Overview of Mortar, Mine, Roman Candle, and Rocket Racks
 

With every mortar kit you buy it comes with a mortar to launch the shells out of. With some of the newer high-end kits they come with either a 12" or 18" HDPE pipe that can be saved from year to year. While I am working at my local firework dealer's showroom I am constantly asked can you just buy the shells, the answer to that is no. This is for safety reasons. Some people ask why would I want to save the pipe if I just get another when I buy a kit. What you can do is build mortar racks out of them. This will let you set more than one shell off at a time. Sure one artillery shell going off looks cool but what about 5, 10, 20 or even more at a time, that will greatly increase the excitement in  your show. Building these mortar racks out of your left over HDPE pipes is a great way to safely increase the number of shells that you can safely launch at one time. Also you can preload shells before the show to save time. Eventually you will have enough HDPE pipes and racks to cover everyone of your shells so you only have to load the mortar once like the pros.

	Not only having mortar racks that are only shooting items straight up get boring after a while. So I created this 3-shot mortar rack that angles the outside tubes at 15 degrees. This looks really good, when you shoot 2 shells with tails and a canister shell out. There are now two different versions of this 3 shot angle rack.
This mortar rack is a new addition to my collection I built this one two winters ago and am still using it today. This is the 10 shot version of this rack, I have a 6 shot version and a 20 shot version of this same design also in my stock of mortar racks. .
	New for the 2005 year are a 4 shot angle rack and a 6 shot "V" rack that I designed for that unique effect. I can't wait to have pictures of these racks with the shells going off over them. I am working on making larger 5 shot angle versions. Hopefully this time next year they will be done.
Roman Candle Racks are another great technique to help improve the level of professionalism in your own display this is the easiest of rack that I have designed. This rack allows for the use of roman candles anywhere during my display.	Once I got a few mortar racks designed for my show I decided to move on to other types of items that would benefit from being held in a rack ready to fire. I designed one for the larger rockets and one for the medium sized rockets.

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