Making cherry bombs

[General Grim]

Foreword: It's labelled as a "cherry bomb", this is nothing more than a name as in reality it's just a salute. Of course flash powder is incredibly dangerous so I'm posting this guide to show you how little amounts of flash is needed to produce a good outcome. Do not try without prior experience. If you choose to redistribute this guide then please give credit.

Welcome to one of my pyrotechnical guides, this is less of a real firework and more of a novelty, a small project to undertake on one of those lazy Sunday mornings. What I will be showing you how to do is to make a replica cherry bomb which rather than using sawdust, sodium silicate and cupsets it uses two paper hemis (hemi is short for hemisphere). Although this guide is common sense to the more experienced pyrotechnician I can guarantee that most would not have undertaken a project like this.

Enjoy:

Start off with a single sheet of A4 paper (preferably printer paper because you would need 2 sheets of craft paper to replicate it), a craft knife and a ruler.



Now cut it into 8 strips lengthways. Cut 4 of the strips in half.




Next you need a mould for the cherry bomb, I used a mouse ball with the rubber removed. You can use almost anything, marbles work fine.

[General Grim]

Wrap the ball in cling film.



Now take one of the smaller strips and paste it with PVA glue, if you wish give the glue 5 seconds to allow it to be absorbed slightly into the paper making it more workable. Wrap this strip around in one direction.



Do this with another strip and wrap in the opposite direction



Do the same with the other two strips in diagonal directions- completely covering the mould.

[General Grim]

Roll the ball about in your hands to compress the surface into a round shape. Use moderate force when doing this.



Do the same with the other 4 small strips.



Now mark on the mould a small line. This line will be used to help align the two parts of the shell when it is cut.



Using your craft knife cut all the way around the shell, remove the mould from it.

[General Grim]

Now mix up a batch of flash powder or any other composition, I’m using a powerful mixture of magnalium and potassium perchlorate. You can use quite a few different mixtures, from whistle mix to even granulated green mix (it’s possible). I’m using 1 gram.



Pour the flash into one half of the shell.



Drill a hole into the other hemi of the shell and fuse it. I don’t normally glue it in because I use a drill bit which is exactly the same size as the fuse I use. It is 1/16” Green Visco.

[General Grim]

Now place the hemis together and secure together with a pasted strip of paper




Now using the other 7 strips of paper paste them onto the shell and carefully roll between your hands to compress it together. Ensure you don’t fold the fuse in the process.



Dip it in red paint and give it 2 days to dry



There you have it, a completed cherry bomb. Incredibly powerful salutes which look great, shame they have to get lit. My favourite salute.

Sorry about posting it in parts, the forum only allows 4 images per post.

[General Grim]

If you liked it then positive reps would be nice

Final, dry result:





If you liked it then positive reps would be nice

[Bahr]

Thats cool we need more How tos on here that arent retarted.

[Lethality]

I was wondering, since you seem to be a person who would know about explosive powder, if you could substitute the gunpowder for the powder commonly used for sparklers for a less powerful explosion? Or will that just plain not work at all?

[crazy white guy]

if your talking about the handheld wire sparklers then no. It would make a fairly bright flash but its terrible as a low explosive. Adding crushed sparkle mix to gunpowder (any f rating) would give you a pretty flash of light with some sparkle stars in it. If your really stupid you could always have some really sensitive AN high explosive. maybe some 80% APAN. Anyone wanna try it for bombshock's sake?

[General Grim]

I was wondering, since you seem to be a person who would know about explosive powder, if you could substitute the gunpowder for the powder commonly used for sparklers for a less powerful explosion? Or will that just plain not work at all?

The composition used on sparklers are used for a reason, they burn slow and pretty. The burn rate is way too slow for use in a salute.

[Paranoid Ecstasy]

Sparkler bombs?
Put the sparkler "powder" in a container. (Pill bottle)
It will explode, not just cause pretty sparkles.

[General Grim]

Originally Posted by Paranoid Ecstasy

Sparkler bombs?
Put the sparkler "powder" in a container. (Pill bottle)
It will explode, not just cause pretty sparkles.

Rather than argue with you using references and my own experience. I'll just say this: Prove it.

[tyrant]

Sparkler powder does not always go bang.
I am fairly sure only the sparklers with magnesium do. "Gold Sparklers" do not work for this, the powder crushed up or not.

If you are lucky enough to buy some good sparklers, coloured ones in particular then you should be able to make a sparkler bomb go bang easily. Search youtube and you'll find a heap of guides to watch.

[Paranoid Ecstasy]

Originally Posted by tyrant

Sparkler powder does not always go bang.

Most of the ones I've made go bang, some small and some large.
But they can just shoot out and sparkle.
I've found the normal ones a metal stick (no color) usually end up sparkling.
But, I've found the Morning Glory brand or any colored sparkler to explode.

Originally Posted by General Grim

Prove it.

youtube.com/watch?v=hIlJcBaHLKo&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=L5rOkQ8Myvw&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=9EYdn9ukTgY&feature=related

[klunckmonkey]

And in which of those videos to they take the powder off the sparklers, put them in a small container and ignite them?

[Paranoid Ecstasy]

Originally Posted by klunckmonkey

And in which of those videos to they take the powder off the sparklers, put them in a small container and ignite them?

In each video, sparklers are contained in something lit.
Once lit, each one exploded.

[General Grim]

youtube.com/watch?v=hIlJcBaHLKo&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=L5rOkQ8Myvw&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=9EYdn9ukTgY&feature=related

Those are massive bundles of sparklers where the cost greatly outweighs the cost to produce my louder cherry bombs. I don't see any pill bottle designs.

[Paranoid Ecstasy]

Originally Posted by General Grim

Those are massive bundles of sparklers where the cost greatly outweighs the cost to produce my louder cherry bombs. I don't see any pill bottle designs.

The first video used only 75 sparklers, that costs no more than $10.
I mentioned a pill bottle because it's what I use when making them.
My point was sparklers can be used to cause an explosion, and I proved it.
Let's get back on topic.

[General Grim]

No, you proved the irrelevant point that large, expensive bundles of sparklers make poor reports for the size and cost.
With $40 I can produce 100 more powerful salutes; don't suggest kewl things.

[Paranoid Ecstasy]

You clearly don't understand.
All I was mentioning was that sparklers can make an explosive.

Originally Posted by Lethality

I was wondering, since you seem to be a person who would know about explosive powder, if you could substitute the gunpowder for the powder commonly used for sparklers for a less powerful explosion? Or will that just plain not work at all?

I was not putting in to consideration price for power, or price for quantity.
All I was saying is that you can make sparklers explode.

[General Grim]

I know, but I have a gripe with what you're saying for a couple reasons. Firstly, sparklers can only create a report in large quantities, say if I newbie decides to watch those videos he'll be put under the false impression that they can burst apart the paper shell as described in my guide. It cannot, the shell is too hard and strong for anything less than fast green mix.

Secondly, there's no skill involved. If a newbie decides to start pursuing pyrotechnics by using parts of other fireworks it'll become habitual. That will become a problem as with more and more cheap Chinese imports the chances of say... a chlorate crystal being present in a sparkler containing sulphur (or other dangerous contaminants) will increase. So it's best to avoid sparklers and concentrate on more skilled projects.

[olt]

Would these salutes work with match head powder (safety matches) ?

[General Grim]

[quote]Would these salutes work with match head powder (safety matches) ?[/QUOTE

No.

[olt]

Ok, I was asking this because the heads of the matches i buy are very fast burning. I already made flash powder but i'm travelling and i can't get my hands on materials right now. Anyway thank you very much.

[Core Entropy]

Ill prove anything, its getting those damn materials.. lol i like trying out things to get the biggest bang.

[JuggaloFamily[TDA]]

have you ever tried th cherry with fertalizer cotton and gas? the materials are much easyer to find, you would just have to make it bigger than you ex.

[Corporal Punishment]

first, spelling...no...just no...

second, WTF is "fertalizer cotton", NC?

third, If you can't spell you probably can't read, if you can't read you probably shouldn't be playing with dangerous things.

[JuggaloFamily[TDA]]

FERTALIZER, COTTON, GASOLINE

and i can spell just fine, but i seem to have alot of typing errors, seeing as i have terrets you asshole. you take the ingredients, mix em, put em in some news paper and light the shit, would it work in the cherry? im not the best with high end psycho explosives, id rather shit around with my friends. hippopotamonstrososaquipadaliphobia (fear of long words)

[Corporal Punishment]

theres only one way to tell if it "would work in the cherry" ... actually theres two... one is RESEARCH AND COMMON SENSE, the other is EXPERIMENTATION.

and its good to do one before the other...


BTW, gas, cotton, and "fertilizer" (do you even know what kind it is?) DO NOT explode...

Edit: if you'd rather "shit around with your friends" go for drugs cause "shitting around" with explosive devices is gonna kill you

[JuggaloFamily[TDA]]

yea green thumb fertalizer. and yea it does ive donne it dum shit