Subject: buildshell
From: <Saved by Microsoft Internet Explorer 5>
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 01:34:34 -0800

Building a paper ball
shell... (in basic terms)

The inside of an aerial shell
can look as simple as the photo here to your left, or it can look as complex as
well you know! We will take a look at the construction of a
basic aerial shell. By basic I mean a
red chrysanthemum. The time fuse penetrating the bottom of the lower hemi in
most cases will have a flash bag/tube affixed to it. This is where the initial
burst takes place.

Now the
burst charge is loaded into the two hemis. When doing this you must be careful
keep the stars/effects from tumbling down. Tissue or rice paper can be used for
ease and management of the burst charge. It is also very common to add an amount
of common 70/30 flash powder to the core of the two hemis and work it carefully
into the burst a bit. This will produce a much appreciated
report/break.

The
shell is carefully closed, and packed very tight. The shell is then simply
sealed at the center with a few passes of quality tape. The shell is now ready
for pasting.

Pasting is done with wheat paste and quality kraft
paper. It is done in a series of layers - allowing each layer to fully dry
between pastings. Some, for added compression during break, will also paste in a
layer or two of the commonly found gummed packaging tape. This tape has a very
strong nylon web sandwiched between it and acts as a rope or cord holding the
shell tightly closed.

The time
fuse is then pierced or cut and a piece of black/bare match is added, this is
called cross matching and serves as surefire. In some cases you will see shells
with two fuses protruding the lower hemi, and in that case both fuses are cross
matched.