DIY Fireworks Displays

The fastest and easiest way to see what we do is to do a search for Mum Pyrotechnics!

That's my brother, nieces and family friends but I occasionally pop up in the background of a few things on his videos and whatnot.

I see pyromania runs in the family.

It's one of the outlets we use that keeps us from going on a rampage.

In my spare time I work with a local group in Sussex, UK who raise money by staging public firework displays. There is a long standing tradition of bonfire in Sussex, the most famous is in Lewes but many towns & villages have their own societies. Our own annual event is captured in this video.

Every 4th July we have a display for a small enclave of Americans who live locally. They live in a mock castle which is divided into apartments & the fireworks are part of an evenings entertainment with alfresco dining & live music.

We used to. My brother-in-law made a big board with a bunch of pipes sticking upward. We spent hours setting it up. Each year we learned a few things and each year the display got better.

It got too expensive and too illegal, so we quit doing it about 5 years ago.

It can be awfully dangerous if you aren't extremely careful. Make sure the pipes are the right diameter or the fireworks won't go very high. We learned that lesson the hard way!!

Yeah - you lucky guys in NY. They're technically illegal there, but the fireworks dealers in Pa set up right by the border just for you guys. I walk in there and produce a Pa driver's license and I can buy some sparklers. You walk in there with your NY state drivers license and you can buy nearly the same stuff a professional can.

I got that beat now - my son moved to NY and got a drivers license from there. Bang boom 4th of July now.

I agree, great system. We bought fireworks for our wedding reception in PA. It was a professional-quality show, about 20 minutes, and saved us a few thousand dollars! We can also get fireworks in NH but not quite as big ones as in PA.

Best ones I ever bought came from Missouri. Don't know about now, but in the early 80's all you had to do was sign a sheet claiming to be a farmer and you could buy all the professional grade pyrotechnics you wanted.

I'm sure Old MacDonald's crows are very amused by a rocket that explodes in 3 colors and whistles as the sparks fall.

Although we are volunteers doing displays as a hobby, we are properly licensed with a registered explosives store so we get to buy all of the good stuff.

These all from our displays.

Neighborhood tradition was that the guy next door and I would put on a big display for the 4th. All the neighbors liked it and he paid for all the pyrotechnics so it wasn't a big cost to me, just light them. One year we got a new neighbor in June. Didn't know what his job was but nice guy so far. We found out on the 4th. He came over to the neighbor, I went for a cool one, and he proceeds to give the neighbor a summons for illegal fireworks. He was a state cop! Neighbor, being the hot head he was, got very belligerent and began to be very verbal. Began cursing at the cop while the cop's kids were there. Long story short, neighbor spent the evening of the 4th down at the local precinct. All the neighbors chipped in to pay the fine and the cop was put on the neighborhood black list. Later found out he moved here because the same thing happened where he used to live.

Good Luck, Old Salt

There is a good reason the cops enforce that law. I mentioned earlier about fireworks from Missouri in the early 80's. Well, one of them was a good size rocket. My neighbor and I (both of us were engineers - he was mechanical - should have had enough sense to do it right) set it up as we thought it should be done and lit it. It went about 10' in the air and turned over to a flight path parallel to the ground. Now we were living in a small city at the time, very much in the middle of things. We ran in the house and never did find out whose house that thing exploded over. Bet that really shook things up there.

Yeah...they can be a bit unpredictable at times.

Phys-

Both neighbor and the state cop moved so there is no neighborhood pyrotechnics any more. I have found that the best fireworks are in several nearby local towns. They are sponsored by the towns or organizations within them. The county puts on a spectacular show. Not the bicentennial or the NYC show but worth the short trips.

I am a volunteer firefighter so I always arrange for those duties. Can't beat the front row seats sitting either on the hose bed of a fire engine or on a comfortable fold up chair or lounge chair. Families are allow to come with us so it is a "family outing".

Good Luck, Old Salt

They used to show really gruesome pictures on the news a day or two before the 4th. The pictures showed what happened to some hands that didn't let go of the really big boomers soon enough. I especially remember one picture of a wrist with some strings hanging out of it where the hand had been. I suspect those pictures scared a few people into being a little more careful!

This is it for us. Kids with sparklers running around. That's all we're allowed to have here in AZ. And only three times a year at that. That's fine with me less chance of burning down the house.