Standard's History in Pictures, Videos and Documents

Steady on Jamie it’s not that bad….depends how you look at it…well maybe you’re right !

 

Does anyone know what 'CRA' was? A type of adhesive yes but, what do those letter stand for?

 

Thats a very very good question ..I was wondering just that….it’s clear
..maybe…that the A is ‘ adhesive’ ….but CR?..

 

Back in the early 2000's the UKPS was quite a thriving organisation. Not just an online forum but an active group of professional's and hobbyists. Some were prominent industry figures. In an effort to legalise the activity of hobby enthusiasts they managed to persuade the powers that be to allow a maximum quantity of 100g of composition to be 'mixed' and then immediately burned afterwards giving the enthusiast a window of legal immunity to pursue their interest. Storing this comp' requires a license and loading the comp' into tubes or containers is deemed to be classed as 'manufacture' which means breaking the law without an explosives manufacture license. Obtaining most of the key chemicals was fairly simple up until the more recent EPP licensing and acquisition of those chemicals. I have no idea if the 100g rule still applies and have no inclination to find out. I would say that if it does, it's most likely buried so far beneath a whole mountain of bureaucratic red tape and more resent laws and restrictions by now to be worth less than bog roll.

I know of a couple of people who have the land and the financial capitol to freely indulge in their passion for creating pyrotechnics and fireworks in the UK. To store them and fire them when they wish though only from their own private lands. They can not be sold on nor can they be transported unless each component passes financially crippling testing. But, private manufacture can be done and is being done as we speak by those who have the money and the space. And that's what it all boils down to folks, money money money.

Don't know about you lot but, I don't fancy playing 'pick up the soap' in Wormwood Scrubs so I'm sticking with what I can buy from the shop and that's not much going by the cobwebs in my wallet...

Don't dabble! We still have a very healthy freedom of legal firework use in this country despite the annual efforts of those with less exciting lives.

 

The 'R' might be resin?

Could mean adhesive but it might also be an acronym for the chemical name of whatever that adhesive is. Like PVA is polyvinyl Alcohol for example.

 

Joking apart and joking - apart from finding a finance no object person - I think an only way to see pyro in the uk again would be for some kind of educational route which positioned for teaching / educating / researching - with educational establishment backing, then get gov. support, then get universities and MOD to support plus industry - it would be all things high energy / pyro / rocket fuel you name it - also with an enthusiast arm to it. Collaboration with commercial / mil. high energy folks - of which there is likely a surprising amount in the UK - for creating their future employees etc. would also be a benefit. Writers / experts such as Conkling and Kosanke make it clear that real experience in this domain is not easy to get - it's not just chemistry or academic - it's a VERY large % of trade craft which the likes of Lancaster has gained over decades. Bad to loose such skill and insight !?!? JW.

 

P.S. with the subtext that I think the days of the "Victorian gentleman amateur" in his greenhouse having pyro fun will NEVER return - there are too many social and security matters to address to make this viable. Court cases over the last several years certainly make it crystal that thou shalt NOT create any kind of devices, molecular materials or similar - and the enforcement side on this one don't beat about the bush...JW.

 

John …I absolutely agree ..far too dicey a prospect and simply not worth the risk not that you would even wish to..simply stupid.

 

Here are links to a couple of old Standard videos, as promised...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3fg3ubwg1...ireworks Creators of the Spectacular.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1slrcktstecgjle/1989 Standard Fireworks The Leading Force.mp4?dl=0

About as close as we can get to a time-machine!

Cheers,
Bazza

 

Great stuff Baz…it’s underscores the great shame of the demise of the Domestic Firework industry in Great Britain.
What a lot we’ve lost by a combination of government intervention….public meddling gotten up as “safety concerns”…
and just losing our national will to dig in and preserve some of our best historical industrial talents..and resisting external pressures..ie from China.
Sure this country remains a great innovator and base for creating vibrant and exciting and new and rapidly growing exciting modern industries but we’ve along the way we’ve lost a lot of our best by sheer carelessness and lack of attention and taking our eyes off the ball…the British pyrotechnic industry is just one.
A pity…but it’s a fact that the national will cannot be harnessed to come together to focus on every specific targeted industry that’s coming under threat at a time to protect it because of the very diversity of the subject and in this lies the essential bind…but there it is.
Richard

 

Thank you very much for posting Barry. The second video with shots inside the factory is particularly nice. I need to take a good look in detail. Your friend did a very nice job digitizing the original tapes, the picture quality is really rather good. Again, thank you.

 

Absolutely fantastic, loved every minute, the quality right down to
the small fountains goes without saying, just a shame that the future
generations can no longer enjoy their products as it were put in the second
film, such a shame that all that great workmanship has been lost, this is whats
to be expected with continuous meddling by certain groups both political and
non political and then years down the line everything becomes very bland and
not much fun.

 

Fantastic videos showing just what we have lost!, love the shots of the factories and seeing so many of the fireworks i always bought each year, i never knew Standard had three sites, i only knew the Crosland Hill one, first time i have seen inside a Mega Rocket too!, i still have four in my collection, this must have been just before the rot set in and the company was sold to the Chinese, shame we will never see these kinds of fireworks again, there was something special and magical about British made fireworks we just don't get now!

 

Yes I knew of the south elmsall and south Kirkby factory sites in
the early 90s, just up the road from where I am, I went to have a look
at the south elmsall site, would be around 92 when I was around 14 years old,
it wasn’t tucked out of the way like the crosland hill site so you could have a good
look into where all the huts were, it was surrounded by fields with the gateway
opening on the roadside as I recall.

 

Well that was bloody lovely. What a treat Bazza. Thank you so much for going to all the effort!! Really special having this sort of footage. I'd love to see more pictures and/or videos showing inside the factories themselves. Seeing all those fireworks being assembled and packed made me feel like a young boy again!

 

Would love to see footage inside the factory of the goods etc of
the pre 1988 era.

 

Thanks for posting these -

As previously noted, I worked on the Performing Arts shows for a number of years with Std Display Team - so I know most of the folks in the videos - in particular the display team. As you might imagine - gold dust grade memories - as a teenager you didn't know that you were dabbling in what was about to become consigned to history - Suffice to say, trundling up to a stately home in one of my old cars, meeting up with the crew and setting up a display - fab days. I believe the wonderful Performing Arts - who did the live orchestra side and contracted in Std for the pyro - went bust after a number of years due to the appalling wet British "summer" weather!?!

The atmosphere on a hot British summer evening with a well heeled audience all stuffing themselves and boozing for Britain was something else. I've tucked away a few reminders of those days of course ! I could tell a few stories of course - but another time.

If folks noted the mass rocket shoot - on the Blackpool North Pier - so that was a Guinness Book of World Records, and I've - somewhere - a couple photos of the rocket racks ready to go - they were little Brocks Rockets - only diddy little things - but rather spectacular when fired in one hit - a tiny bit of history I was part of

Yes, the days of giant spanish candles, San Tai shells, moog candles, spanish flight rockets ( including crazy spanish #9 titanium flash - Kimbolton used spanish s15 salute rockets at Shrewsbury flowre show ) The shows were something else, the firing of like 36 x 3", 20 x 4", then onto 5's and 6's at the San Tai quality level was incredibly impressive !!! Also fired some Brock 5" cylinders ( the lady is making some in the video I think...) and various other. The quality of the B.P. used was epic too. Sometimes on shows, you'd make use of QA rejects from the factory - sometimes small items fired en masse, but sometimes *wondefull* large items like enormous air bomb batteries - the 3 or 4 parallel tubes on a stake but like 24" long

Good days

John.

 

Noticed something about rockets these days also, its very hard to find ones
with the nice gold and charcoal tails, mostly what you have now is the small
flame ascent with a smoke trail, the only ones I know of is the funke rockets,
they have some very nice effects.

 

Quite a few have decent charcoal tails but they tend to be the small to medium sized rockets which are nearly always core burners. Those are the type that you can add excess fuel into the grain to get the tails or into the coast phase delay.
Large rockets tend to be end burners using hot BP. Efficient motors but nowt to look at.
Standard used core burners for almost all their consumer rockets and made good use of the advantage of being able to add excess fuels for those lovely tails.

 

So I guess there are a lot of dimensions around this.

Immediate issues such as cost of manufacture, efficiency of rocket unit, genericity of unit - use it for all sorts of models of rocket - "it's just the propulsion" and more subtle things such as national style and taste.

I recall the modern approach of German motors ( Zink etc via Kimbolton ) used two types of fuel in the pressed, metal cased motors. Initial impulse thrust via a dark mixture, then a silver tail just after lift-off to brighten things up.

As ever what we're brought up on tends to be our favourite - parents cooking etc ! - so a beautiful Std motor with that charcoal tail from the start, a good "whoosh..." and let's face it, slightly less worried about the garniture was the way to go ?!? Happy days ! John. p.s. in one of the videos noted above, check out the vigour of the 4oz rocket BTP during the test launch - it seems to be in flames ( as opposed to fizzling ) as soon as it's lit - can't quite see when it's BTP and when the ICI PIC (green - "slow" ) takes over...interesting take on the reproducible delay time for BTP ???