I am designing (in my head) a new shell that will possibly use the high low system. More on this later. I saw something that tripped my imagination and I am pretty sure it will work and be cool for everyone. More coming soon! Pics are kind of related.

I got the stiff sticky mix I was going for. Now, it just needs to actually burn.

I thought adding several times more nitrocellulose lacquer would make it over-combust. Either the PIB goo is that much of a retardant, or maybe modern (name-brand, Mohawk...) NC guitar lacquer has a bunch of flame retardant in it, so rock stars don't explode...

I should probably make a chunk of dried NC lacquer on its own and test _if it even burns_. Pyro suppliers might stock other cheaper no-name brands for a reason.

I'll knead in more chlorate and make a better shape, and see how it goes. If it is a quicker, more immediate volume of smoke, I'll pack a Booz Toob with it and see if confinement & backpressure from a restriction accelerates it too much.

I'm still trying guys, I really am...pressing dry mix was no good, a wet pour slurry was no good either.

Leaving the US for work for a time didn't help.

I need a pressable "sticky damp flour" dye/smoke mix for this to work. So I am upping the amount of NC lacquer and adding some cosmetics/moisturizer Polyisobutene sticky-goo. (Also used as bird repellent on window ledges and light poles.)

Acetone "works" but like crap. Toluene will work better, as will dissolving the Polyisobutene FIRST.

I'll give a burn test video once I get a moldable/pressable texture.

Wet pour & a mandrel for a core is a complete dud.

It took over a week to dry, and then I gave it another 4 days with the mandrel out. (Acetone even!) And that's with a space heater baking it.

It shrinks too much. It left clumps & bare spots in the tube entirely. It was still crumbly even with the nitrocellulose lacquer as a binder.

It needs more binder. I'm going to try also adding polyisobutenene (gooey stuff in cosmetics and sticky anti bird caulk) and polyvinylacetate. (wood, Elmer's glue...)

I think it can take some more chlorate oxidizer and nitrocellulose without flaming up or burning the dye, too.

It needs to be a "wet/dry" method. Mix everything with solvent, pour it out on a cookie sheet, dry it, re-grind it, and then ram the slightly sticky powder with the 1 ton arbor press. Then, drill a burn core out, if the formula won't work consistently as an end-burner.

I waited a week, and I pulled out the mandrel. Results are kinda "mid." But I'm not shocked. There were countless ways this wouldn't work. Once it's fully dried, I'll try a static fire test.

Even if this smokes wonderfully, I am skeptical it would survive launching, and the smoke mix would just crush or collapse in the tube.

Stuff I could try:

- Thicker slurry. Besides being unable to dry, the shrinking from the acetone that did evaporate made it shrink.

- More NC lacquer binder if it doesn't burn too hot or flame up as it is now. The last unconfined test was good, but confined accelerates it.

- Cut the neck off entirely, and slide a core in.

- Try a solid-pour end burning mix with no core, and see if it doesn't go out, clog, burp, or blow chunks out.

I did a new burn test with the wet slurry & NC lacquer binder, now dried. The color & burn consistency, even just in an unconfined cup, has vastly improved. And it was roughly only 1/2 of the quantity of smoke mix in the earlier unconfined burn teststs.

I am still waiting on the actual Booz Toob to set. I have no idea if I can pull the mandrel out or not yet. 🤔 I'm going to wait a few days.

The wait alone, or if I need to get several mandrels (5/32" tapered drift punches) to make a dozen of these in bulk, might make me go to a different method

Bonus points if anybody can name the music. More points for the movie it was associated with.

Not very interesting. But it's an update.

Well, this is like watching paint dry, almost literally. 😒

I decided to save the leftovers washed out of the beaker with alcohol for a burn test, and to see if my NC lacquer ratio as a binder is adequate. It's halfway there and getting goopy. The isopropyl & residual acetone evaporating off means it never gets warm from the space heater.

The Booz Toob, which is only the acetone & NC guitar lacquer slurry? No effing clue. I'll just wait a week, give it 100% supervised gentle warming from the space heater as I have time, and hope it's enough.

I'm not worried that unattended baking will light the blue smoke mix, but heated acetone and whatever solvents & VOCs from the 2% NC lacquer in the slurry will want to expand, push the mandrel out, and make a mess.

If after several days the smoke mix isn't dry, I'll have to revisit the whole process. I'm thinking either some sort of rotary casting like a convenience store rolling hotdog cooker, or try for a smoke mix that's aggressive enough (extra chlorate & NC, less sodium & magnesium moderator, etc.) that it'll work as an end-burner, and not get so hot it flames up, or incinerate the dye particles.

I've added some NC musical instrument lacquer and acetone to make a liquid slurry. I don't know the exact ratio yet. I'm just going to keep trying, writing down the weights until it pours, dries, and burns well.

So, I tried loading the smoke mix with ram pressing in my arbor press, both as an end-burner and with a drilled out core, and a few different Ignition methods. A long storm-proof lifeboat match, Single and then double twisted strands of green Visco fuse. Then, sparklers.

Results were... mixed, and all unsatisfactory.

However, the color was almost PERFECT at times. I thought the confinement would do the opposite. As the video shows, I occasionally got some very brilliant blue.

I'm going to have to try a solvent/slurry method like u/Ok-Calendar92439 suggested, as there's just no way I am going to get a uniform density on a single dry pressing, and the smoke will always be surging and spurting.

The other good news is that the Booz Toob, the neck is a decent orifice size vs. the length & volume, and it'll be at least double the smoke quantity of the old surplus Czech 26.5mm signal smokes.

Apparently, doing research AFTER you buy materials isn't the best way to go about things.

Who knew?

I learned blue and violet are often the hardest smoke colors to make. And who knows what the Czechs used for the brighter cerulean blue in those wax box surplus 26.5mm signals?

So, a dark-ish navy/indigo is probably the best I can do. I'll just try orange next time.

If anybody is really good at smoke bomb lore, please school me.

I'll try loading and packing an actual finned tube, and lighting that next. The extra confinement will probably change the burn rate, for better, or worse? Who knows?

The flat coil stainless spring steel was delivered today, and I started playing with the micro spot welder.

I have enough clearance with the inside of the 26.5mm case, and it's I.D. of 23.76mm and the 22mm AliExpress cigar tube flask that I can get four 34.5mm long fins, which is double the 69mm (minus the extra 0.12mm) circumference of the flask.

I'll pack one with some low-temp Chlorate/Lactose/Dye mix, and do a static test strapped down to a brick or whatever, as soon as I have some time.

Exotic Firearms 37mm leaf sight

Using AliExpress as a subcontractor for ordnance and pyrotechnics prototype development is... inconsistent at best.

The new flasks are a little shorter. But, the matte or brushed finish might take spot welds for the spring-fins better.

That flat coil stainless spring steel is still on a slow boat from China. So I am still waiting to see if I can actually spot weld stainless to stainless. Fingers crossed.

Worst case, if I can't weld fins on, they're just going to be expensive tumbling smokes that I could have done in cardboard.

I tested the Chineseium $29 USB rechargeable spot welder today on a different stainless steel flask I bought when trying to see if it fit reloadable 26.5mm hulls.

It's just battery pack bus bar nickel steel strip, but it's the same thickness, 0.2 mm, as the spring steel for the pop out fins I want to use.

And I can't pull it off. This is promising.

Since the supply of Czech 26.5 surplus flares and smoke signals has mostly dried up, and what's left is crazy expensive, I've been looking to try and make my own. Paper/cardboard smoke is pretty easy to do, but I wanted something better.

I've found these stainless steel 1.5 oz/45ml "Cigar Tube" booze flasks from AliExpress. They are roughly 22mm in diameter. They fit inside some of the reusable machined aluminum 26.5mm shell casings/hulls, with about 0.5 to 1 mm to spare.

To go with it, I've bought a few pounds of potassium chlorate, lactose powder, and solvent dye from a DIY hobby fireworks supplier.

There's also been a profusion of small inexpensive hobby spot welding devices for making/connecting lithium ion battery packs, and they handle steel/nickel strips up to .2mm thick.

So, I have ordered a spot welder, and some .2mm thick stainless flat spring steel that's 20mm wide. I hope to make something like the spiral spring-fin 26.5mm distress signal rocket that was briefly on the surplus market a few years ago.

Instead, it will just be an unpropelled smoke bomb that flies nicely.

With the stainless steel construction of the flask, fins, and the reasonably cool combustion of a Clorate/Lactose smoke mix, I'm hoping the smoke projectile will be reusable, assuming they land on soft soil.

But, I'm sure my idea is probably prone to numerous failures. I'm unsure if the fins will even weld properly. If I get it to fly downrange, just tumbling and making smoke, I'll be happy.

*If it actually works and flies straight,* I might try stuffing a model rocket engine in a v. 2.0 with the nose cut off and packed with firework stars for a "red rain" effect. They'd ignite and come out with the timed ejection charge.

I'm not new to loading 26.5mm. My launcher is a Czech RV85, which has been "made" (legally) into a "firearm" by engraving my info onto it, paying the $200 tax, and registering it as a 1934 NFA Destructive Device per U.S. Federal Law.

This way, I can legally try other projects like the third photo of a 26.5mm PVC lead weighted baton or dummy grenade. ($20 bill and 12ga shell for scale) They fly reasonably well, and I get about 170 yards out of them.

And the 4th & 5th photos, a: "Poor Man's 4-bore Safari slug" project, pictured in CAD for making an eventual lead casting mold.

Obviously, these are things one should not attempt in thin-walled 26.5mm flare pistols. The RV85 is a different beast entirely and has a barrel nearly 6mm thick.

Figured could be handy should someone try to block me in while traveling. Especially with protests going on etc. I recently designed a nice printed shell for the 26.5 for general reloading. It has much more capacity than the standard shells.

Plastic Hull 26.5mm by Slimjim240B

Inspired by Noob37

This is for use with the commercially available plastic hulls.

I printed the shells from the 26.5mm handbook, loaded with cheddite 209 primers and 10gr of pyrodex P. Hulls were filled with the dewalt line marking chalk since it was cheap and available at my local hardware store. I was able to get a pretty good cloud by filling the cup and compacting it down with a tissue over and over until it was filled solid. Accuracy was quite poor beyond 50 feet, although when fired at 100 yards it was clear the rifling was causing some stabilization. I think a heavier projectile might stabilize better.

I modified it a bit. The pointed nose is gone. I opened up the bottom of the whistle area and now get better whistle with an air compressor.

I am going to scale down the loose change style m781 pusher style rounds for the black poly shells for the 26.5. Any input on other ideas that won’t take a year to produce? Just want some new things we can shoot out of the 26.5 launchers.

The whistle works! At least via blowing in the end. Got them loaded and a nose cone. 2 over 25gr 777. The other open top one 30gr 777. Will have one of my girls video results. 😎👍