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I've had a lot of
questions about how strong and safe these tubes are, since not
many American pyros are familiar with them. Though
fiberglass mortars aren't as ubiquitous in the US as HDPE, they have
nonetheless been tested and approved by the NFPA (National
Fire Protection Agency) and AFSL (American Firework
Standards Laboratory) for use in firework displays. We are
even beginning to see consumer shell kits that come with
fiberglass mortars.
I know that from
the pictures, the tubes may look brittle and weak (especially
with the thin wall size) - but I can assure you that they are
not.
I
conducted a series of tests with these tubes to see how they
could stand up to various forms of stress. Obviously,
they had no problems launching shells of all sizes – ball,
canister, and multi-break. However,
I wanted to see how well they could withstand a shell explosion,
so I inserted a large quad-break shell backwards, lit in, and
stood back to watch. The
loud explosion threw stars and paper debris high into the air,
but when I approached the tube, I found that nothing
had happened. I quickly conducted the same test with a
ball shell and a canister shell (a Rambo Kid), with the
same results – the tube, although hot, had not even warped in
the slightest. I
then put in the shell the right way, lit it, and watched it
perform perfectly, as if nothing had ever even happened to the
tube. After the shell tests, I took the mortar and threw
it against the pavement about half a dozen times, only to have
it bounce off unharmed – the resin plug didn’t even crack
(only after beating the heck out of the plug for about a minute
with a hammer did I finally get some pieces to flake off)
These tubes are both strong and very durable, I am
completely confident that they will work great for launching
your shells.
All
tubes are individually inspected for structural integrity.
If by any chance your order contains a tube(s) with a loose
plug, simply email me to be reimbursed.
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Some customer
testimonials:
“The tubes rocked.
I loved watching the lift charge light up the tubes. 2
thumbs up!”
“The fiberglass
worked beautifully; very strong and light weight, which
is a huge advantage over HDPE when making multiple-tube
racks. I will be buying lots more.”
“Those fiberglass
tubes rock!” "I give them a big 2 thumbs up. They
all worked great, even after multiple reloads in a short
period of time. The thing that gave me a big grin was
watching the lit fuse go down the tube, and the tube
turn red as the lift charge sent the shell flying.”
“The fiberglass
mortars ROCKED...Not only did I fire 300 shells out of
the 20 tubes, but I had two shells explode in the tubes
over the course of the night and it did nothing more
than shoot stars out of the tops of the tubes. I
inspected all the tubes after the shoot and after a
quick cleaning, other than being discolored a little,
you can barely tell they were used!”
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These tubes are only
meant to be used by UN0336 (1.4G) consumer firework shells that have
been inserted in the correct manner (lift charge down).
Igniting a shell upside down can possibly result in the
distortion/destruction of the tube and the ejection of the plug.
These tubes also will not hold up to the burst charge
explosion of any UN0335 (1.3G) display shell inserted upside-down,
such as salutes.
