for those , gonna try them now that you have sparked my interest. Keep the videos coming.
When you can't get access to potassium nitrate or Sulfur where you live 😭
Riley same😢😢
Riley potassium nitrate is found in stump remover and you should be able to get some at a gardening store
Try agricultural places, it is used as a fertilzer and can be bought quite cheap
you can't just buy it in a store you need to order it, just look who supplies your local schools/universities then you should be able to get small amounts
Riley finding kno3 is easy in europe look for saltpeter , e252 dont know about sulfur tho
Bro your videos just keep getting better and better ive been watching since i was 13 and have enjoyed many of your videos
Im 18 now
What happened to your forehead my dude? And also 10 years for 10 seconds. Ouch. That's some resolve, much respect.
OH. Also what about maybe using something like they use in actual sparklers in the ratio, or even maybe some magnesium?
Lost a fight with a tree
NightHawkInLight I hope you went back and taught it a lesson after it went to sleep.
Thanks for this. I've been experimenting with senko hanabi for over a decade now too and the streamers is an interesting tip worth further investigation. Making my own pine branch charcoal to see how that works. Very exciting stuff!
Wood with any type of sap or *ROSSIN*
Wet.Socks isn't it rosin?
monsterjam56 Yeah but normally people say resin and it caught me off guard as sounding like ROSSIN
+Wet.Socks Yeah, that caught me off-guard too. It's just to check we were still listening, eh? ;)
Wet.Socks oh, yes you are correct. Rosin - 1. resin, especially the solid amber residue obtained after the distillation of crude turpentine oleoresin
Does this mean the charcoal is being made at a carbonization temperature closer to 300 ° C than 1000 ° C ? That is about the only way that the wood species would matter, because the composition of charcoal depends strongly on the carbonization temperature. ukrfuel.com/news-chemical-properties-of-charcoal-23.html
That's actually amazing. And the way it works is so weird in a molten drop that gets carried up. I've been wanting a mortar and pestle for a long time and this might finally be the deal breaker
Little shavings of iron or magnesium or titanium would add sparks
Jacob riddle I was also thinking iron filings would give a good spark
add some kind of mix that produces sparks like the ones you want, (but which of course would normally be burnt away and not join the slag ball) and encase it in a coat of clay or enamel. get the thickness of the coat right, and the outer coat only melts away once inside the slag ball, bursting out and creating the sparks. since this method uses more conventional explosives, you could probably control the size of the sparks, temp and even color!
This is definitely illegal to do in Finland.
xWood4000 I'm not familiar with Finnish laws. Have you guys got tough firework laws or something?
DeceptiveReptile Yes basically fireworks need to be made by a company and inspected. An individual can't make fireworks even though fortunately we are able to create model rockets.
xWood4000 Same in Estonia. You can get all the cool chemicals, but you really cannot do anything with them...
Samuli Martin It's probably the same in most of the EU.
xWood4000 True
Your p[rojecs are so awesome. I think fireworks is what brought me to your channel a few years ago. I'm a subscriber from way back and it's really cool to see the evolution of your videos. Please keep up the good work!
5:30 worst spliff in the history of TH-cam.
VERY well put together instructional video! I respect the time and your dedication perfecting the Senko Hanabi! The history and nostalgia is making me want to try these. I have read a couple articles on these,this one being the best,however i have not tried yet. As with anything i do PYRO wise,it's research,research R&D R&D.
I have a huge update on this project I need to make into a new video. I'll get to that probably in January
Weeb fireworks. SUGOI
this is awesome. I just made up some BP and have these ingredients at hand.
Why Do You Always Title Your Videos Like This.
It's called title case.
www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/capital_letters_title_case.htm
Haha, that's the proper way to title something. Haven't you learned that in school? Only thing he did technically wrong is capitalized "to".
thatsNothingProgrammersWriteLikeThisItsCalledCamelCaseFightMeBro
and that lowercase "t" at the start is intentional.
we_sometimes_also_write_like_this_its_called_snake_case
Sam George because you're supposed to capitalize the first letter in nearly every word in a title?
Because it's a.. title?
I remember once many years ago I threw some of these sparklers on an order from Canonfuse to meet the free shipping minimum. I'm kinda sad they don't sell them anymore! Also glad to see more fireworks videos from you! It's been a long time!
It's beautiful... We see "life" in Senko Hanabi. From the formation of bud to its final drop. Thanks for sharing.
When I saw this I though it was a re upload, shows how long I've been subscribed. I may have accidentally made these years ago when I was making paper fuse with a craft tissue paper and a delay comp.
Well done. I appreciate your efforts and the fact that you told us about it. Keep reinventing. Never give up.
Wow, given how fluffy the sparks were I was sure that there would be iron involved on the first video clip. Nice work.
Another cool vid. You could wet the paper with alcohol, coat it lightly with extremely fine aluminium/magnesium/iron oxide powder, let it dry and then use that to make the sparkler with. Or you might even be able to just use a Pritt Stick type light paper glue to stick the powder with. That should generate the sparks you're looking for. I believe in the original sparklers that the sparks were down to the choice of charcoal used.
I see these sparklers in anime all the time and have always wondered what they were! Very fascinating video :)
10 years to perfect something that is just for fun and beauty of things (And maybe a little for science aswell), that's true dedication, all my respect!
You should try to find a way to hang lots of them aside and to light them all up to see how it looks like :D
I have seen some very nice sparks on aussie hardwood...when the firebox is opened after a slow burn the charcoal will start firing off long sparks that break again at tge end. You may find larger charcoal poweder grains will change the effect.
Here in Brazil we had a lot of those like 15 years ago, they're called here "Estrelinha" wich means little star.
Great video I want to try. You asked for ideas to help...Perhaps less oxygen exposure in making your charcoal by sealing your tin after the white condensation smoke ends, or if that does not work, sealing it right after the browns gas is depleted? Or activating it via a lye solution? As to the paper, If you fireproofed it yourself with different formulated strengths on even thinner walled tissue paper?
The fact that he found out that party streamer paper works shows the dedication he put into a project he's excited or fascinated about. It's wonderful i wonder how many types of paper he tried. Not only paper, the composition ratio and background research work... It's just Fantastic
I've made lots of improvements since this video. Here's a playlist of all my senko hanabi videos: th-cam.com/play/PL1a2HkcVbmAVW5LBBThCdHPD3BKDd03Tj.html
@@Nighthawkinlight yes sir, watched the whole playlist. Absolutely love your content i recreated the light bulb project!
@@vaibhavhayaran Wow that's kind of a tough one to replicate. How did the bulb work for you?
@@Nighthawkinlight it worked fantastic for couple minutes (which is satisfying enough for me) I lit matchstick in the glass to burn away all the oxygen first instead of flushing it with propane.
You could try with a mixture of 4 parts of Charcoal , 3 of Potassium nitrate and 1 of Sulfur.
If this mix doesn't work well you could use 1 of Potassium nitrate and 3 of Sulfur.
This is based in the rarity of the materials and in the difficulty to extract them in old ages.
Thanks for your videos ,i hope this can help you.
I just recently got into black powder and things related just because. I stumbled upon your video and took some pointers. The only thing there is left of the tips is the actual composition mixture. 52% potasium nitrate(spectracide stump remover is pure), 28% activated organic charcoal(Azdent teeth whitening online), 20% sulfur(bought online 99.9% pure). The tissue paper i use comes from a dollar tree which has nice size bundles for 1$. I cut a strip of paper exactly the width of a dime and a dollars lenth long rectangular strip. 1/2 inch from one end, after folding like you do in the middle longways, i put about a peas size pile of the comp. Maybe just slightly smaller. Then pinching the end i twist to capture the composition between the paper and twist/roll the paper the rest of the way. Tight but not extremly tight. Kinda loose tight if that makes any sense. Then in the middle i use my forefinger and thumb to tightly roll between them a real tight spot only about a grain of rices with in it. This i call a start/stop that if your slag that forms has momentum it'll recharge, so to say, at that spot and give a round two to the sparkler. Also after twist/rolling the sparkler it will be roughly half as long as the paper it started from. Dont trim the end just light it. P.S. I began learning this this weekend. I have aquired savant syndrome. TBI.
I love this kind of video! Thanks for sticking with this!
So glad to see more fireworks videos from you!
Interesting beautiful and non-violent firework.
I suspect the humidity makes a difference. Putting the finished squibs in a sealed container with desiccant before use may help with consistency.