I began planning for this year's show around the fall of last year.  Since my shows have gotten progressively bigger each year, it always takes longer and longer to plan out how many different stations/racks to have, where to place them, when to fire them, and most importantly, what to get.  I figured that buying my fireworks at a retail level would be outrageously expensive, given the amount of stuff I was going to need, so I bought wholesale from Thunder Fireworks in Tacoma, Washington.  They require a state retail fireworks license before they'll sell you anything, but I happened to already have one for the firework stand that I run.  I ended up ordering a case each of "Thundering Stars" repeaters, "Bag Cake" repeaters, "10-ball Magical Roman Candles", "Diamond Fountain", "Picnic Basket Fountain", "Black Cat Tails" shells, and "The Wave" 500 gram finale piece.  Had to drive several hours just to pick the stuff up from the warehouse, but the site of all my 1.4G-labeled boxes being wheeled out was worth it - better than Christmas.

  The biggest thing, however, was the need for a new firing system.  For two years, I used the 20-cue firing system described on Pyro Universe.  It worked great, but there weren't enough switches.  Last year, I attempted to build a larger, 45-switch version.  It worked fine, too, but I didn't like the whole setup.  For one, the thing was extremely large and heavy, and having to run 45 individual 2-conductor wires from the panel to the firing area was time consuming, confusing, and downright frustrating.  When I was bored one day in Physics class, I sketched out in my notebook a rough design for a new system that would have a continuity-testing mode to check to see if the igniters were good before they were fired.  It would also have a somewhat elaborate module splitter system on the field to simplify wiring.  All in all, the entire system, including wires, cost about $300 and took 3 months to build.  Luckily, aside from a few minor glitches, the system worked perfectly when I tested it out.

  The assembly of my show probably took around 50 hours.  It had 4 large, primary stations (plywood boards fused with fireworks - see Pyro Universe for more info), 2 sets of quick-matched repeater racks, two finale boards, 5 20-shot mortar racks, 3 8-shot mine racks, 6 roman candle "triangle" racks, and an American flag set piece.  Since the 160 required lances for the set piece took an ungodly amount of time to make, I started making them back in February, and luckily got them all finished.  The 3-foot by 4-foot set piece had 13 stripes, and a large, square section of blue lances in the corner.

  Since I had to run my firework stand on the day of the 4th, I had to set up early.  My father's company flatbed truck was the only vehicle large enough to hold the entire show, so I got up at 5 in the morning to begin loading it up, then took it to the firing site.  The large dirt field that I had always used for my display had been turned into yet another eyesore cattle farm, so I had been forced to find another spot.  The pastor at my church agreed to let me use their large, grassy field - green grass, of course, which had been cut and was free of any dry debris.  With the new firing system, setup only took about 3 hours - significantly less than the 5-6 hours it typically took to set up my shows in years past.  I got a load of concrete cinder blocks and patio stones for use in bracing some of the racks to prevent any chance of them tipping over and shooting into the neighbors' prized weed gardens.

  When it began to get dark, lots of people began to show up.  The local newspaper did an article on my display (and mentioned where it would take place) and the pastor announced it to the church congregation, resulting in the largest crowd I've had at one of my shows - around 150 people.  I always wait until dark before starting, so for several hours, my friends and some younger kids lit off novelties, sparkers, and small aerial devices in the parking lot.  I had notified all of the neighbors in advance about my display, so none were surprised at all the racket.  No trouble from the police, either - in fact, one officer who lived nearby walked over with his wife and kids to watch the display.

  After announcing that things were about to begin (and waiting for a particular neighbor to stop shooting off some 4-break shells), I stuck in the missile-launching style key and turned the switch, resulting in a bright red glow from all of the continuity testing LEDs.  Everything was ready.  I switched it to fire mode, extinguishing all the LEDs except for the bright blue "power" indicator.  I started by pressing the 6 buttons for the triangle racks.  Naturally, with every display, there are a few things that just don't fire.  In this case, it was a couple of the triangle racks.  Nobody noticed, however.  Each rack started out with a pathetic-looking morning glory, which unexpectedly ignited the candles.  They were the cheap brand, of course, but when you have several dozen of them shooting red and green balls at angles, all at once, it's quite impressive.  Each rack ended with a colorful, upward mine blast with ladyfingers.  Then I started with the stations.  Careful not to fire too many things at once, I carried out the entire display for at least 10 minutes.  For those 10 minutes, a section of the sky 250 feet long and 150 high was filled with a furious, nonstop barrage of color, whistle, reports and crackle, which lit up the entire neighborhood.  Each artillery shell rack - fused to go off in 10 rows of ten - ignited instantaneously with each push of a switch, loudly sending up the shells.  The mine blasts took the crowd by surprise as they fired up in colorful, gigantic "V" shapes.  It wasn't until the very end that the hooting, yelling and clapping of the audience became noticeable, which was soon cut out by the loud "ZAP" of the flag set piece igniting.  After a couple seconds, the bright primer on each lance burned off, revealing the large, burning wall of fire as the American flag.  To sum it up, it was a lot of fun for everyone - not a single device tipped over, not a single fire started, and not a single person was hurt.  All of the "Thunder" products I bought were spectacular and well worth the money, and I plan on getting many of the same things next year.  The only bad part was having to spend half of the day on the 5th cleaning up countless hundreds of burnt tubes and casings!  Just a great reminder to myself and everyone else that when common sense is used, fireworks (even lots of them at once!) still can be used to safely celebrate our Nation's birthday.

After some very fun experience last year using cannon fuse to coordinate fires, I decided to get really ambitious this year and step up to electrical ignition.  I built a fire control panel, mortar rack and roman candle rack inspired by/based on plans posted at Pyro Universe.  Results were mixed, but I learned a lot.

  Let's start off with discussions of what really worked well: the mortar rack, the Roman candle rack, and homemade sticky match.  

If I'd known then what I know now, I'd have built the mortar rack a little differently and I'd have built two (or more) of them.  Part of this is based on what I learned about electrical ignition (discussed below), and part is based on the fact that the one I built was indispensable.  My fire control panel and mortar rack were based on the "Jeff Carleton Design".  I started off angling the mortar tubes within each bank of 5, just like Jeff did, but that turned out to be more difficult than planned.  Instead, I made 4 banks of 5 tubes, then assembled the 4 banks in an angled formation.  The picture on the right depicts it better than I can explain it.  Wiring up the rack was tedious, and, in my case, probably not worth the effort.  More on that in a bit.  We reloaded the rack three times, and also used it as a "big bottle" for some "big bottle rockets".

For a 20-tube rack, I really like the 4x5 array better than the 2x10.  It's a lot more stable, and doesn't require extra bracing to make sure it remains upright. 

  The next mortar rack I build will look a lot like this one, except that I won't use the dividers between the individual tubes in the "racks of 5".  It'll save some lumber, cuts, and weight.  I also won't put a pair of alligator clips at each tube, only one per row.  Finally, make sure the alligator clips are turned around 180 degrees from how I installed them: the way I did it, opening the clips to put in the igniters was a pain .  I'll build at least one more rack for next year.  

The picture to the left is the finished product for the Roman Candle rack.  I used scrap 2x4 lumber and 3/4" plywood to make it.  The clamps that hold the Candles in place are the type originally intended to store broomsticks and mops on the wall, they cost about $4 each at Kmart.  If you go this route, you'll need to make sure your candles are big enough for the clamp to grip securely, or you'll need to add some sort of grommet to secure them in place.  I used the large "Military" candles from Phantom Fireworks.  They fit well, but even they had a tendency to slide down in the clamps while firing.  I'll either add a second set of clamps or some sort of grommet material before using them again.

I originally had the rack at 45 degrees, like depicted at Pyro Universe.  But when I test-fired it a couple weeks early, I didn't like the look.  So I changed it to 60 degrees, and was very pleased with the results.  I'll probably build more of these for next year.

  Homemade sticky tape is easy and effective.  There are a couple sites on the web that describe making your own, but I kept it super-simple.  Take a length of 2" packing tape, run a light bead of Pyrodex or black powder down the center of it, place the fuses where needed (including an electric match or length of cannon fuse to light it), then either fold the tape over or place a second piece of tape on top of it.  I found that you don't need to use a lot of powder, just a very light bead will do the trick.  My local gun shop didn't have FFFFg, so I just used FFFg.  Worked like a champ.  You do need to be careful, though, to not pull your fuses out of the powder trail when moving the finished product to the ignition site.

  I Sticky Matched some large rockets, and launched them from the (otherwise empty) mortar rack.  Very gratifying, made me wish I'd built some of the rocket racks shown here at Pyro Universe.

  Now for what almost worked: my electrical fire control system was a mixed bag.  I haven't done any troubleshooting yet, but it was frustrating.  I wired up the rack and panel just like Jeff shows, and it passed all my pre-shoot electrical tests.  But when I put electrical igniters on the shells and loaded them up, I had some odd problems.  Each pair of buttons is supposed to light off a single mortar, but a couple of times when I pressed a button pair an entire row of shells lit off.  Some tubes refused to light off at all.  On a couple of them it turned out the igniter had separated from the fuse, but not all: those remain a mystery.

  I'm not sure if I made a mistake in wiring, or if some of the electrical igniters malfunctioned, or something else, but I decided that particular wiring design isn't what I want for next year.  I will be modifying the control panel and rack so that I only have 5 ignition points on the rack.  I'll use cannon fuse and my Sticky Match to set off multiple shells from each ignition.

  Plans for next year include building more mortar and Roman candle racks, adding a few rocket launch stations, and modifying my fire control panel to get rid of the "grid array" and simplify the design and usage.

  Finally, some comments on the fireworks I used.  My brother and I dropped a couple hundred bucks at Phantom Fireworks, used all the "buy 1, get 1 (or more) free" and other special offers we could, came away with a very healthy collection of fireworks.  None of the pieces were duds, most of them were very nice, some kicked butt.  Here's a brief discussion of the highlights.

  "American Military Candles" - Bigger than most, very nice variety of shots and effects, definitely use again next year.
"Grucci New York Harbor Fountain" - Very long-lasting fountain, definitely a crowd pleaser.  I would have liked the spray to have been a bit taller, but every one else really liked it.  Definitely use again next year.
"Grucci New York Harbor Show" - Collection of mortar shells, some very nice, but not quite as nice as I was expecting.  Most frustrating was the fact that none of the shells were marked to indicate what they were, so I couldn't really plan the show as I would have liked.  I may use again, but there are lots of options out there that cost less.
"Grand Finale Assortment" - One of the freebies they threw in for us, very nice collection.  I especially liked the Yellow Jackets.  May buy again, depending on what pieces they put in the collection.
"7 LIGHTS Parachute" - Very disappointing, 7 flares dangling from the chute are supposed to light up.  Only 2 of 12 shots had all 7 lit up, the others ranged from 1-4.  Definitely will not try again.

I had spent most of my summer doing yard work for money to get a good amount of fireworks. We ended up getting $500 worth which was mostly spent on artillery shells and cakes. two of my favorite finals were called THE WAVE and TNT's SALUTE TO AMERICA. The warehouse buy lake Murray was huge and featured Black Cats Gold Addition. They made some great deals. one of the artillery shell boxes that I liked was called EXCALIBUR. For some reason this year the EXCALIBUR artillery shells were not as powerful as usual. Some of the cakes I got were called THUNDER DOME, LAND OF FREE, SATURN MISSILES, ATOM SPLITTER, TORINO II, SHOCKER, WILD AS THE DEVIL, DIAMONDS IN THE DARK, GOLDEN TIGER, and VICTORY CELEBRATION. Anyway on July the 3 we went to Ardmore, Oklahoma. Ardmore does not let you shoot fireworks in the city so the next day we went to Lake Murray. When we got there, there was a big fat sign in capital letters that said FIREWORKS PROHIBITED. we figured because it was a national park. We rented a jet ski for an hour just to spend day light. After that we decided to stay for the evening professional fireworks display it was a sad display because they ignited the final rack with road flares. It was about 8:30 and when decided to keep hunting for a place to set off my $500 worth of fireworks. We looked until we were forced just to set up in a parking lot that was a designated area for shooting fireworks. It was very crowded and soon we decided to leave when a artillery shell tube tipped over and shoot near our car. No damage luckily. So we tried to find some were else when finally we saw a nice rock bed construction site. We finally found the perfect place right by a water source. From than on we had a great time. We had built a 4 tube mortar rack from HDPE and launched our shells 4 at a time. And we made 1 super final station for when we started getting tired and ready to go back to our hotel in Ardmore. On July 6th we tried to go to turner falls but they had a roadblock at the entrance. the police officer said it was to crowded to let any more people in. Then we decided that our vacation was over and to take the rest of the fireworks to my aunts property. Had a great Forth of July!

My Fourth of July started early as it always has in the past, much to the dismay of my neighbors. I always start out with the small stuff like crackers, bottle rockets, and novelties around 9am. I always buy smoke bombs, snakes, and poppers as they were always a part of my youth, and they were my first start into the world pyrotechnics. I shot some of these then a few "Saturn Missile Batteries" and the such. 'Round 11am or so a few friends stop in to light some of their stuff and that's when the fun begins. I was basically talked into lighting a "U.S. Thunder" salute rocket in my front yard (it's a 1.3G item), though it didn't require too much talking. The rocket was huge and shot only about 40 feet high and broke with one of the loudest reports I've ever heard. It "hit" with the concussion of a 3" salute shell!  With the car alarms now sounding in the surrounding area, I quickly cleaned up the leftover fireworks and headed for cover in the back yard before the "friendly" law enforcement officials had my head on a plate. After letting the area cool down for a little while we started lighting a few other "rare" items including Large Sound Colorful Birds with report", a single shot Behai Thunderous King, Flashing Thunder Candles, and a few 1.75" salute shells. That sure got the neighbors out on their front porches. Later on that afternoon I went to a party at a friend's house with a lot of land and started lighting again. We lit a 16,000 roll of firecrackers in a big clump on the ground, and wow was that a rush to watch 100 dollars in firecrackers go off in about 20 seconds. We had a few "questionable items" that left nice bald spots in the field too, and shot our spud guns for hours.

When evening came and darkness set in it was time to light up the skies. It was estimated that the show we put on was worth in the neighborhood of $2000.  I always start out with a ground show featuring fountains and roman candles, then move into a rocket portion, and end with a 1-hour set of shells and cakes. Some of my favorite items were of course "salutes", America Rising Quad-break shells, Double Impact shells, Red, White and Boom shells, and some 2.5" Sunny Chrysanthemum shells. Good rockets were the U.S. Thunder Salute and Tulip rockets that break similar to a much larger shell. Some cakes worth looking into are Phantom's Pyro Pandemonium, Fiery Phenomena, and Shagadelic Mojo. The baby "B" cakes are also great such as Thunder King, Battle of Colors, and Red, White and Blue Salute, though they are harder to find. Even the old workhorses like Garden in Spring, and 96 Shot Pearl look great when fired in groups, and the newer Saturn Missiles that fire 200-500 missiles in rapid bursts are very impressive. All in all we had a great fourth, everyone had fun, nobody got hurt and nobody got arrested. I look forward to next year's 4th as well as everyone's story.

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