For the past 3 weeks or so I've been designing and building my own visco fuse weaving machine! Lately I've been using blackmatch and quickmatch and have had a few "unexpected surprises" with flash powder so it’s the main reason I've spent my time making this thing. It consists of a 5 foot long board with 2 rotating discs (the usual) with 12 spools on the first disk and 10 on the second disk. Than everything is spooled onto a dowel when it’s finished. Everything is run off a vacuum motor which is actually extremely powder ( yes I know hard to believe =P ). I had to clock down the speed of the motor with a dimmer switch connected. Anyways it’s creating decent fuse, but not as decent as commercial fuses. When I completely finish the design ill take a few videos and pictures and post them up, also if I have the time I may make a tutorial/guide on my design for those who cant get any fuse and/or looking for a good project!

And here’s another topic: The type or form of BP makes a big difference, using meal you end up with a jammed funnel and a mess, Granulated black powder is not bad but it burns to fast, I’ve tried a few compositions of slow burning BP such as 55/45 Kno3/Charcoal with a tint of sulfur. Most of them work but require lots of maintenance to keep it working, if anyone has ideas the would be of great help! The hole that takes all the thread down to be threaded is about 3.5mm's and black powder sneaks between the threads quite a bit >.<
Coating NC Lacquer on it is another thing that takes thinking for doing it right, I've read about this problem many times and still cant get it straight.

Overall making your own visco weaving machine is quite interesting and takes alot of thinking, but eventually after sitting and smacking yourself in the head in front of your computer reading through sites and forums you'll end up with something decent, reliable and easy!

Cheers!

That sounds nice. I don’t suppose you are willing to share some pictures while we wait for the how-to guide? I was just thinking yesterday that with fuse getting harder and harder to get, someone should come up with a decent how-to to make their own quality fuse.

If I am not mistaken, if glass powder or some relatively inert metal is added, it makes the fuse burn considerably slower. I recently watched some show on the development of black powder and I believe that they said that "overcorning" (I am sure that this is not a word, but it will have to do) the black powder also helps to slow it down.

Call me crazy (which I am), but I have always wondered if it was possible to use a very weak thermite for a fuse. Many exotic thermites burn very, very slowly and might work as a fuse, since they get very hot but do not shoot molten metal like iron thermite. I was thinking about either SiO2 or TiO2 or either copper oxide. All of them merely heat up and form a clump of metal without ever undergoing the violent throwing reactions that iron thermite does. I know that the TiO2 thermite glows white, so it should be able to ignite nearly anything (amazingrust.com has several great exotic thermite videos. Their SiO2 thermite burned for over five min. at 100g). In any event, it's always worth a shot.

Your definitely right about that megalomania, my guess is in the next few years those asholes trying to regulate this stuff are eventually gonna get what they want >.< The machines quite a mess right now as I'm trying to get it to work better, I'll probably take some pictures this weekend. When everythings ready I'm gonna try and write a guide from start to finish and ill post it on the forum or something, it should take me a while but I'm gonna try and make it detailed as possible. =)

I'd like to see that one myself. Like Mega said, fuze is getting harder to come
by given how the shitheads at CPSC fucked over the pyro suppliers I have
plenty of visco for now but in the future we'll all probably have to make our
fuze as well as our chemicals.

Not a lot goes on here, but hopefully it will reach critical mass one day.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Visco_Fuse_Machine/

If I am not mistaken, if glass powder or some relatively inert metal is added, it makes the fuse burn considerably slower. I recently watched some show on the development of black powder and I believe that they said that "overcorning" (I am sure that this is not a word, but it will have to do) the black powder also helps to slow it down.
.


For a slower burning fuse, I substitute one fourth of my potassium nitrate for ammonium nitrate. Most of my first attempts at home made fuse actually resulted in fuse that burned impractically slow (5 inches in 30 minutes, no joke).

55/35/10 is a good fuel, granulate it slightly (80 mesh) and try that. If its still to fast add more charcoal.

I never had any problem using pure cotton string and setting up a drying jig; soaking the string in whetted BP (complete saturation) and while drying - drawing it through meal level commercial BP. After it was dried, coating with NC lacquer to the shape and extent needed. The drying jig and the purity (& diameter) of string were a focal point.

I'm 95% done the machine and I'm making fuse that burns at a constant rate at about 2 seconds per inch. My camera broke yesterday but I'm exchanging it today, ill put up some videos on youtube and pics on the forum either today or tomorrow for sure.

I went to exchange it and there werent any left in stock =( They gave me a full refund and ill be heading off to buy a new camera tomorrow. ALSO I've got my fuse to work comparable to high quality visco. I made about 60 feet of fuse in 20 minutes, coated it with a thin mix of NC Laquer using PING PONG BALLS! I ran a test to see the burn rate, It was doing 2.5 seconds per inch, same as visco! I than wanted to see if it was waterproof, i filled up a container of water, lit 3 inches of fuse and completely put it in the water, it kept burning at its same rate until done. Pretty good for homemade fuse id say =P

I had an idea to use mixture 50/50 of BP and crushed sparkles, sparkles do burn slowly, so I believe burning fuse would be something between sparkler and BP. But still wonder is it good idea to mix unknown mixture of sparkler with BP. Might turn over it self ignitable?
P.S. I've got made Visco Fuse Machine as well , you might find even some tutorial on youtube under name Erniz2.

umm... I live in Canada and the sparklers here suck, they dont put magnesium in them and i wouldnt really find sparklers and bp as a good composition. 75/15/10 in meal works best for me. Erniz gave me a few tips on my machine a while ago. Also i still have to get another video camera >.<

Hopefully these pics arent too big, anyways i promised i would take some pics so here they are:

http://www.geocities.com/akoegweb1/viscomachine.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/akoegweb1/viscomachine2.jpg
In this picture the motor i used was a 120v vaccum motor bought at princess auto.

http://www.geocities.com/akoegweb1/viscofusedisplay2.jpg
Heres about 45 feet of the fuse, it took me about 30 minutes to run the machine and coat it in NC Laquer.

http://www.geocities.com/akoegweb1/viscofuseburning.jpg
Heres a pic of about 2 inches of fuse burning.

Next ill get a video of it burning under water and also a fp salute using the fuse =)

Cheers! :D

Thank you for the pics ak_4554.
Although the machine doesn't look that
complicated to build I am looking forward to your tutorial.
Three thumbs up.

umm... I live in Canada and the sparklers here suck, they dont put magnesium in them and i wouldnt really find sparklers and bp as a good composition. 75/15/10 in meal works best for me. Erniz gave me a few tips on my machine a while ago. Also i still have to get another video camera >.<

Congratulations with job done ! so it was you ak_4559, there is one more You Tube user who ask me for tips and finished fuse machine. he just folowed my concept (actualy not mine,credits go to inventor -William Bickford).
As I see from your picture, your fuse is same ,,sparky" as mine. I mean sparkles do not extinguish instatly after they leave end of fuse. Its a bit risky. These sparks, flying around, might ignit your stuff you dont want to be so.
There is probably just one medcine to cure it, to use viscose (after it Visco fuse) yarns. Viscose is/was used in original Visco fuse. Viscose after it burns doesnt glow.But its hard to procure.

I had an idea to use mixture 50/50 of BP and crushed sparkles, sparkles do burn slowly, so I believe burning fuse would be something between sparkler and BP.

If you want to slow the burn down, the first thing I would try is to increase the Sulfur in the mix. If you want to add sparkle effect to the fuse, I would try making a nitrate/Aluminum glitter star composition, granulating it and adding the fine granules to the fuse BP. It would function similarly to the fuse used in falling leaf effect shells in the air, probably not working so well on the ground.

http://xs323.xs.to/xs323/08021/visco.png

Just finished diagram of my machine.If anybody got questions , don't hesitate to ask.

Cool! Love to see that unit. I have done a bit of fuse comp testing, and I find by increasing the oxidizer component in black a bit and adding a small amount of bright Al it slows down the burn time and makes the burn quite a bit "hotter".

Looking forward!

There is probably just one medcine to cure it, to use viscose (after it Visco fuse) yarns. Viscose is/was used in original Visco fuse. Viscose after it burns doesnt glow.But its hard to procure.

Silk will either burn of go out, it will not smoulder. Perhaps using a silk thread would be better than Viscose? Not that it is cheap but..... another possibility.

Silk will either burn of go out, it will not smoulder. Perhaps using a silk thread would be better than Viscose? Not that it is cheap but..... another possibility.

I think yes, but problem is that Viscose and Silk is sold in my country only in wholesale bulk. The smolest volume to buy is available only in big bobbins (5pounds). Hell with them, I will by making Visco for rest of my life..or what?In hobby knitting shops is sold only coton and sinthetic.