[xiankai]

well... nitrogen doesnt seem to be smoky to me... we can see through 78% N2 after all

[general_jerome]

hey, i just disected some fire crackers. I read that the white powder was KNO3, this makes sense because there needs to be oxygen for flame and this gives off oxygen. Well i mixed it with some sugar, about 1:1 in amount. I then made it into a paste with a couple drops of water, and i then proceded to pack into a straw, not very easy to do. I tried to slowly suck it up the straw. no good, good thing i didnt make much. Is that stuff bad for you ?? i flushed my toung, so it couldnt have done any thing. I hope it turns out, i want to do the dangerous method and make a metal shell to insert rods into and it have an igniter, but i think it'll burn up!

[general_jerome]

well, you HAVE to let it COMPLETELY dry out, all i managed to do with one of mine was to <i>make</i> the dangerous stuff cause it was melting it and its shell. I am waiting for my second to dry...

[Shea]

Well, I lived in china for a year...  I remember them making some kinda smoke bomb.  Just take a ping pong ball, tear it into little bits, and wrap it well in napkin and ignite it.  It burns kinda slowly, and makes a lot of smoke...  You could probably put a rock in it to throw it greater distances.

[Borek]

Just take a ping pong ball, tear it into little bits, and wrap it well in napkin and ignite it.  It burns kinda slowly, and makes a lot of smoke...

Not every ping-pong ball, celluloid one, if they are still made - most balls I have seen lately were from some other plastic. And be carefull, as celluloid burns fast. Trick is to keep it in something closed so that there is no free air flow. Only then you will get the smoke.

[Shea]

It had worked ok.  It filled a whole guard shack in about 10 seconds.  Do you mean the tighter you wrap it, the more smoke?

(How do you know all this stuff?)

[Tyroneezekiel]

The smoke grenades used in paintball fields consist of potassium chlorate a fuel and hexamine.  Hexamine greatly reduces heat output, while potassium chlorate tends to burn cooler anyway.

[typhoon2028]

When I picture asmoke grenade...I picture throwing a thing, and it explodes in a plume of smoke...instantly.  Perhaps this is not what you want...but if you're looking for just BOOM and then there's a huge plume of smoke, then look into the reaction that's used to rapidly fill airbags...I think Sodium azide (NaN₂) undergoes a reaction to give off a LOT of N₂ very fast, and this could be used.

Only problem is that N₂ is denser than the rest of 'air' - so it will float to the ground and stay there -- not ideal if you have your people crawling across the field on their fronts...breathing in a lot of N2....

But give it some thought  

Except sodium azide is unstable and decomposes easily with shock.  In addition, sodium metal is also generated which reacts and could cause fires and burns.

[408]

Sodium azide is just another toxic lab reagent.  The conditions for it to decompose energetically are not going to be accidentally achieved. 

For the original question, why not rig up something to puncture a CO2 cartridge for airguns, and allow the escaping CO2 to disperse some flour or something.

[Kitchench3m]

I know that it has to be possible in some respects to make a cold smoke bomb. However a nontoxic one of those seems unlikely since most nontoxic elements are completely see through. I really liked the insulation idea with one small tweak to the design. Instead of hoping the ball would roll straight up, why not craft a reusable shell which houses a lead weight at the bottom of a sphere? If all goes according to plan, it should spring straight up to deliver the smoke in the desired manner.

[andytheswedse]

Sorry for bumbing an old thread but there where some questions left unanswered,,,,,
What would the "perfect" mix of potassium chlorate  and hexamine be?

[Borek]

Sorry for bumbing an old thread but there where some questions left unanswered,,,,,
What would the "perfect" mix of potassium chlorate  and hexamine be?

Even if someone will post it, the answer will be deleted according to forum rules.

[andytheswedse]

My apology
I will immediately read up on the rules!

Is it aloud to pm such information?

[Borek]

As far as I know nobody here deals with pyrotechnics (doesn't mean it was always this way, we had moderator doing PhD in explosives ) so I doubt you will get any answers.

No idea how it works now, but I have heard one may find a lot of good information in archives of rec.pyrotechnics (google them).

[billnotgatez]

There are many Internet sites that deal with pyrotechnics