Make Your Own Hand Held Fire Ball Blaster!

Hello fellow makers,

In this Instructable I'll be showing you how I made this wearable fire blaster from scratch to add that missing piece to your Halloween costume or magic tricks.

> FLASH PAPER SHOULD ONLY BE USED BY ADULTS! <

The fire blaster is made to attach to the top of your hand and has a separate power supply consisting of a 18650 battery that gets attached around your arm and a remote trigger that can be held in your hand.

You can choose between shooting a fire ball or a fire blast by simply altering how you load the barrel with the fire paper which I will delve into later in the Instructable.

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Step 1: What You Will Need:

To make your own you will need the following:

Access to a 3D printer, in this Instructable I used a Creality Halot one

Amazon - Creality Halot-One Resin 3D Printer

Flash Paper, I recommend you buy ready made paper or you can also make your own (more in step 6)

Amazon - CEVILIA Magic Wand Paper

25Amp Microswitch

Amazon - Honeywell Micro Switch Premium Basic / Snap Action Switch 25A @ 250VAC

18+AWG Silicone wire

Amazon - Bryne 18 Gauge Ultra Flexible Silicone Wire 50 Ft [25 Ft Red and 25 Ft Black]

Heat shrink tubing

Amazon - Eventronic 400 Pcs Heat Shrink Tubing Kit

10mm Aluminium tubing

Amazon - 6063 Aluminum Round Tube, 10mm OD

Battery tabs

Amazon - 10Pairs Battery Springs

Ignition element:

Nichrome wire

Amazon - Mixed 550 Feet of Nichrome 80 Wire 22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36 Gauge Pack

Ceramic isolator

Amazon - Ceramic Insulation Tube Twin Bore

I've linked a twin bore isolator that should work better for making coils.

Soldering iron and solder

Amazon - Soldering Iron Kit, 60W

*As an Amazon Associate I receive a small percentage from sales made through provided links at no cost to you, this helps fund future projects.

Step 2: Designing and Printing the Needed Components:

As with all of my printed projects I hopped onto Fusion 360 to design the fire blaster.

The design consists out of three individual components, the flame blaster, the firing switch and the battery compartment that will be connected to each other with some soft flexible silicone wire.

I decided to split the fire blaster up into individual parts to make it easier to conceal and integrate into your Halloween costume compared to a bulky all in one design and being a wearable your hands are free for all your trick or treating needs.

An added little "shark fin" was added on the top of the fire blaster to keep any dangling sleeves away from the firing barrel.

To keep costs down I decided to first try the design printed in standard Creality Rigid Resin and it is more than strong enough for all of the components.

I have included the Fusion 360 design files below if you need to adjust anything to suit your needs.

Once the parts finished printing and was cured fully I painted them in a fiery red, orange and black ombre effect using my airbrush but this is of course completely optional.

Flame Blaster

Step 3: Creating the Ignition Coil:

I went back and forth quite a bit on this step.

We need a way to ignite our flash paper in order to make it shoot out of the barrel, I first tried a regular piezo lighter starter but this gave very unreliable results at the paper had to be in a very specific spot and even then still took a few tries to ignite.

Next and probably the best is the new generation of high voltage "plasma" flameless lighters, unfortunately this would increase the cost and complexity of the whole projects.

So finally I decided to stick with the old trusty nichrome wire, I have a ton of it laying around from broken hairdryers and soldering irons or you can even dissect a wire wound resistor for some plus to make the whole thing work we only need to switch the power on for a second using a microswitch.

To make an ignition coil I started with a piece of nichrome wire with 2 ohms of resistance, In order to make a connection to the wire and stop it from shorting we will need a stiff support, for this I used a 15mm piece of ceramic isolator.

A piece of tinned copper wire the same thickness as the hole in the isolator is fed through so that we can wrap the one end of the nichrome wire twice around it, as we cannot solder directly to the nichrome I wrapped the connection up tightly in copper wire. I did the same at the other end of the nichrome wire but this time wrapped it around the ceramic isolator.

To finish we just need to solder our negative (black) wire to the connection that's on the ceramic isolator and the positive (red) wire to the end of the copper wire that goes through the isolator.

Step 4: Make the Barrel:

For the barrel of the fire blaster I'm using a piece of salvaged 10mm aluminium pipe cut ~55mm long.

You can experiment with different diameter and lengths as this will change how the blaster fires, a longer thinner pipe will shoot further and smaller flames whereas a wider, shorter pipe will result in larger short range flames.

I recommend sticking to alloy pipes as the barrel does heat up when used.

Step 5: Solder the Wiring and Assemble:

Now onto assembling.

Starting at the fire blaster we first need to feed the wires that we soldered onto the ignition coil through the back two holes of the enclosure as pictured below and then you can use a drop of adhesive to adhere the lid into place.

Next one of the wires has to go to our microswitch, from the fire blaster I measured about 150mm and cut the positive wire this wire gets fed through the hole in the switch enclosure and soldered onto the N/O normally open pin of the microswitch.

Now solder the other piece of positive (red) wire that was cut off to the COM common pin of the microswitch.

With the switch now wired up you can slot the microswitch into place over the two supporting pillars and add the cover.

I added some heat shrink tubing to all the points where the wires come in contact with the enclosures to give some extra protection and strain relief.

Our firing switch is now finished.

Our power supply is next.

Start by feeding the positive and negative wires through the holes on either side of the battery holder, you will notice the indent for the battery tab on the one side is slightly deeper this is the negative side with the spring tab.

Solder the tabs onto the ends of the corresponding wires as pictured and then you can adhere the tabs into the indents inside of the battery holder (I used some two part CA glue).

Their is a slot running along the bottom of the battery enclosure to route the negative wire in.

This conclude the wiring of our fire blaster, I recommend using a multi-meter if you have one to test the resistance between the two battery tabs when the firing switch is pressed just to make sure your blaster works correctly before inserting the battery.

The meter should read an open circuit when the switch isn't pressed and around 2ohms when the firing switch is pressed.

With our blaster wired we can slide the barrel into place, mine was a very tight fit and is held in place very well with friction.

To finish off our fire blaster we just need to attach some elastic bands to the two enclosures and then it's ready to use!

The fire blaster used a 12mm fabric elastic band and the battery holder used a 30mm wide elastic, as in the past I used 2 part CA glue for gluing the elastic together this gives a quick permanent seam.

It's finally time to load a small piece of flash paper into the barrel and test it out!

This will depend on the volatility of your flash paper but I use a 20mm square that is loosely crumpled up into a ball in mine with good results.

Step 6: Optional: the Flash Paper (Nitrocellulose)

What Is Flash Paper?

Flash paper is a common name for the polymer nitrocellulose. Other names include cellulose nitrate, guncotton, collodion, pyroxylin, flash cotton, and flash string.

The starting material is cellulose, which is polymer found in plants. Sources of nearly pure cellulose include cotton balls, cotton t-shirt fabric, paper, paper towels, saw dust, or starch.

Historically, a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid nitrates the cellulose. The chemical bonds between the nitrogen and oxygen atoms release a lot of energy when broken, producing the flash.

WARNING!

This step is not meant to be done by children and proper PPE should be worn before attempting.

The classic reaction involves cellulose, sulfuric acid, and nitric acid. This produces the highest quality flash paper.

Either cotton balls or tissue paper work well for this procedure.

Sulfuric acid is available from home supply stores, both as concentrated acid or as drain cleaner. Nitric acid is available online.

30 ml 60% nitric acid
80 ml 98% sulfuric acid
5 grams cotton (or other form of cellulose)
Ice bath
Mixture of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and water

If you’re using concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid, a good ratio is 5 parts nitric acid to 4 parts sulfuric acid.

If you’re using paper, cut it into small sheets (the final size you need).

Prepare an ice bath. This is just a large container of ice and water. Rest a glass bowl or pan on the ice to chill the reaction.
Carefully pour the nitric acid and sulfuric acid into your glass container. Either swirl to mix or stir with a glass rod.
Submerge the cotton or paper in the acid mixture. Use a glass rod or plastic spoon and make certain all of the material is wet.
Let the cotton or paper soak a minimum of 15-20 minutes or as long as 1 hour. The purity of the cellulose (cotton or paper) determines the final color. Pure cotton stays white or slightly yellows. Toilet paper becomes pale brown.
Transfer the paper into a container of water. Use glass or plastic tongs and neutralize any spills with the baking soda and water solution. Let the paper soak in the water about 5 minutes. At this point, you are finished with the acid mixture. Dilute it with water and neutralize it with the baking soda solution before rinsing it down the drain with plenty of water. Ideally, use pH paper and test the neutralized acid to make sure it is close to neutral. If it’s still acidic, add more baking soda.
Pour off the water from the paper and add more rinse water. Repeat the process. The rinse liquid contains much less acid, so it’s probably fine just pouring it down the drain, but you can collect all the rinse water in one large container and neutralize it with baking soda before disposal, just to be safe.
Neutralize any residual acid on the paper by soaking it in the mixture of baking soda and water. The flash paper is safe to touch now.
Finally, rinse in distilled water. (Tap water works, but the final product doesn’t burn as cleanly.)

Either store the flash paper wet (for later use) or leave it on a paper towel overnight to dry (for immediate use).