Re-purpose your 1.75" canister shell mortars for use in racks
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- Update: June 2021
As some people have called out the bottom thickness of the Excalibur tubes, here was my findings:
• Excalibur mortars bott...
Update: July 2020
A friend of mine did exactly what @Sean Jones mentioned in his comment from two years ago. He used a router table with a flush trim bit. (I didn't know what that was at the time. Now I do!)
While I still like plugging the bottom with wood as I show in this video, ultimately if I had the router table, I'd also do it that way. I wouldn't be too concerned about the thin HPDE base if it's going to be sitting on top of a solid piece of wood, such as a mortar rack.
• Another way to repurpo...
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In this video, I'll show you how I take the HDPE mortars supplied with typical canister shell kits and effectively convert them into mortars that you can use in a mortar rack.
Note: There are various ways to repurpose your tubes. This is just one way. As long as your final product is safe, I won't say that one way is better than another. It all comes down to preference and what tools you have available. For example, not everyone has a table saw or sliding miter saw.
Tools:
- A vice, perferably with a tube holder
- Sawzall
- 2+ lb hammer or mallet
- Typical framing hammer
- Drill with 1/16" drill bit
- 1.5" framing nails
The mortars came from the canister shell kit "Sniper" from Cutting Edge Fireworks. They are the same mortars (and shells?) as the "Excalibur" kit from World Class Fireworks.
The DR#11 plugs came from www.MidwestWood...
The plugs currently cost the same as 2" plugs. They were good about returning calls or emails, so reach out to them with any questions.
Thank you for this video. Very informative and this is a great idea!!!
Cody I know in your vids you say you prefer 15in tubes. Do you think this solution makes the tubes too short for proper lift?
leave the bottom. 10.5" tube height minus the plug gives about 8" of tube. standard racks are about 12" its better to just cut of the sides of the base.
I've tried cutting the base off its not as easy as it sounds
he didn't cut off any more than 1/4 inch so it's not an issue. Relax.
@@michaelkey3915 Yes, but the plug that is inserted is at least 2 inches tall.
Nice bro, good job. I've seen a bunch of videos where people use a jigsaw to cut that square base away. Never seen one where you cut the whole bottom out. Much cleaner way. Now I know what I'm gonna do with the ton of Excal tubes I have in my basement.
This is an amazingly helpful video. Thank you so very much for sharing. I am new to all of this and I love watching people like you demonstrate and discuss pros and cons...wildly informative. Thanks again!!!
Cutting Edge and Excal shells should look the same, they are owned by the same company.
Nice video.
I've used a flush trim router with a flush trim bit to take the bottoms off the tubes. It leaves the molded base of the tube on it and I haven't had any issues with them failing.
(replying a year later)... I just gave about (60) OEM tubes to a buddy of mine. He also used a flush trim router. THAT's the way to do it! My way feels so inferior now...assuming you want to keep the HDPE bottom. I may take his quick vids that he made for me and post them as a follow up. By the looks of it, if you have a table router, yes, a flush trim router is absolutely the way to go!
I tried using the PVC tube like you suggested. But I didn't know you weren't supposed to put the shell upside down to fire it since it didn't say "top" on it. But I only used a small 1.75 by 5" canister shell, thank God, so the explosion was fairly small and contained to just my porch and kitchen. After the ambulance arrived, an attorney came that had followed them and wanted your full name and address. The emergency room doctors say I lost the full use of my left hand and left eye and ear. They also found a small hole in my heart with tiny PVC slivers. And after all the blood transfusions and operations, the psychiatrist wouldn't stop asking me where I got this misleading info to do such a stupid thing. So please provide your full name and address for my attorney and shrink.
6977warrior1 it isn’t even pvc
@@edthe1owapyr020 -Whoosh, the joke went right over your head.
Can't I just use an empty Pringles can? I love those chips.
lmaoooo
Haha try it . Just get faaar awaaay
You'll need larger shells...like maybe a 3" salute. You want to be sure it's definitely a tight fit so you get good lift! And don't forget the plastic cap to assist in compression! And still having the original paper freshness seal is just a bonus at that point.
HAHAHAHAHA!!! 😅
Lol
You could always just table saw the bases off and make racks that are a tad bigger. That’s what I did and it was much easier than buying plugs and all that
I cut about 100 tubes and didn't have to re plug them. I used a sliding radial arm saw and cut them flush to the tubes. They fit perfectly and have had no issues.
That's after taking off the sleeve?
@@evolution2001 yes
@@evolution2001 I just cut off the the base flush with the tubes
@@markluce1659 You' didn't have to replug the tubes, so that means you're cutting parallel to the tube, so your bases are effectively square? (the width of the square is the same as the outer diameter of the tube)
@@evolution2001 they are still slightly square on the bottom but they fit as flush as any DR11 tubes, the racks are identical in length and width.
Nice video I appreciate you showing how to do this will try this for this year
Nice. I've used my Brothers Everest fiberglas tubes and they work great as well.
thanks for giving the plug to the plugs :D
Trashing HDPE or fiberglass from kits is wrong !
May as well use it some how. Better than just throwing it away and those crappy bases that are on the tubes are utterly useless as they always crack and break. Better to just remove them and reuse the tube.
I was thinking about a milk crate with a couple inches of quick crete to secure the motor tubes... Is that a good idea?
I'd have to look through my various guides, such as NFA1123 or some of the APA stuff. Milk crates in general are iffy. I could argue the quick crete both "Yes" & "No". The concern is when you have a single mortar surrounded on all sides by other mortars. If that middle one fails, you've got the potential of impacting the 8 mortars touching it.
In a rack configuration, you've only got at most 2 mortars touching the one that fails.
Can I use the tube more than 6 times
Oh, easily! AFAIK, the there are no governing bodies that have done any studies on their longevity. The wood plug should never wear out, unlike cement plugs in fiberglass mortars. If anything, over time, I guess the lower wall could potentially start to widen due to the heat & pressure from repeated combustion. But even then, with HDPE, that would take a L-O-N-G time to get to the point where it becomes a safety concern. But Safety always comes first! If you have any doubts about a mortar, get rid of it. It's almost free to replace when making them yourself. There's no good logic to continue using it if you have doubts.
Never understood why you would replug it. You’re just taking height off it
At some point, I want to perform some testing of the effects of tube height on 1.75" shells (DR9 / DR11 tubes). Shoot (10) tubes each, plugged & non-plugged, measure the approximate break height, then plot on a graph to find the averages. However, I'm in a state with fairly restrictive fireworks laws, so my window/ability to do this is limited.
I can argue for and against plugging them. I'm on the fence.
AGAINST: The bottom of the tube is the thinnest part of the entire assembly. Somewhere in my files, I have a video and picture of the thickness. IIRC, it was less than an 1/8" thick. That's not a lot of material that is taking the greatest amount of force during launch.
FOR: The tube should be bottomed out on a block of wood or some other solid surface, so the chance of warping is minimized
AGAINST: (Supposition) Less tube length impacts the break height
FOR: (Supposition) The slightly shorter tube length doesn't make a significant difference on break height.
There is a point of diminishing returns on a longer tube/barrel when firing a projectile. Yes, there are definite concerns when you get to a significantly shorter tube/barrel, but I don't think we are reaching that point on the general HDPE tubes supplied with 60g cannister kits.
AGAINST: It's additional steps ("time"), additional weight, and additional money (purchasing the plugs)
FOR: Professional tubes across all diameters are plugged; additional bottom weight = tubes less likely to hop around
Some years ago when kits started to include fiberglass mortars, I contacted K.L and B.J. Kosanke - who have conducted pyrotechnic research for many years - and asked if in their opinion it was safe to re-use consumer-grade fiberglass mortars. At least, at that time, they did not believe it was a safe thing to do without further research, as the 60 gm canister shells have a powerful life charge and the fiberglass was considered likely to weaken with time (not a problem with the HDPE pipe though). Please use caution if re-using fiberglass mortars!
So what is the safest re usable material?
@@mpachinko4069 HDPE is pretty much it
I have a few fiberglass tubes that just celebrated their 3rd year and seem fine but I'm still going to replace them with HDPE.
Fiberglass tubes are perfectly fine I shoot professional shows and all are racks are fiberglass even are 12inch tubes are fiberglass they will hold up perfect
Can it fit for salute and ball shell
With consumer ball shells, there are different sizes, with 1.75" being the largest. I would not put smaller balls in these tubes. Any smaller shells should've come with their own properly sized tube. Use those. As for "salutes", technically there is no such thing in the 1.4g category. There are, however, 1.3g salutes in a 1.75" ball.
Been trying to repurpose all of my Excalibur tubes but can’t seem to get the sleeves off I can get them about 90% of the way and then there’s so hard to get off. Any thoughts?
@311mikey, Check the details of the video. There's a link to a followup video that shows another way to remove the sleeves. All of the videos, including this one, are in my Pyro Workshop playlist.
...nice works :-)
My sleeve won’t come off
Brendan, check my newer video that is linked in the description above. That'll give you another way of getting the sleeve off.
evolution2001 ok
Very nice 👍
When I made my Excalibur mortars ready for my racks, I didn't cut the bottom completely off. They're bottom thickness is ~3/8" and they're a single, solid piece of HDPE. You don't really need to plug them. I put them on my crosscut slide for my table saw and just cut the sides of the base off. You'll be left with a square looking bottom, but that can easily be trimmed as well. You don't even have to though since they'll fit just as good in a rack made with a 2x3. Here a similar way of doing it just with the fence of a table saw. You can see the small square left of the base after the sides are cut off. ruclips.net/video/t9L_MT2hWnU/видео.html
Good point, Jamison. And certainly easier! However, for professional purposes, I prefer to stick with the wood plugs. Overall, they'll last longer. If someone is just doing one or two shoots per year, yeah, sticking with the molded base would likely be fine for many years. (To note, I'll need to check the other videos I made but haven't published...I think the bases of my Excals were closer to 1/4", not 3/8" as you noted for yours.)
It wouldn't surprise me if they're closer to 1/4". That's still not bad seeing as they're a single piece of HDPE. I can't blame you. It doesn't take any time to cut the bottom off and plug them with an already made wooden plug. I don't have a pneumatic staple gun, but if I did, it would make it that much faster. Getting the sleeve off takes all the time. The ones I did were on really tight.
the plug took up a bit of inner depth out of the tube. do you notice your shells firing a little lower after the modification?
Nope, haven't noticed any difference.
Will 25 tubes fit in a milk crate
25 tubes fit perfectly in a milk crate. Just put a piece of plywood on the bottom to reinforce it.
@@chrisc2683 👍
I just leave them the way they are and screw to boards. The base gives a nice gap for a 10 sec fuse.
I have some tubes from the Excalibur kit from last year, and some Growlers that I haven't fired yet for this year. I have gotten the sleeves to move a little, but haven't gotten any off yet. Have they reinforced the sleeve to the tube in the last year, or am I just being really unlucky with them all so far?
They seem to be a bit harder to get off than when I made this video. The followup video linked in the description above shows another way to remove the sleeve. One of the things that definitely makes it harder is the label on the tube. It will certainly help if you can remove that with some adhesive remover and leave a smooth finish on the tube. You could also use some penetrating oil to help the sleeve slide along the tube. The penetrating oil shouldn't have any negative reaction with HDPE.
@@evolution2001 I will have to try the oil method, as I do not have a lot of tools that will work. Thank you for the reply.
@@evolution2001 I used WD-40, hammer, flathead, and, had forgotten I had a dremel, just had to get some cutter wheels. Some of them, the base and sleeve came off pretty easy, and others were being pretty stubborn. A mixed of things seem to help getting the parts off the tube.
@@Jedimichael If you watched the followup video from July 2020, you could combine the methods.
1) Heat the sleeve and get it slightly away from the base (Shown in the follow up video)
2) Cut off the bottom using a Sawzall / hacksaw / whatever (Shown in this video)
3) Pound the tube through a hole that's just barely larger than the outer diameter of the tube. (Shown in the follow up video ruclips.net/video/w8WO0IopHWU/видео.html)
4) Plug the tube (Shown in this video)
@@evolution2001 I watched it and do not have a saw like that or a flame type lighter. Thats why a dremel is what I had to figure out how to use, and did.
Are you able to light a 6” canister in these??
I haven't purchased any of the 6" (tall) canisters. An educated guess says they are the same 1.75" diameter, so the answer would be "Yes, probably". That being said, some people will voice concerns about the overall height of the tube..."That's why 8" mortars are taller than 4" mortars." Sure, but that's also taking into account increased diameter AND mass of the ball shell.
I haven't performed any tests yet to see if a couple of inches makes any difference on the actual height the shell reaches before it breaks. Assuming the diameter is the same, I don't reckon that there's much of a mass difference between a 4", 5", and 6" 60g canister. (It's mostly marketing.) There's likely lots of physics that I could call out if I wanted to put forth a formal hypothesis. I'll shorten it by stating that I don't believe a reduction of 1.5" of inner tube height due to a wooden plug is going to cause a notably lower break for any 1.75" canister height (3"-6").
@@evolution2001 thanks for the reply.. I just built a 10 shot rack with those hpde tubes and planning on buying me some 6” canisters I will do a test on it 🤙🏾🤙🏾
@@definediligence5432 Just keep in mind the marketing at play. No consumer shell can have more than 60g explosive composition. Doesn't matter if it's packed into a 1.75" ball, 4" canister, or 6" canister.
...That's also why NOABs ("9 on a board") are a complete waste. Assuming most NOABs are the same price as a 24pc reloadable kit.
500g total grams divided across 9 shots = 55.5g per shot (at most!)
24 x 60g per shot = 1440g total grams. LOL!
I drill through the reinforced collar. insert a fuse and pack it with powder and plastic cannister. Incredible effects.
I’d like to see that
How many times can you use the tube
If you're using it for its intended purpose, then pretty much indefinitely, or until you have a catastrophic failure that deforms the tube.
evolution2001 ok thanks so if I like shoot 3 shells then give it a few mins to cool off then shoot more I should be good?
@@brendanbaird7128 You mean, launch a shell, immediately reload & launch, immediately reload & launch, then a cool down period?
Many professional pyros, myself included, aren't super big on immediately reloading a mortar, if at all. The danger level goes up with every hot reload. The mortar itself probably wouldn't retain enough heat to ignite a shell, but there could be embers in the bottom that 'could'. Additionally, it's possible that a lift cup could be in the bottom of the mortar, so the next shell that's dropped in may not bottom-out, which is going to reduce compression. That will lead to a lower-than-expected break. IMO, low breaks are worse than flowerpots.
Long story short, I can't say that "You'll be good" to rapid fire shells from the same tube. We all choose what we're willing to accept as risk. Since the 1.75" shells typically leave a lot of smoke in the tube, I'd be sure to see the bottom of the tube before I dropped another shell in there. By the time you get to that point, then I'd feel OK dropping another shell.
evolution2001 ok thanks 🙏 for sure I have about 150 shells I want to pop off in a short time lol and Salute crackers
@@brendanbaird7128 Reloading that many shells...that's a lot of reloading! Even if you have a 10- or 12-shot rack built. Many times people collect the tubes and never end up doing anything with them, or they just throw 'em away. Ask around (facebook?) for people that have extra HDPE tubes they don't want. (Skip any fiberglass or cardboard tubes.)
OR...you simply make your own tubes. Most of the big box DIY stores sell HDPE pipe. You can buy a 6' or 8' length and just cut 'em down. Of course, you'll need the wood plugs then. But the idea here is to build up your own collection (quickly) and then start making racks for all of 'em. There's plenty of rack design videos out there. Seeing as we're now past the 4th of July, you've got PLENTY of time to make it happen for next year. 👍😄
ruclips.net/user/results?search_query=mortar+rack+design
Oh yeah, something else I just thought of. Depending on your design, it's very easy to get wasteful with 1.75" shells. Realistically, even in a fan spread, if you fire more than 5 at a time, the additional shells get lost, thus wasted. My recommendation would be to create a 5x5 fan rack (or multiple racks). And then launch the shells one row at a time, from Left to Right. Repeat that same sequence four more times with about 1-2 seconds between each row. That will still give you a full sky with plenty of color & sound, and stretch it out to seem like it's more than just 25 shells.
Or just "sky puke" everything. It's your show and your audience! 😎👌 If you're not buying "wholesale", then sky puking (150) 60g shells gets 'spensive! Seems mildly a shame to let any go to waste when you've paid retail pricing for 'em.
The sleeves on my tubes are extremely tight, they don't budge at all when I slam them down like you did.
Yeah, I have quite a few like that as well. For as often as people donate their tubes to me, I toss those tight ones to the side. I have at times taken a hacksaw or dremel disc and cut lengthwise on the sleeve to split it and release it, but the time required to do that didn't seem worthwhile. If anything, I find the stickers above the sleeve pose the most issue if they start to roll up on themselves as the sleeve is passing over it.
Nice video. I subbed.
To be honest I would've used a clay plug that reduces the fire hazard significantly you don't want to end up with Burnt wood smoldering on the bottom not smart‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️
Clay or concrete is usually found in fiberglass tubes, not in HDPE. AFAIK, most HDPE tubes use hardwood. The wood itself is highly unlikely to burn/smolder. True, clay has less chance, but the probability of the wood smoldering enough to cause a pre-fire is exceptionally slim. More likely that paper from the lift cup would be the ignition source, and you'll get that regardless of plug type. Additionally, any embers or smoldering shouldn't(?) be enough to burn through a lift cup. There's always "a possibility" of something happening. But the "probability" is close enough to zero to consider it a safely mitigated risk. Everything has risk regardless of what someone deems best practice. We're working with explosives. LOL.
I've never been able to get the sleeve off that easy...that's bullshit...
😂 Some did, some didn't. I must've gotten lucky with the batch that I had. But yes, I had plenty that didn't slide off, mostly due to the sticker on the tube binding up as the sleeve attempted to slide over it. Be sure to check out my follow up video where I show how to use a router table.
Is PVC safe to use instead of HDPE?
TheBowler_Plays no
PVC shatters hdpe doesn’t
Tide Bleach Ok. Ty.
no no, if a shell doesn't lift for some reason, a PVC with explode into shrapnel. use HDPE or fiberglass
Can't I just use an empty Pringles can? I love those chips.