This yearÔø‡s party was rather different from previous years. Because of difficulties with scheduling, instead of happening in late July, the party too place in early October. Along with some different people this year, it was the first time I had fireworks IÔø‡d actually made totally on my own and the fist time we had HEÔø‡s. We got a much later start than in previous years and combined with the fact that it gets darker earlier.

Class C fireworks for the party:

The first thing we did was drive up to a logging road well away from any people. Once there we did some small stuff like M80 sized flash salutes and a bunch of torpedoes. For the annual computer destruction, we sacrificed my brotherÔø‡s old Dell P133 that stopped working after the onboard controller card failed. It had served us well, and would receive a good retirement party! To blast the computer, we used AN/AP. I donÔø‡t remember the exact amount, but it was about 280g AN and 40g AP, detonated with a 5g AP cap. This was mixed on-site just before use and detonated inside the computer electrically from about 200ft away. The loud explosion blasted apart the computer very effectively. Even from where we were standing, pieces went over us, which worried me a little for safety reasons! We didnÔø‡t spend a lot of time looking, but only two pieces of the computer were found, and a good section of the log everything was sitting on was blasted out.

AP/AN in place:

Detonation:

One of two pieces we found:

Log the computer was sitting on:

The next thing was a disappointing, but not unexpected, failure. The plan was 15 pounds (6.8kg) of AN sensitized with diesel, detonated with a AN/MEKP booster and AP cap. This was all going to be buried to help get a full detonation. A number of things led to the failure. First of all, I forgot the diesel when we dropped things off where we were spending the night, I also forgot the shovels to dig with. Because we forgot these things and it was getting pretty dark, I was going to just not do it and use the stuff later because I donÔø‡t have a good source of AN. However, other people complained a lot so we decided to just try it. Because we forgot the diesel (which was pre-measured in containers) we used normal gasoline, which I have seen used before. We didnÔø‡t have anything to measure it with and I didnÔø‡t know the proper amount off the top of my head anyway, so we just guessed, adding the gas to ziplock bags of granulated AN. Once this was all poured and mixed, everything was shoved under the same log the computer had been on, because we forgot the tools to dig a hole. Upon connecting the wires, rather than the hoped for massive boom, we got (as I expected) a small explosion from the cap and booster, sending AN everywhere. It was very sadÔø‡

Det and booster on left, three bags of AN/gas on right:

Charge in place:

Failed, only the cap and booster detonated:

Later that night we loaded the all the fireworks into the car and headed down to the same lake we were at last year. Starting out with the small stuff as usual, we shot off roman candles, helicopters, fountains and so on. One particularly cool thing was the Great Grizzly Ôø‡Warhead LauncherÔø‡ spin-stabilized rockets, which had very impressive launches and got quite high. Most of the cakes were decent but not great. The Black Cat Ôø‡Lightening StormÔø‡ had a nice Ôø‡clustering bee/flying fishÔø‡ (it has different names) effect, but got old after a few shots, if they all shot within a few seconds it wouldÔø‡ve been great.

Warhead Launcher liftoff:

Random green/red star cake:

Lightening Storm:

Mixed in we set off my homemade mines of many different colors. I tried a slightly different construction method this time, and they didnÔø‡t work nearly as well as my previous ones. Most had weak lifts and many stars fell back to the ground still burning. The only one that worked best I didnÔø‡t video because it was made with the leftover stars so I didnÔø‡t bother recording. At least the colors turned out fairly well, even if they didnÔø‡t get very high!

Assorted homemade starmines that didn't work so well:

The best part of the show was the gas fireball. This was made using an 8-inch diameter piece of capped PVC pipe buried in the ground. The lift charge was about 300g of homemade black powder and it used about a gallon of regular gas, with the diesel that had been meant for the HE charge earlier in the day added as well. The fireball was at least 20-30 feet high and 15-20 feet across, IÔø‡ll definitely do this againÔø‡

Fueling up the gas mine:

Gas mine frames:

Next were 18 shot volleys of class C shells from my cool tube rack. All the shells were fused together with homemade sticky match and ignited all within about a second. There were three of these 18 shot volleys; the last included 12 double-break shells. The effect was very impressive!

Shells fused together:

Frames from the shells:

The night was ended with a 35g flash salute that made a great echo in the valley and we headed back.