colored smoke?

[Voodoochile]

Hello my friends, My close friend & President of the Hunt club is also a teacher here in Louisa co. Schools & during the football games he's in charge of the cannon.

I've never seen this cannon but I imagine it's be a decent cannon being that he loads it with 3 ounces of cannon powder & a newspaper wad for saluting the beginning/end of the games & if the home team scores.
He told me that this year he would like to experiment with some way to make different colored smoke when it it fired & for the life of me I can not think of anything that he could use that will achieve this..

This is where I come to y-all.

I'm in hopes that some one in here will kn ow how to do this or maybe a sight that can give me the information, I would appreciate it.

 

[Thernlund]

I don't know much about BP shooting. But what about a fat lump of powdered chalk (fist-sized maybe) in the desired color placed inside or ahead of the newspaper wad.


-T.

 

[Pulp]

Chalk line chalk comes in blue and red and works pretty good in BP shotgun shells, I just mix it in with the shot. Red works better than blue, as the blue is obscured by the BP smoke.
Cement dye powder comes in many different colors and can also be used. Be aware, either is very messy to use.

 

[arcticap]

I wonder if larger quantities of such small particles of colored dust could irritate people's eyes or lungs once it becomes airborne in a crowded area. It seems like a riskier method to try at a football stadium with a lot people at ground level too along with wind possibly blowing around:

http://www.ihaveadotcom.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=72_119&products_id=278

Maybe some kind of real colored smoke composition would be safer if it's produced while being consumed during the ignition of the powder. But an expert or a book may need to be consulted along with using the right colored smoke producing chemicals:

http://www.thegreenman.me.uk/pfp/smoke.html

http://www.thegreenman.me.uk/index.html

 

[sharps59]

zinc oxcide and other such cemicals go to skylighter sight for fireworks chemicals. they can tell you what to use,:banghead:

 

[scrat]

+1 its best to get the right checmical compound than to blow blue chalk up into the air. Shooting a small cannon with zinc oxcide or something else will give out a different color smoke. Just be carefull you want different color smoke not a roman candle or fountain.

 

[icebones]

firework grade metal powders.

copper=blue
iron=red
aluminum=white
sodium nitrate=yellow
barium cloride=green

thats just the ones i know off the top of my head.

i dont know how this stuff would act inside a cannon barrel, but this the the stuff they use to make diffrent colored fireworks displayes. also, these produces colored sparks, not colored smoke.

 

[scrat]

i think what he needs to know is what is the chemical compund used in smoke balls that you can purchase around the 4th of july from fireworks stands.