The Practice of Fuse Safety With Pyrotechnics

In the process of preparing a pyrotechnics spectacle, just as much attention should be devoted to the brilliant fireworks as to the humble fuse. Although the glitters and the colors are the main attraction, the fuses that you use will determine the effectiveness of the entire display.

Safety fuse thoughts to bear in mind

When buying or making fuses, you should bear in mind some important things. First, make sure that the fuse you bought or made is well-made and can withstand the handling which is inevitable when setting up a pyrotechnics show.

Firmly sealed and water-proofed

Safety fuses have their combustible components sheathed up within. Therefore if the cloth or plastic sheath of the fuse is easily damaged, the black powder can come spilling out upon twisting or bending. Two things can happen after that. The fuse can stop working at the point of the breakage and/or an accident can occur as a result of the exposed fuse powder.

Before selecting a specific fuse from the store, ask for a small sample. Seal off any open ends with water proof adhesive and dunk the fuse in a bottle of water. If, after removing it from water it turns out that the fuse sample is soaked, don't buy it.

Fuse safety requires that the safety fuse should be water-proofed. For this purpose, most of them have a two layers of cloth sheathing which are both water-proofed with asphaltum or plastic. Keeping the fuse dry is essential if you don't want to have to troubleshoot it in the middle of a pyrotechnics performance because a portion of it got wet.

Pliable

The fuse should be pliant enough to be able to be bent and twisted in all angles without becoming non-functional. You need a lot of pliability in creating fireworks displays, especially the more complex ones.

Fuse safety means slow enough

One of the important concerns that prompted people to invent fuse safety devices like safety fuses was the need to provide enough time for the user to run to safety between the moment he lights the fuse and the moment the pyrotechnics blast off. Be sure your fuse is not a quick match type. Quick matches can burn as fast as 100 feet per second. They are not used for initiating the display. Rather they are used to connect one pyrotechnics routine to the next so that they occur within seconds of or simultaneously with each other.

Safe can also be dangerous

It may sound ironic but fuse safety can be a source of danger. To understand this statement we need to remember that just as the best safety fuses are durably sheathed and water proofed, they cannot also be easily stopped once ignited. State-of-the-art fuses can even burn under the ocean. These are what are used for detonating underwater explosives.

So before you set that match to the fuse, double check that you should be doing so at that precise moment. In this regard, when engineering a fireworks panorama, you should probably take the trouble of writing down the sequence of your program. Be sure everything on that checklist is accounted for properly before lighting that fuse.

Keep a very sharp pair of gardening scissors handy in case you need to cut the fuse to prevent it from proceeding.

Jameson Daniels is a writer for skylighter.com check out his Musical Birthday Candle or his Sky Lanterns.