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document updated 16 years ago, on Jul 9, 2007

Goal: light off a bunch of fireworks at once... (not necessarily instantaneously, but surely all of them in less than a minute)

Theory: Fireworks tend to be limited in unit-size and cluster-size based on legislation. However, it's sometimes not difficult to combine easy-to-get fireworks into something that that's more impressive. (in that video, they all go off instantaneously, but the goal here is to get them to be more like a superstring)

Successful video: 15,000 bottle rockets inside a box, with sparklers wedged between to increase the heat.
Successful video: 8,500 bottle rockets, atop chicken wire covered in visco.
Personal attempt #1: Get a large coffee can. Line a bunch of small bottle rockets around the edge, with the fuses facing inwards. Pour a half a bottle of rubber cement in the bottom (which burns sort of like slow napalm... eg. sticky, burns for a while, doesn't go out very easily). Set it on fire.

Result: Even though the rubber cement was sometimes 5" from the rocket nozzle, the rockets had a tendency to blow out the flame whenever they launched. Clearly some sort of oxidizer would help, and possibly something that burns a little more strongly.

Personal attempt #2: Stretch a very stiff wire/dowel across two posts. Use a very fine-gauge wire to secure a length of cannon fuse on top of that. Line a bunch of bottle rockets on top of the fuse. Light the fuse.

Result: Most went off (though a few fell off, because they were cheap and weren't really sturdy enough to rest their whole weight just on their small fuses). However, it was pretty slow overall... there was too much time in between each bottle rocket launching. it would definitely be best to light the fuse from both ends, to double the rate, but it's still slower than you might want. This could be further improved by setting up multiple lines of cannon fuse, and lighting them ALL from both ends, at the same time, but it would be a lot of work to set everything up.

Next attempt: Is it possible to do it with minimal labor? Pile up a bunch of jumping jacks (or other non-directional (ground-based?)) fireworks on the ground. Use either a small amount of unconfined black powder[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] underneath (intention: generate a lot of heat over a bit of an area, but no propulsion or concusion). Alternatively, drip some kind of viscous flammable material on top (though note that napalm typically doesn't have any oxidizer in it, so it may be easier for it to be extinguished, especially if many things are going off at once).

(my brother is concerned that the black powder will push the firecrackers away before they can be ignited... I doubt it, but if this is a problem, perhaps rather than having a circular pile of powder, we could use a line of blackpoweder [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] eg. so it burns a little slower, and isn't concentrated in one area, but still covers a largish area?)

(tip... despite all the videos above of people lighting it directly... you REALLY don't want to do that if there's very much piled up in one place... instead tape a short piece of visco next to the pile, and light that instead (the visco will shoot around otherwise). Or just run a thin line of black powder off to the side, and light that instead (since it will burn slow enough to get your hand out of the way, and won't throw up much heat). Or just light the end of a paper tube, and use that to light the gunpowder instead.)