How To Make Homemade Fireworks

Learn how to make a homemade firecracker. (Rob Cruickshank)

It'due south easy to make homemade firecrackers, plus it'due south fun and offers a manner to learn the science behind how fireworks piece of work. You lot only need a few uncomplicated ingredients to make bootleg firecrackers:

Bootleg Firecracker Materials

There are 2 common firecracker recipes. You need:

Black Pulverisation
75% Potassium Nitrate
xv% Charcoal
10% Sulfur

Nitrocellulose (flash paper) – arrive
Cotton fiber
Nitric Acid
Sulfuric Acid

and

Kitty Litter
Fuse – buy or brand your own
Cardboard or Newspaper
Tape
Pencil

Assemble a Homemade Firecracker

Make homemade firecrackers no longer than the length of one finger joint. (G36)

Roll a strip of cardboard or newspaper around a pencil to make a hollow tube. Tape the paper to agree the shape in place and remove the pencil.
Cut the tube into 1″ or ii″ sections.
Record the bottom of each tube to seal information technology.
Add a small amount of kitty litter (clay) to a tube and apply the pencil to press it down to the lesser. Use the erase stop to pack down the clay to make a plug.
Add black powder or nitrocellulose to the tube. Insert a piece of fuse and continue adding powder around information technology until you are near the superlative of the tube. Don't be stingy with the fuse. You want to get information technology into the gunpowder and make sure there is enough exposed fuse exterior the firecracker that y'all can light it and go abroad from it before the fuse burns down to the gunpowder.
Yous have a few options for sealing the tube. If you're working with paper and plan to light the firecracker immediately, you can firmly twist the paper effectually the fuse to seal the firecracker. Another option is to top off the gunpowder with a small corporeality of kitty litter. Tape the top of the cylinder, leaving fuse exposed. Finally, you lot can just tape the top of the firecracker, leaving exposed fuse. Experiment to come across which pattern works best for yous.

Firecracker Safety Information

Gunpowder or nitrocellulose are flammable and will explode if they are compressed when they burn. This, of course, if how firecrackers work! Brand certain the materials only explode when you're set past keeping your work space abroad from oestrus and flame.
It'southward a firecracker, and so it should be made by and lit by an adult.

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