The pyrotechnist's treasury

FUSES.

To 1 ounce add twenty-four drops of boiled linseed oil: rub them thoroughly together in a mortar; then spread out the mixture, for a few days, to dry. When dry, mix with starch, dextrine solution, or gum water, and chop into ³⁄₈ or ¹⁄₂ inch cubical blocks.

Mix together on paper, damp with lac solution, and chop into cubical blocks. The composition may also be pumped into roman candle streamer stars.

No substance combines better with salts of copper, than sugar. Sugar, put into the bowl of a tobacco pipe, and placed in the fire, burns fiercely, and is converted into caramel. This, poured on to a plate, slightly smeared with butter, to prevent its sticking, hardens on cooling; and is used for colouring brandy, vinegar, gravy, porter, coffee, &c. Stearine must be scraped very fine from a composite candle.

It is impossible to powder shellac sufficiently fine, by hand; and, twenty years ago, it could not be procured. About that time the drug-grinders, finding a demand for it, submitted it to the action of the stamping mills, (mechanical pestle and mortar), and now it can be obtained at most shops. Chertier mixed it with salt; melted the two together; powdered the mixture; and washed out the salt. Such process is needless now. It is useless, unless as fine as wheaten flour. Page, of 47, Blackfriars Road; and Chubb, of 29, Old Street, St. Lukes, London, supply it.

If powdered nitrate of barytes, and shellac crushed by being hammered in a bag, are mixed together, and melted in a pipkin, over the fire, the mixture, when cold, may be reduced to a powder in an iron mortar, with patience. Take Number 6. Weigh out 21 parts nitrate of barytes, and 2 parts of coarsely powdered lac; melt them together; when cold, powder them; and add the other substances in proper proportion. Shellac may be melted with nitrate of strontian, in the same way.

INDEX.

• Air Balloons, 165.
• Air Balls, 124.
• Alum, 13.
• Articles, to Mix, 8.
• Asteroid, or Parachute Rockets, 131.
• Balloons, Fire or Montgolfier, 159.
• Gas, 165.
• Screw-propelled, 80.
• Blow-pipe Experiment, 176.
• Blue Lights, 111.
• Bottles, to Clean, 7.
• Bottomless Pill-boxes, 57.
• Brass, to Lacquer, 4.
• Bursting Powder, 45.
• Caprice Wheels, 139.
• Carriage Bolts, 165.
• Cascade, 142.
• Cases, to Tie on Wheels, 136.
• Cast Iron Borings, to Preserve, 116.
• Charcoal, 46, 49.
• Chenille, 132.
• Chequer Piece, 141.
• Chertier's Copper, 14.
• Chinese Fliers, 83.
• Trees, 69.
• Chondrometer, 158.
• Chopped Stars, 54.
• Clay, 15.
• Coffee Mill, 52.
• Coke, 48.
• Coloured Gerbes, 70.
• Lances, to Prime, 177.
• Comet, 148.
• Compositions required, 44, 68.
• Concluding Remarks, 173.
• Crackers, 98.
• Cracks in Wooden Bowls, 23.
• Crochet Cotton, 29.
• Cup Hook, 167.
• Cut Stars, 54.
• Darning Cotton, 29.
• Devices for Lancework, 115.
• Devil-among-the-Tailors, 146.
• Dextrine Solution, 11.
• Distillation, 173.
• Distress Rockets, 171.
• Drop Piece, 150.
• Dry Pill-box Stars, 54.
• Enveloped Stars, 58.
• Faraday's Example, 183.
• Fire from Wheel to Fixed, 149.
• Five-pointed Star, 83.
• Fixed Cases, 66.
• Flat Weights, to Make, 165.
• Flax, 5.
• Flower Pots, 72.
• Flying Dutchman, 80.
• Frames, 97.
• French Nails, 97.
• Frying Pan, 8.
• Funnel, to Make, 86.
• Furilona Wheel, 139.
• Fuses, 185.
• Galileo's Discovery, 138.
• Garden Sieves, 49.
• Gauge, 2.
• Gerbes, 69.
• Girandole of Rockets, 153.
• Gold Rains, 107.
• Goods-weighing Machine, 158.
• Gores, to Cut, 161.
• Grinding Mill, to Imitate, 152.
• Gum Bottle, 12.
• Brushes, 12.
• Solution, 11.
• Strips, 114.
• Gum-resins, 175.
• Gums, 174.
• Gunpowder, 18.
• Hemp, 5.
• Hitch, to Make, 36.
• Horizontal Wheel, 140.
• Changed to Vertical, 140.
• Jack-in-the-Box, 145.
• Knitting Cotton, 29.
• Lac Solution, 9.
• Lamp Black, 73.
• and Linseed Oil, 73.
• Cotton, 25.
• Lances, 112.
• to Time, 138.
• Leader Pipes, 102, 103.
• Leather Bag, 18.
• Line, or Telegraph Rocket, 146.
• List of Prices, 172.
• Litmus Paper, 51.
• Log-line, 158.
• Magnet, 181.
• Mallets, 6, 39.
• Maroons, or Imitative Cannon, 105.
• Salute, to Fire, 107.
• Meal powder, 18.
• Mines, 143.
• Mortars, 122.
• Nest of Shells, 131.
• Nitrate of Strontian, to Dry, 8.
• Potash, or Nitre, 46.
• Oil Flasks, 124.
• Oils, Fixed, 175.
• Volatile, 175.
• Oxalate of Soda, 51.
• Oxychloride of Copper, 176.
• Paper Weights, 165.
• Parachute, 131.
• Paste, 13.
• Pot, 13.
• Pattern Gore, 160.
• Peacock's Plumes, 108.
• Pearl Streamer, 111.
• Pendulum, Invention of, 138.
• Pigeon, or Fiery Phœnix, 146.
• House, 148.
• Pins for Lustres, 72.
• Pinwheels, 91.
• Pipes, to Join, 102.
• Plait Mill, 99.
• Plaster of Paris, 15, 22.
• Pocket Scissors, 105.
• Porcelain, 48.
• Portfire, 73.
• Holder, 154.
• Prince of Wales' Feathers, 112.
• Pyramidical Piece, 142.
• Quickmatch, to Make—
• Usual Method, 24.
• My New Method, 26.
• Box, 31.
• to Test, 30.
• Quill Scoop, 23.
• Rainbow Wheel, 138.
• Rayonant Star Piece, 141.
• Resins, 174.
• Revolving Globe, 143.
• Rocket, 32.
• Drifts, 38.
• Guide, 170.
• Heads, 59.
• Moulds, 63.
• Proportions, 33, 34.
• Spindles, 37.
• Stars, 53.
• to Fire, 45.
• Rolling Board, 1.
• Roman Candle, 1.
• Bouquets, 152.
• Saucissons, 109.
• Saxons, 81.
• Scales, 155.
• Scoops, 15, 23.
• Screw Eye, 167.
• Hook, 167.
• Ring, 167.
• in Brickwork, 23.
• Scroll Wheel, 141.
• Serpents, 90.
• Seven-lance Star, 179.
• Shell Fuses, 73.
• Shells, Cylindrical, 125.
• Spherical, 117.
• Spheroidal, 124.
• Sieves, 47, 49.
• Silver Rains, 107.
• Slate Slab, 4.
• Slot Tube, 170.
• Slow Match, 24.
• Soap Boxes, 49.
• Solder, How to, 86.
• Spindles for Wheels, 165.
• Spiral Wheel, 142.
• Spur Fire, 73.
• Squibs, 84.
• Star Candles, 111.
• Stars, to Damp, 7.
• Starting Fire, 21.
• Stearine Solution, 10.
• Steel Filings, to Preserve, 116.
• Fliers, for Sportsmen, 80.
• Pen Scoop, 23.
• Steelyard Scales, 155.
• Sublimation, 173.
• Sulphate of Copper, 14.
• Sulphur, to Wash, 50.
• Sulphuret of Copper, 52.
• Sulphuric Acid, 14.
• Tape Quickmatch, 29.
• Slowmatch, 24.
• Touch Paper, 23.
• Tourbillions, 73.
• Triangular Wheels, 135.
• True Lover's Knot, 142.
• Turning Sun, 141.
• Vegetable Black, 73.
• Vertical Wheels, 137.
• Vials for Measures, 13.
• Wasp Light, 178.
• Water Measure, 12.
• Wax Solution, 10.
• Weight of Cast Iron Spheres, 65.
• Leaden Spheres, 65.
• Water, 12.
• for Quickmatch, 27, 177.
• Wheel Cases, 66.
• Windmill Piece, 149.
• Winged Rockets, 168.
• Wire, to render inelastic, 71.
• Zinc Pot, 13.