Simple Joys

[fabrisse]

I know I write about it every year, but one of the great joys of my apartment is watching the Capitol fireworks from the balcony. They always feel personal.

Can someone explain to me how we can get delayed spanglies (the technical term, I'm sure) in fireworks? There were some waterfalls that then had red spangles. Also we got one skull, several smiley faces, letters, and, I think, a few hearts.

Comments

[eanja]

I just saw TV fireworks tonight while at a party- will go to the ones in Waltham tomorrow night. As for the delayed spanglies, don't know he precise method, but am pretty sure it's just a matter of packing pieces with different fuse lengths into the main tube- the bits w/ longer fuses take longer longer to light. (I do know each firework usually contains multiple different smaller individual pieces, so presumably they can do a vast selection of color and shape and time variations given enough skill on how to design and pack them.)

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

See? I knew it wasn't magic! ;-)

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

The burning streak thingies are called "stars". They are composed of metal kept together some goddamn how, and you can make them burn in different colors by adding a layer of a different metal once what you've already got has dried and set. Having a layer of red (red is easy, green is harder, blue is a bitch) inside the layer of whatever you started with gives you a streak of the first color that becomes red after the outer layer has burned away.

Stars are blown away from each other and ignited by a charge of pretty straightforward gunpowder. The Japanese came up with the idea of assembling them in a globe around the charge, for what are still called "chrysanthemum" fireworks.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Which explains why there wasn't much blue (although the ones that were blue seemed more intense, somehow).

Clever Japanese. Thank you.