Advance Mortar Rack Setup
Before you can use the techniques that are listed under this article You need to make sure that you also read Proper Mortar Rack Placement and Types of Mortar Racks. You will need to know the information in those articles to fully under stand this article.
| Using Angle Mortar Racks With Conventional Racks The biggest issue that comes up when combining these two types of racks is when you want to launch shell out of a traditional and an angle rack at the same time. If you think that during your show you might want to use both racks (traditional and angle) at the same time make sure that you don't place the racks directly lateral from each other. This is for safety reason if a shell does not function properly and breaks low above the traditional rack to either side it would break above you. The best way to do this is to place either the angel or conventional rack in front of the other so that you eliminate this issue. With placement it can either be directly in front or in front of and off to the side. |
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| Finale Racks When setting up your finale racks you want to place them as close together as you can to make sure that you can easily light all of your shells. This works the best if all of your shells are connected by some type of fast fuse like yellow visco, quick match, sticky match, etc. The easiest way to set this up is to create a box out of your mortar racks. An example of this would be to take 4 - 10 shot racks and secure them next to each other, creating a box of 40 shots. Some places that sell mortar racks sell very large finale racks containing up to 50 or more shots, while these might seem the way to go, they are not for everyone. The cost of these large racks is around $200.00, if you will be using the rack every year then this is a good investment to make. Otherwise you will be better off buying 5 - 10 shot racks, this will allow a greater flexibility when it comes to your rack layout and will offer more types of setups. If you usually fire 200+ shells then a big finale rack would be the way to go. |
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Connecting Different Types Racks Together With the mortar racks that I design for ConsumerMortarRacks.com, I place the screw eyes at different heights on each end with one side being 1" closer together on each side. This allows me to connect the mortar racks together to form long chains of mortar racks. I make sure that the screw eyes are at the same height on all of my different types or mortar racks, for compatibility. This allows me to connect angle racks to traditional racks etc. This way I can change the firing type without have to go light another rack if I fuse them together. The other benefit of this is the surprise of the mortar rack change to a different effect. |
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| Angle Rack Spread Distances When using angle racks in your show you need to make sure that you have enough area to display the shells using this type of rack. A good way to determine if you have enough area to use a certain angle rack figure out the height of the mortar and the base, that forms a right triangle. This is also called the rise over run, when graphing mathematical equations. Well enough math, here is an example of this; one angle rack I use, I figure for every 2ft. up the shell moves out 1ft. so if a shell goes up to 100ft it would move out about 50 feet. That would be the center of the burst so you would also have to add on the radius of the burst. This will make sure you don't let any shells fly into your neighbors yard and break over their house. |
