Spinners

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The devices in this project can be used for all sorts of purposes. Depending on where you drill the holes, you can use these charged tubes for spinners, drivers, rockets, spin-stabilized rockets, wheels, etc. This is an easy project for the beginner, but requires meal powder, which requires a process to incorporate the ingredients of the black powder that novices may not have access to.

Supplies Needed:

In addition to your standard pyro tools (rammer, ramming dowel, safety equipment, etc) you will need the following:

A Tube - Choose your tube size based on how big you want the finished device to be. Parallel wound tubes are stronger and hold up to hard ramming, but spiral tubes should work fine. You will also need a dowel that matches the ID of the tube.
Clay - The standard bentonite:grog 2:1 works fine for these devices. The end plug shouldn't be incredibly solid because it could become a projectile in the event of a cato.
BP - You will need some meal black powder. Greenmix won't work. BP that is too hot will not work either. I use a BP that I have milled for 24 hours and granulated with water (no dextrin) and I dull it down with charcoal or iron.
Additive - Use an additive to the BP for sparks if you want. I use iron, but you can use Ti, Al flitters, or anything else you have laying around that will work.

Manufacture:

First place your chosen tube in your tubeblock to hold and support the tube. If you didn't make your tubeblock yet, you can just set the tube on a flat surface.
Next pour some clay into the tube for the end plug. Your end plugs should be as long as the tube's ID. After you pour the clay in ram it real good, but make sure you don't split the tube.
Now pour some BP (and whatever you mixed with it) into the tube. You'll want to pour a section as long as the tube's ID.
Ram the shit out of the bp to compress it. After it is rammed real good, go back to the previous step and continue until the tube is almost full. You should only leave enough room for the other clay end plug.
Now seal the tube by pushing clay into the end and then ramming.
This step is optional, but it improves the performance of the device substantially. I dip the tubes in a solution of sodium silicate and water to fireproof the case. Some people only treat the nozzle, but if you will need to do this after drilling and will need to re-drill through the fireproof silicate barrier.
OK, I know that this picture is from the stinger rockets, but it illustrates what needs to be done well. You will need to drill the hole(s) in the device. If you want it to be a spinner, drill a hole tangentially to the ID in the center of the tube (as illustrated). If you want to make it a rocket/driver, drill a hole in the center of the clay end. If you want it to be a spin stabilized rocket, you can drill two holes near the bottom of the tube that are tangential to the ID and pointing downwards at a 45 degree angle.

Here they are when they are finished. I don't drill the hole until I light them. You would experiment with a good hole size, I find 5/32 works well. Make sure you label them so you know what kind of mix you used.

Here are diagrams I drew for how to drill a few holes for devices:

Driver/Rocket - The white space in the picture above illustrates where to drill the hole. You can drill into the composition as well if you want it to burn a little bit faster.

Hummer - Here is how to drill the hole for the hummer, it is tangential to the inside diameter of the tube and drilled in the center lengthwise.

Spin Stabilized Rocket - You should launch these out of a pipe if you want them to fly straight. You the angle of the holes should be 45 degrees.

 

Want to see what they look like? Check out the video! Check the test shoots section for more videos of these.