Fusing/timing of cakes

[FlyingDutchman]

This is my first backyard shoot and I need to know is there a basic rule on when to time cakes together, or separate them by a certain amount of time, or is all up in the air, no pun intended. Any advice for my first show.

Am I overthinking this.....probably. :eek:

[mjbland05]

overthinking it is half the fun. wait, probably more than half the fun ... i have spent dramatically more time laying out my show than it will take to blow everything up! There are absolutely no rules - it's your show, do what you like. There are definitely considerations though -- too much in the air at once and the specific effects can get lost, but layering things of different sizes can look amazing.

one of my favorite sequences i made last year was with a spartan fury 200-ish shot missile battery starting off by itself, then a couple of 200 gram cakes layered in, then a couple of 500 gram cakes at the finish. the missiles overlapped everything and gave a nice layering of effect and sound.

Start getting familiar with the effects of the different products you have and dive into the creative side of combining them. fan or zipper cakes with mortars behind them can look fantastic. heck, even those cheap little color pearl items can give a nice front layer with some traditional cakes behind them.

good luck and have fun!

[apellet]

I'm right there with you! I've been watching videos to get an idea of duration and how I think things might look layered together, but I am completely new to fusing. At the moment, I've got 5 500g cakes going up for my finale and trying to determine how to space them to fire 6-8 seconds apart, flawlessly. Good luck!

[mjbland05]

i'd highly recommend burning a few pieces of fuse by themselves to get a feel for timing, although i think the speeds are generally pretty true to what the packaging says. I basically laid the fuse out next to a ruler based on seconds per inch. it's not perfect, but most things went up pretty much where i wanted them to.

my leftover fuse is all in michigan, but if i recall correctly the pink fuse is about 10s/foot, so you've got 8-10 inches to play with. you can also do some pink fuse, then a stretch of the super fast white fuse if you want to space things a little further apart.

Oh, i also recommend putting on a little bit of lead fuse to give yourself a little time to light and get back to optimal viewing distance.

here's a picture of an early board of mine. It has a main trunk fuse of pink fuse and then high speed white fuse to link things that i want to go simultaneously along the way. you can of course get much more complex if you like. the second pic is from last year and uses a mix of fuse types for timing. i'd also highly recommend not letting your mortars get tangled like mine did -- untangling them in the dark is a drag!

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[apellet]

I never thought about testing out the fuse-that's a great idea. I could cut the amount I think I want, dry fit it between cakes, and if spacing looks right, try it out. I think the hands-on will make the whole idea seem a lot less daunting. This wasn't even my thread, but I think you helped me just as much! ha.

[chriskrc]

One thing you will find out is that trial and error is your best learning tool. Last year I had some stuff go quicker than I liked but it still looked good in the show. Nothing will ever be absolutely perfect but try measuring out some fuse for sure. If you find that after the show you would have liked something to have happened differently in the firing , remember for the next time.

[FlyingDutchman]

Thanks for the great advice, I have all the duration's for my cakes written on them so that will help with the timing of them. The layering of 200g with 500g that never occurred to me, I will definitely be doing that.

What is the minimum distance of space between cakes so that they don't overlap in the sky 5 feet, 10 feet?
Also do 60 gram mortars shoot higher then 500 gram cakes, is that another layer?

[mjbland05]

i think generally mortars and 500 gram cakes will be about the same, depending on the type of cake. zippper / fan cakes will be different. a canister shell can have 60 grams of powder ... a nine shot 500 gram cake will have roughly 500/9 = 55ish grams/shell so almost identical to the canister. NOABs i believe can have a wider diameter shell however, so you can get rounder, better breaks in general. ball shells like festival balls will break lower than canister shells.

check out this thread for how some other folks approach laying out their show: planning your layout thread (http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/showthread.php?4627-How-do-you-like-to-plan-your-physical-layout) one of the guys uses ms paint, one uses CAD software, i used visio for mine since i have access. in each of those options you can drag around your inventory to your heart's content. here's what my current iteration looks like - mixing up fans, comets, those big 200 shot roman candles with other cakes
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[Rick_In_Tampa]

This is my first backyard shoot and I need to know is there a basic rule on when to time cakes together, or separate them by a certain amount of time, or is all up in the air, no pun intended. Any advice for my first show.

Am I overthinking this.....probably. :eek:

Ok. I'm going to out myself. Last year was my biggest show ever. I had 16 cases of various 500G cakes and a "Spirit of Liberty" pack of (I believe) 96 mortars. I lost soooo much sleep obsessing over cake layouts and fuse types it was ridiculous. I watched video after video and actually used a stopwatch to time out the burn time of each cake. When it came time to build the boards I used a tape measure to measure the space between each cake, and each fuse of each cake, so I knew how much (and what type) fuse I would need. Then I actually used a tape measure and sharpie to measure the exact amount of fuse between each cake to ensure I had one cake starting when the prior cake was done. Talk about obsessing!!

On the night of July 4th, it rained. It rained all freaking day and all freaking night. I had a brief break in the action where I was able to pull off the tarps and light the fuse to get the show in the air. Some things lit, some things didn't. The timing between the cakes worked in many cases, but there were still lapses between others. There was also a lot of hand lighting towards the end because the paper fast fuse I used got wet and didn't light at all. My daughter just commented to me a few days ago that she felt so sorry for me last year because she saw how pissed off I was that my show didn't go as planned. She said she didn't understand why I was so mad because she and everyone else thought the show was great.

This year, I said screw it. I have 26 cases of 500G cakes and 150 mortars and I swagged everything. If I have multiple cakes going off at the same time (and I will!) so be it. If the show is 10 min shorter than it could be as a result, so be it. As long as the people in attendance have a great time, that's all that matters. So my advice to you is this. Don't sweat it! Close enough really is close enough. Place your emphasis on safety (making sure the cakes are glued down and/or secured and far enough away from the crowd) and don't obsess over timing. If everything you have makes it into the air that evening, the crowd will have a great time. If anyone complains, tell them they can always apply for a refund later.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

What is the minimum distance of space between cakes so that they don't overlap in the sky 5 feet, 10 feet?
Also do 60 gram mortars shoot higher then 500 gram cakes, is that another layer?

This is another example of how you can drive yourself nuts by delving way too deep into the weeds. If you actually plan on shooting multiple cakes at the same time, then get a remote firing system that will allow you to build a right, center, and left stage for your show, and put 20-30-40 feet between each stage. If you plan of shooting cakes off boards laid side by side or end to end, then I wouldn't even worry about it. The average 500G cake is about 10" x 10". The breaks from the shells in that 500G cake are generally 5-10 times that size. So the chance that you're not going to have overlap in the sky 5 feet, 10 feet is 0%. It's going to happen. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

As far as whether or not 60 gram mortars shoot higher than 500 gram cakes... That's another sleep loss pill you don't need to take. If you think about it, cakes ARE mortars. You just don't have to hand load them or fuse them yourself. Some 12 year old kid in China does that for us. Shell height is determined by the lift charge relative to the shell size (weight) and tube size/diameter and any lateral space between the shell and the tube for gas to escape; as well as wind speed, humidity, blah blah blah. It's been my experience that most consumer fireworks (1.4G) 500G cakes and mortars shoot and break at essentially the same height. Yes... There are cakes like Vegas Lights that are designed to shoot and break in a layered effect. However, most 500G cakes (that I've seen and/or used) all seem to break at relatively the same height. I'm sure you'll hear from other people on here with different experiences, but that has been my experience shooting 1.4G cakes.

[zzzybil]

Not much to add but LOVE that i'm not the only ocd person thats watched countless hrs watching videos and planned weeks and weeks ! I will add - make sure you FIRMLY secure the ''fast fuse'' . Couple extra pieces of tape here and there . I remember 1st time I tested fuse haha , clockin visco with the stopwatch on my phone ........then the fast fuse.......HAHA .......yup that shits FAST.......AND ?? VIOLENT ??.......whips much stronger - so make sure its secured better than plain grn visco so the longer lengths don't pull loose ! HAHA my oh my never forget that fuse ''test'' .
IMO as you watch videos and get more familiar - you'll imagine , have some brain farts - on what to pair up and how to recreate small replications of awesomeness that the pros have done , only on a smaller scale.....
They may shoot something on 12 fronts a 1000 yds from their audience ......truly spectacular ! but it looks just as awesome lol... on 1 front/station when your audience is 150' away ????/// kinda sorta lol. Example the comet runs . No way i can recreate their geometric 200 count razzle dazzle huge mongous effects . But I have been quite pleased with 2 dozen crossed comets (12 each side angled ) with ''whatever'' simultaneous up the middle!.
My advice is enjoy your evolution- the learning never stops........and planning is the biggest part of the fun........try to keep it different as yuh can......optimizing various effects growing the excitement example from lil strobes /gerbs fountains and pearls, to different effects like mines, fish, big strobes , small layers to big breaks , grouping cans by color or effect , big breaks , criss crossing . Some of my favorite things were kinda unexpected . Then for sure repeat it nx time.
Just know that fast fuse whips hard - yuh don't want it pulling loose midway thru a sequence

[Bazerk]

Not much to add but LOVE that i'm not the only ocd person thats watched countless hrs watching videos and planned weeks and weeks !

I think we have all been here. Hell, this was me just a year ago.

[apellet]

High five Rick! I needed to hear that. I am stuck in that same mentality of obsessing over every detail and feeling like the show has to go perfectly. I am putting so much pressure on myself and it's like, "Good god woman, calm down, you've never even done this before and that fact alone is going to blow peoples' minds!" So, yeah...breathe...don't get so caught up in it that you lose the fun :)

[JmFnG]

I think we have all been here. Hell, this was me just a year ago.

And me THIS year. :) Many, many, many hours of research.

[mjbland05]

hah, for me, i watch the videos multiple times as much because i like watching fireworks as much as for research :)

[Bazerk]

The crappy part is coming down from all of this when the 4th of July is over.

[JmFnG]

The crappy part is coming down from all of this when the 4th of July is over.

Too true. But hey, NYE isn't THAT far away...d'oh!

Last year on July 5th or 6th my cousin and I were already counting down. It's a sickness.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

High five Rick! I needed to hear that. I am stuck in that same mentality of obsessing over every detail and feeling like the show has to go perfectly. I am putting so much pressure on myself and it's like, "Good god woman, calm down, you've never even done this before and that fact alone is going to blow peoples' minds!" So, yeah...breathe...don't get so caught up in it that you lose the fun :)

Lol... No prob girl! You got this!! Enjoy the ride.