Ok so I found some roman candles and shooting stars. I was thinking of lighting these in a drain, but wouldn't mind some advice about it as I have only used flares and obviously they are a little different.

I was going to comment that fireworks in drains always sounds like a bad idea to me, but hey, blowing off hands and losing eyes is what fireworks are all about, right?!

Anyway, as I'm sure you well know, plenty of people have done it in the past, like this miscreant, and I haven't heard of any serious mishaps.

yeah that guy is trblmkr. I should ask him and glass as they don't seem to be missing any vital parts.

Just be careful if you do light 'em off. Any sort of explosive gases that could possibly form in there? I'm not much of a drainer, so I'm unsure. I did find a nifty drain last Saturday though.

Anyway, perhaps if you build some sort of separation between yourself and the launch area with debris or hide in a niche and fire from without? That may keep you (relatively) safe.

I have an idea that I will try at an outfall. I never lit one of these and have no idea how much gas they do make. Should make for some interesting pictures !!!

I would do it at an outfall, but fireworks are legal down here so it might be a different situation up there.
It should be safe thought, seeing as drains are made of concrete and probably contain water.

But whatever you do, don't hold roman candles in your hand. They can fuck up and blow your hand off.

EDIT:
You should do this in a drain.
http://www.youtube...atch?v=T-elfkI4WWc

Posted by tholcomb I would do it at an outfall, but fireworks are legal down here so it might be a different situation up there. It should be safe thought, seeing as drains are made of concrete and probably contain water. But whatever you do, don't hold roman candles in your hand. They can fuck up and blow your hand off. EDIT: You should do this in a drain. http://www.youtube...atch?v=T-elfkI4WWc

Yeah I was going to go and duck tape them . Fireworks made in china can be kinda dodgy...

Make sure the airflow is constant and strong enough to blow the smoke down stream, or else it lingers, and you lose the ability to breathe. With that being said, point downstream to avoid getting a bukake of smoke into your face/lens.

Good times, though. Stupidity of youth never dies.

I fired roman candles handheld many a times, the only problem I ever had, was running with them, cause the smoke and sparks and shit flies into your face.

You can always make a roman candle launcher...

Get a length of cast iron pipe, ideally a few inches longer than the roman candle you will be using.. Also get one threaded endcap, and make sure the cast iron pipe has threads on it.

Screw threaded end onto one end, and insert the roman candle into the pipe- with the base of the roman candle contacting the threaded endcap.


If your like me and my friend were, get creative and weld some handles onto the pipe- so you can hold it. (we also welded the endcap on, just in case- overkill is better than us being killed/maimed) We also make sure the tube could hold 3 roman candle tubes at a time- for 2 reasons- room for the gasses to expand if it failed, and also so we could do epic "machine gun" firing..

We actually built this thing for the storm drains in our area, and it worked quite well. We always had airflow so no gas issues in the drains. (also sewage was on a completely separate line) Worked amazingly, just kinda wished I had a digital camera back than.. this was about 10 years ago.

Really rough "image" of the launcher below, FYI.



I would assume this would offer lots more protection than just holding it with your hand. We had one roman candle fully fail once (all went off at the same time, none shot out) the pipe held true, but got pretty hot quickly.

If your really worried about it, you could always make one out of High-density polyethylene (HDPE) -the same tubing that is used to launch professional fireworks from. Only issue is you will have a harder time securing the tail end from blow out. (or make the HDPE as the inner liner, than cast iron as the outer)

Wear Earplugs

I agree with the ear protection if theyre the screamer types. And ive never had a problem with roman candles but I guess anything can happen. We usually chase eachother around with em? Worst mishap ive ever had with fireworks was a fountain blowing up and shooting everywhere. A few other ones blew up but they were homemade exploding rifle targets so that was intentional ;)