Designing Your Show With Mortar Racks
You are starting to build up a collection of different types of mortar racks. Now your firing area is getting cluttered with too many racks, and you are tripping over one whenever you turn around. This is what will happen if you don't plan your mortar shell part of your show out on paper when there are multiple racks in the firing area. Some racks you might use a lot and some you might only use once. What we are going to do is try to design a show where each rack will be equally used.
Display Area Size
The first things that you must determine when deciding how many racks
you want to use is the size of your firing area. If you have a very small
firing area you are only going to want to use maybe one or two rack. This is
especially important if you have a lot of cakes, roman candles, rockets,
etc. If you have a large firing area you still don't want to let yourself
get carried away buy over crowding with racks. Try to only use 1/4 to 1/2 of
your firing area for racks. You can fill more or less of your firing area,
it just depends on how many other types of devices you have for your show.
| Always leave an Escape Path The main thing to consider when placing your mortar racks in your firing area is to make sure that you have retreat paths clear of racks and other items. You will need a retreat path for each rack, that you have. The last thing you want to do is light a shell and find that you have nowhere that is easy to navigate away from the rack. You don't want to trip over other items or racks. Notice in the picture to the right all of the items in my firing area is in straight rows. |
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Number of People Lighting
Another factor in determining how many racks you should use is, how many
people will be lighting fireworks. First determine how many racks you want each
person to be in charge of lighting. If your firing area is large enough set each person's set of racks far enough away so that they can reload
when another person is firing their racks.
With multiple people lighting try to make sure that you always have at least
one person with their set of rack full and ready to go. Ideally if you have 3 people lighting
fireworks for your show. One should fire, one should be ready, and one
should be reloading. This way you will never let the action in your show
die.
Size of Shells
Another determining factor for the number or mortar racks you have
depends on the different sizes of shells you have. In the consumer marker
the sizes range from 1" to 1 3/4". If you have access to professional
shells, you have a wider selection of shells from 1" to 16". You
will need the
right mortar size for each shell. If you are only going to shoot one or two
of a size of a shell you will only need a single mortar. Any time you have
more than one or two shells of a certain size it is a good idea to use a rack. When using a wider range of
shells try to make sure that mortars that could be easily mistaken for one
of a different size ex. 1 3/4" and 2" try to put a mortar rack of a
obviously different size between them. It is also a good idea to label each
rack so that the size of the mortars can be easily seen at night to prevent
any mistake in reloading.
| Fusing Flights The best part of using mortar rack is the ability to launch multiple shells at a time called flight. General rule of thumb is the smaller the size of the shell the more you shoot at once. Fusing flights is also a good idea if you want to give yourself some time to reload an empty rack. Instead of fusing them so they all go off at once use a slower fuse to connect each shell. |
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Type of Racks
A Pyrotechnician will normally have a mix of V racks, fan racks, finale racks,
traditional racks for a complete show. When choosing which racks to use make sure that you don't
over do it on a particular type of rack. traditional racks by far are the most basic of all
racks and should be the majority of your show. I like to have 20% - 40% of my
racks on the field to be fan, V or angled rack just for a little variety. To
learn more about the different type of mortar racks go
here.
Finale Racks
If you are like me and the majority of Pyrotechnicians in the world,
your finale is going to use numerous shells lit in a quick succession at the
end of your show. In professional shows these racks are only used for the
final and each mortar is used only once. If you are using shells for
part of your finale make sure you have this away from the body of your show
to prevent a premature ignition of your finale.
If you are unsure of how to properly setup your racks please check out our section on how to properly secure your racks.