1960s # 2 Aerial Salute

[Doc Wally]

A little story from the early 60s. Going back to my early days in the fireworks business before they passed the Child Protection Act of 1966, we made many fireworks items for the consumer market that do not exist in the US anymore (legally). One of these items were designated as a # 2 Arial Salute. This was a great little device that you could purchase in almost any fireworks store. Back then you could get them individually or in packages of 5 and up. Basically the # 2 was a ¾” X 2” round tubular report that was shot out of a small cardboard tube base glued onto a 2” square wooden block. These blocks were dyed either red, blue or green. The tubes were originally rolled by hand made of straw board and wheat paste and a small amount of water glass added. Later on we purchased the tubes already made in all sorts of colors and designs. I remember sitting in the shop on a wooden stool with the components at hand for each step of the manufacturing process. It was a lot of work to make these little items. I enjoyed making the “shots” as we called them. First you would take a shot tube and slip it on to a machined brass form base. This form had a small hole drilled into the center of the base that accepted a piece of fast Visco about 1¼” long. Next you would pour in a scoop of fire clay and then take a rammer with a hole in its center similar to rocket rammers then carefully twist the rammer to locate the Visco in the rammer hole to make sure you didn’t ram the fuse into the clay. You gave it 4 good hits with a rawhide mallet to seat the clay around the fuse. Next we would add the flash and then sawdust over the top of the powder. We would leave about a ¼ of an inch empty at the top of the shot that we poured in a thin layer of water glass with a little chalk mixed in. The water glass took about 2 days to cure. This finished shot was then inserted into the base tube (fuse down) that contained a small amount of 4F black powder for the lift. We used a piece of Visco in the lower side of the base tube glued in with a touch of Nitrocellulose for the ignition. They were a really attractive piece of fireworks and performed well. They would fire that little shot about 50 to 60 feet into the air and the report did its job. Back then they sold for about 30¢ each.
Doc Wally