The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

PINWHEELS 93
Pinwheels
To make pinwheels, manila or kraft paper tubes or pipes,
about 12 inches long and 3/16 inch in diameter, are needed. One
end is closed by twisting or folding over. The tubes are filled with
composition, the other ends are closed in the same way, and the
tubes are wrapped in a moist towel and set aside until they are
thoroughly flabby. In this condition they are passed between
rollers and flattened to the desired extent. Each tube is then
wound in an even spiral around the edge of a cardboard disc
which has a hole in its center for the pin, and the whole is
placed in a frame which prevents it from uncoiling. Four drops
of glue, at the four quarters of the circle, are then brushed on,
across the pipes and onto the center disc, and the device is allowed
to dry.
Weingart 34 recommends for pinwheels the compositions which
are indicated below. The first of these produces both steel and
Meal powder 10 8 2
Gunpowder (fine) 8 5 8
Aluminum . . 3
Saltpeter 14 4 16 1
Steel filings 6 6
Sulfur 4 1 3 1
Charcoal 3 1 8
charcoal effects, the second steel with much less of the charcoal,
the third aluminum and charcoal, and the fourth a circle merely
of lilac-colored fire.
Tessier thought highly of pinwheels (pastilles). They were, he
says, 35
formerly among the artifices which were called table fireworks,
the use of which has wholly fallen away since the
immense apartments have disappeared which alone provided
places where these little pyrotechnic pieces might be burned
without too much inconvenience.
The manner of use of these pastilles- calls only for small
calibers; also their small dimensions make it possible to turn
them out at a low price, and the fireworks makers have
always continued to make them the object of current manufacture.
But what they have neglected, they still neglect:
and that is, to seek to bring them to perfection. Those that
B4 Op. cit., p. 98.
35 Op. dt., p. 393.