Pyrotechnic Disasters

[slim_mcslim]

Has anyone had any particular pyrotechnic disasters that they wish to share?

 

Not that I have particularily had any myself, I think I have been lucky in that respect. I have had mis-fired gerbs, and duff maroons in confetti cannons, that explode with just enough force to tickle the cardboard wad. But that is about the extent of my misery with pyro, we use quite a bit of chinese confetti air bursts and these always work brilliantly.

 

Paul...

[Fleeting]

Hi,

Some years ago when I was working for a hire company a local school hired a confetti cannon and controler. I asked if they needed confetti but they declined. What transpired was they gratted up polystyrene into the little balls to fill the cannon. When they set it of there was just a dull thud and no shower of confetti. The flash heat had melted the polystyrene together again and sealed the cannon. It had to be cut out with a knife. oops

 

Fleeting

[olistockman]

When I was fairly fresh to the industry, circa age 12-13...I was working as a spot-op for a school production of Bugsy Malone, we had small risers at either side for the stage for dancers, with a small flash+smoke pyro just in front of them...the front's of the risers were covered with :blink: black sugarpaper :blink: rather than cloth....one of the dancers got carried away on the second night, and the pyro ended up half-under the paper.....and you can guess what happens next..! Pyro goes off...there's a little more smoke than normal...and then the SM appears with a fire extinguisher as the paper goes up in flames!

Any sign of a risk assesment or competent pyro technician.... ;)

 

I've also seen problems with the 6" Mortar fireworks being a little tight for their fittings...usually accompanied by one hell of a firing thud, as the gas pressure finally overcomes the friction...or in the worst case...I have seen the tube rupture...with quite a spectacular result :(

[ANDYLASER]

Errrrr...... Yes!

 

I would rather not delve too deeply into this issue as it was rather splendidly reported in Tim Roberts, "Up the Truss" page. In "Live" magazine January 2001 issue.

 

On a slight tangent ;) I was recounting this article to a pyro tech at a venue in Portsmouth. He replied with "Not to worry, we have fire extinquishers and the maroons are in a bomb tank". I retired to my beer and waited.........

At the appropriate point in the show, the maroons were detonated with a satisfying BANG and there was no fire........ There were however, some wimpers from the DJ. Who was hit by the piece of ceiling that fell down and landed on the turn tables.

[blamelewis]

I was involved in firing off some out of date devices in a controlled test situation recently - we had a theatrical flash in a standard pod which produced an incredible amount of extra smoke - it's hard to quantify but was perhaps six to ten times the normal volume of smoke - it was a thick cloud maybe the size of a car, all from one wee flash!

 

Not a disaster per se, but an interesting and unexpected result!

 

Tim

 

The Association of Stage Pyrotechnicians

www.stage-pyro.org.uk

[David Lee]

Many years back when I was working in a Hire company a local Am Dram guy came in for some Pyros. He stated that he wanted to blow up a kettle on stage. We gave him some advice - I.e make sure the people on stage know whats going on; the person firing the pyro can clearly see if its safe to fire it; test first before exposing anybody to the kettle.

 

He came back a week later with this kettle he thought would be good in our hire stock. We looked at it and then asked what the button on the side was - his reply was "that's where the actress fires the maroon from" - so the poor actress had to go up to a kettle and fire a small maroon that was hidden inside the damn thing.

 

Of course we took the kettle and gave it to the pyro manufactures for their Black museum. We also put a note on the customers account to never ever sell him any kind of pyro...

[PeterT]

Many years back when I was working in a Hire company a local Am Dram guy came in for some Pyros. He stated that he wanted to blow up a kettle on stage.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That'll be the sourcerer by Gilbert and Sullivan then...

 

haven't got any major disasters to report of a show type thing yer'honour but I will say that when I was younger I fired a microdet just to see what they did. Being the sensible young chap that I was ;) I put it into an old metal casserole and, thinking this could be dangerous, taped the lid on (I know, I know) Proceeded to put said casserole in a shed and fire it. The bang was quite impressive! but what impressed me the most was that the PVC tape had been perfectly severed by the blast.

 

I have also made a bomb tank out of an old water tank with a proper bolt on mesh lid. It works very well thank you and is a good way to remove dust from the grid of the theatre!

 

I don't use it as much these days...

[James]

I haven't seen anything as bad as my school days for a while now. At one school I attended I saw / heared of three incidents....

 

1) on 3 successive nights someone failed to fire a large confetti pyro at the right point in the score for the finale of a musical. - The problem was the chorus were standing almost on top of the pyro when it blew - he got it right on the last night though.. (no - one hurt, chorus a bit shocked though)

 

2) one of the students was asked to sort out a disco - he borrowed a smoke machine (one that took canisters) and proceded to heat it up, unplug it and walk it arround the dance floor until he embeded the still smoking hot element on the front in a student's chest. (hospital job that)

 

3) another production - Oh what a lovley war, a student had their face burnt from standing too close to / fiddling with the camera flash from the opening scene. (again a hospital job I think)

 

Of course I would rather not say what school that was.

 

James

[tony]

A few years I supplied some airbursts to the local fire brigade to use for their xmas party.

One of the firemen decided to test one of the pyro prior to the event by holding it dangling from his hand (with safety gloves on) needless to say his hand was a bit of a mess and one of his colleagues had to use a fire extinguisher on him

This always makes me laugh especially when I have to chech with them about the use of pyro effects for big shows.

[paulears]

we found some 30 yr old maroons in a tin box in the back of a junk room. we decided to wait until the next morning and let them off to see what would happen. The bomb tank had been loaned out but we had a brand new heavy dustbin just arrived. so - we set it up centre stage. nothing within 6m of it in any direction. we locked the doors and ran out the firing cable into the stalls - about 20 rows back. pressed the button - bloody great bang and the dustbin split from top to bottom!

 

we all learned a lot from this. the rest of them went into a bucket of sea water.

 

As I'm getting older I'm getting to hate pyro's more and more.

[themadhippy]

we all learned a lot from this. the rest of them went into a bucket of sea water.

according to the yellow book and varies codes of practise they dont recomed this method of destroying/disposing of pyros anymore,the recomendation is to place in a bucket and cover with sand.were in the middle of rewritting our rules regarding the safe use of pyros at the moment ,the way things are going it maybe easier to introduce a blanket ban instead

[Guest lightnix]

The first company I worked for outside of theatre, back in the early - mid 80s, was a hotbed of cowboy practices. For one fashion show they were asked to provide a confetti cannon for the finale. Rather than do the professional thing, spend some money and hire one, they decided to use the one that somebody's Dad had welded up from a bit of old 4" steel pipe a few years earlier.

 

The day of the show arrived and the company's self-appointed pyro "expert" duly inserted a small maroon into the tube and threaded the wires through the little hole in the back. He then cut out a disc of cardboard to act as a "pusher plate" and proceeded to stuff the confetti in, until it was packed as tightly as possible and no more could be added. The assembly was "rigged" on the truss and flown out. There was to be no pyro rehearsal, as it would be "too messy to clear up before the show".

 

The gig ran smoothly until the finale, when the pyro cue was given. There was a loud *BANG* and solid ball of confetti flew out of the cannon, leaving a lovely "comet tail" effect behind it. It hit the back wall with an audible thud and was quickly followed by the now flaming disc of cardboard, which landed directly in the local mayor's lap.

 

Oh how the crew laughed, although the client strangely failed to see the funny side and never used the company again.

[andy_s]

Rather than do the professional thing, spend some money and hire one, they decided to use the one that somebody's Dad had welded up from a bit of old 4" steel pipe a few years earlier.

 

The day of the show arrived and the company's self-appointed pyro "expert" duly inserted a small maroon into the tube and threaded the wires through the little hole in the back.  He then cut out a disc of cardboard to act as a "pusher plate" and proceeded to stuff the confetti in, until it was packed as tightly as possible and no more could be added. 

I must confess to using something like this on several shows a few years ago - albeit smalller - ours was standard 2" scaff tube. I can happily report absolutely no safety problems with it after maybe 200 firings. The occasional misfire was the only problem. We would have happily used a bona-fida confetti cannon, except that there was nothing suitable available. The commercial stuff was all far too big. Our charge was a microdet, we also used a circle of cardboard as a wad, and we loaded the tube loosely with a handful of 1/4" glitter - we had a nice shower of glitter shooting up to about 8 feet, which was much prized by the children in the audience who scavenged it up from the stage after the performance (under supervision of course)

 

Of course now this kind of home made aproach of tailoring the effect to the scale of the production is frowned upon - probably rightly. In our defence, we used the equipment very carefully, detonating it with a lemaitre firing box, observing correct clearance distances and firing procedures etc.

 

I would certainly be interested in smaller scale pyrotechnics if they were available - however the prevalent philosophy seems to be "biggest bang for the buck" - which is where the people in Lightnix's cautionary tale obviously went wrong.

[jexygirl]

with regard to paulears.... and his 30 year old maroons...

common sense prevails...a heavy duty dustbin was never gonna hack it was it considering a bomb tank has to be of welded construction and a minimum of 2.5mm thick with gridded vents... (12.5mm matrix recommended) ... I suggest you have a clear out more often than every 30 years...

[the kid]

I heard never saw.

 

At the am-dram panto I do there used to be a guy dont know what hes job was but he put 4-6 medium flashes in to one and placed in to a sweet tin, the roses style ones, and put 2 kg of confetti on top.

 

They had to clear out the hall from the smoke and burning paper. Rumor has it that there is still little bits of paper in some lights.