Poor-man's Aerial Firework Show

We like ground blooms, but they need something... more. Like altitude.

A paintball gun should help.

Step 1 Ready, Aim

You'll need:

1) Paintball gun (.68 caliber)
2) Groundblooms
3) Fire

Light a groundbloom and time the fuse length. Ours range from 4-5 seconds, depending on the type of groundbloom.

Comments

[paininthebutt]

My girlfriend would love this instructable she would only need a paintgun

[illdoyourdrugs]

How about THROWING the firework. Poor men don't have paintball guns now come on!

[rrrmanion]

catapult would be nice too, or slingshot or something like that, a trebuchet would own though,

[illdoyourdrugs]

Yeah buddy. That's more "poor man" style!

[rrrmanion]

yeah, i was at the local university earlier this year and they had a pretty impressive (and advanced) one(it only launched spherical objects, but you guys should be able to get it to work properly with any shape) , here are some photos i took of it:

[illdoyourdrugs]

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Medieval-Trebuchet-Out-of-Cardboard/ There ya go hhahaha extra poor man

[illdoyourdrugs]

Nice. I was just referring more to the projecting and being poor part on my original comment. Good input plus pics are always a + .

[rrrmanion]

huh? i don't quite get what your saying, would you mind re-phrasing that please?

[illdoyourdrugs]

The projecting of the firework and the whole "poor" part. Thats all.

[rrrmanion]

by "projecting" do you mean flinging?

[looking4ideas]

This is for the rich poor man. AKA: Upper Middle class

[cbennett811]

Or you could build a poor mans aerosol powered paint ball gun. Check out my instructable to learn how. Just search for aerosol powered paintball gun.

[I AM NOT MICHAEL JACKSON!]

Way to kill the environment for your amusement.

[Trace II]

Upper Middle Class FTW!!

[Jupitane]

Or you can make an actual aerial shell, its not that hard, you just need to know how to. =)

[hg341]

^*hint*use propain instad of c02 it will be funny
i like this a lot

[beatit]

I live in canada and i got a huge fine, probably becuase im underage, was drunk and lit a tree on fire

[Arbitror]

Just don't light trees on fire, do it in an empty lot, and your good to go! =)

[VagsmaCutter]

You are an hero.

[andrew101]

sweet lol

[Digital_Anarchy]

LOL thats epic!

[John Smith]

Congratulations....

[James (pseudo-geek)]

lol.

[sadunpererarules]

dude. that SUCH a brilliant idea. ahaha, what happens if they get jammed down there?

[FunkNattidelic]

i would imagine it would do nasty things to the barrel. a ground bloom flower melted almost the whole way through a wine bottle that i once put one in...

[Tombini]

This is using STOREBOUGHT fireworks with a STOREBOUGHT Paint marker how is this an instructable its just an idea!

[Thelonelysandwitch]

The ground blooms that I have fly up in the air so I don't need a paint ball gun. Also try a sling shot where you can see the fuse but the bad part is it wont go as far!!!!!

[shizzit3]

awesome

[Toni the rocketman]

YEA

[ifixit]

CO2, but I doubt it matters. The gun has some velocity adjustments we could have tried, but I was pretty happy with the default. The firework was aerial for over four seconds, which is slightly lower than the ground bloom burn time. Fee free to improve upon the technique!

[FrenchCrawler]

In the long run, CO2 is actually bad for your marker and will eventually damage it. HPA is the way to go and is cheaper then CO2 (once you get all the things needed: Scuba tank, Fill Station, HPA tank). Around here it's only $6 to fill a 80 cu ft. scuba tank which will refill a 47 cu tank we have about 20 times. It costs $3 to refill a 9 oz. CO2 tank once. Just thought I'd share that "insight" with you :)

[ry25920]

Oh come on man! Co2 is perfectly fine for your gun! I will say that HPA is a much better gas, but Co2 will stay for ever.

[lemonie]

Come on now, markers are designed to work with CO2, no damage is caused. No.

[FrenchCrawler]

Although markers are designed to work with CO2, damage can be caused if the liquid doesn't have enough room to expand into gas (which is why they sell expansion chambers seperately) and will freeze up the internals of the gun. Please see the link (Thread) that I posted below...

[jester_rob]

This is why high end guns recommend HPA, the only damage CO2 does to the gun is that it can cause thermal strain on plastic and rubber parts.

[flecth]

Liquid CO2 can damage o-rings. That is why you should always have extras for your tank. The urethane can’t handle CO2 evaporating on it. It causes it to dry out and eventually leak. I have seen guns damaged by o-ring failure. It can cause a bolt to wear against the side walls of the gun and preventing it from sealing properly again. Very rare though. Expansion chambers are used to help turn liquid CO2 into a gas for a more stable pressure. Liquid CO2 doesn’t have as much force behind it do to its slower rate of expansion. Liquid CO2 can also cause many lubricants in guns to fail also leading to wear and eventually failure. This would only affect a person who doesn't maintain there gun.

[lemonie]

I saw the thread below, I just disagree. Cooling is cause by adiabatic expansion, not having enough room to expand into gas will *prevent* freezing. I have on more than one occasion (including sub-zero temperatues) seen many well-used markers fired for long periods without failure. I'd suggest that some markers are badly designed, and I've only used more robust models?

[PyroPat]

Different markers obviously work in drastically different ways. I own 2 Tippmann A-5's...most of Tippmann's guns are designed to use CO2--even without an expansion chamber or LPK. These are mechanical markers. Electronic markers (especially markers with vision) have a much harder time using CO2, and they really don't like it. The faster you fire, and high-end electronic markers can fire fast, the more likely you are to shoot "snow" which can destroy high-end markers, and markers not designed specifically for CO2. Not to mention the fact that some fields are just simply doing away with CO2.

[westfw]

Careful not to have burning fireworks land on flammable things. Aside from the immediate damage, this is the sort of thing that makes AHJs REALLY not like having fireworks in the area...

> CO2 is actually bad for your marker and will eventually damage it.

Really? How so? I thought that stuff all started out with CO2. You gain a lot of potential range with something like CO2 that's liquid at moderate pressures instead of having to deal with higher-pressure gasses like air. Although perhaps the availability of composite tanks has made the theoretical advantages less meaningful.

[FrenchCrawler]

Here's a link:
http://www.pbreview.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3836619#post3836619

If the liquid doesn't have enough time to expand to gas, it will freeze the gun and damage it. The reason markers start out with CO2 tanks (empty) is cause the tanks are cheaper to make and CO2 costs more to buy.