If you live somewhere where visco fuse is hard to get ahold of or you don't want to waste your precious homemade fuse. I've actually found a way to get a good amount of time out of a simple, and easy fuse you can make in less then 2 minutes, if you have the materials. Now, this fuse isn't the best type of fuse to ignite your salute's because its really thick, but you can economize your visco fuse using this method. Like, for instance a 3 inch fuse for actual salute ignition, but tape this to the timed fuse.

I call it the flare fuse. Simple concept really, I created this myself with the materials I had on me at the time when I was a little lad long ago.

Materials:
Road/Marine Flare
Drinking Straw (Plastic)
Masking Tape

Yes, thats all you need.

Dismantle the flare starting from the friction-ignition-system, they use some type of blackpowder with hard resin at the tip that ignites with a simple stroke of sand paper, you can crush that up and use it for whatever you want.

(quick tip: the flares actual container is pretty dense cardboard, if I'm not mistaken, you can jig the flare into 3 or so pieces to use for quick and simple salutes)

The flare I used was, Orion Marine Flares, the powder was consistenly yellow and tended to clump when stored, (dont know exact compound), it left a white brittle after-product.

Pour that out into whatever container you want. Now get the drinking straw and tape one end shut with your normal everyday painter's or masking tape.

With the open end of the straw, stick it into the flare-powder many times, the powder should clump inside. Find like a nail or something of the same diameter as the straw and mildly press it so all of the powder is touching and is pressed nicely.

After you get all the flare powder inside (or your slow burning mixture), make sure you compress it real nice, so you get a consistent, hot flame all the way through the straw when lit. Tape it up, and put a layer or two of tape around the whole straw, because as it burns it melts the plastic before it gets to it and sometimes the flaming part falls off before igniting the other powder making you think that your salute failed, causing you to go back to the objective. I've had this happen to me on a salute, easy way to get around, put a generous amount of tape around the whole straw (2 or 3 layers maximum).

As I said it's very simple and the materials will cause absolutely no suspicious behavour whatsoever.

Pros: -When lit, this puppy burns to the other end no matter what condition, 100mph winds or rain.(except underwater, never tested), the flame is very hot, you would not put it out by blowing on it if you even tried.

-One flare makes quite alot of these fuses.

-Doesn't throw sparks, just a flame.

-Although I never stored these for long periods of time, I know flares can be stored for very long periods of time. Therefor I predict you can keep these for years.

-You can also use your mixture, as I think it would work with almost every compound, but I like to use any marine flare mixture, because once it is lit, there's no stopping it.

Cons:-Since you cannot bend this fuse very much, it makes your salute's considerable larger and harder to conceile. Although I think you can counter this by holding like 10 or 20 of these in your safety box when going to the site-of-detonation, then just simply taping them to your salute's with a small strip of tape so the flame can transfer to your visco or homemade fuse.

It throws a 1 or 2 inch flame that is extremely hot, something like those "sparkling fireworks" except without the sparks, becareful when putting on the ground, can ignite the enviroment pretty easily.

All and all I think this is a very good fuse even for the most "professonial" of users. Gives very consistent time frames so when your objective goes off you can be at a nice vantage point where you see it happen, but at a safe distance from be it, fragmentation, or the po-po's. ;)

Actually it seems to me that visco fuse would be easier to get than flares.
Where do you get them? I can see how the powder in them could be useful but since almost blowing my face off with a homemade fuse I've made it a goal to not use them.

Let me remind you I wrote this for people that can't get ahold of visco fuse. In my area visco fuse is easy to get, but I know there are people out there that don't have such luck.

You can get them anywhere, Walmart, hardware stores. Most likely place to find good ones is a boating or marine store, get some orion waterproof ones.

Also, these fuses are failsafe, its impossible for them to go faster then you think, a 6 inche straw filled with the powder densely packed in will go a long way.

Personally, I perfer them over anything in the 1 min to 3 minute time, if your on the run or something like that. But if you want remote ignition or long times, this isn't your fuse.

Now before I start, I realise that this may well be one of the oldest tricks in the book, and equally, I can't vouch for it's availability for some of the younger readers of the forum.

What about the humble cigarette? They will go out in the rain, they won't burn under-water, they will absolutely light 3/32 visco, and positioned correctly they are not particularly susceptable to the effects of wind from a constant direction.

Different brands and different strengths will burn at different speeds. In addition to this, they may be cut in half or in any other proportion.

I have enjoyed this trick at parties for many, many years now. Simply
'go out to your car to get something', light cigarette, insert fuse through just above the filter, set down and then return. In my experience you then have anywhere from 5-8 minutes until you can ask, along with everybody else, "what the fuck was that?"

In addition to this, they are small, dependant upon age - nothing to need hiding, and above all else, cheap and available practically everywhere.

Now, they're not particularly high tech, but would you rather build a car, or for the same price, (and no work) buy a horse and cart to go and pick up the milk? So to speak. ;) Personally, I prefer to put the spare time to extra mischief, er, work I mean.

Just a warning on the cigarette, don't use one you rolled yourself. They go out.

Use a tailor as they are much harder to blow out.

Good idea though.

American Spirits with natural tobaco and untreated cigarette papers burn on the order of 12 minutes, compared to about 4 or 5 minutes for the major US brands.

I've used cigarettes before, and it's important that the cherry (hot ember) be at the bottom, not the top.

If the cigarette isn't hanging so that the heat of the burning ember can rise upwards through the cigarette, it will sputter out.

Even horizontal, or inclined, is inadequate. Straight vertical is the only way to go.