[BLUE LIGHTS & STAR CANDLES, OR STAR LIGHTS.]
These are little cases, charged with the funnel and wire; the latter are filled with spur fire.
[PRINCE OF WALES'S FEATHERS.]
These are simply pinwheel pipes, usually of coloured double-crown, charged with pinwheel fuse, and not wound on a block, but kept straight.
[LANCES.]
These are little cases charged with white or coloured star composition. They should be of white or coloured double-crown paper, rolled dry on the squib former, and secured at the edge with paste in the usual way. They may be from 21⁄2 to 4 inches long, as may be required; press in one end to make a bottom. To do this, bore a hole through a piece of cork or a small bung, and through it push a piece of brass wire or stair-rod, fig. 81, of a suitable diameter. It can then be set to any distance, like a cutting gauge. If the lance case is 21⁄2 inches long, set the bung at rather more than 21⁄4 inches from the end. Put it up the case, and, holding it with the left hand, with the right, with a piece of wire push in the end to make a flat bottom. Charge with the squib funnel and wire; and prime the mouth with very slightly damped meal. Lances are used for forming letters and designs, similar to gas jets. Frames for letters and devices are made with pieces of thin wood and cane, or hooping, for straight lines and curves. A number of wires, 3 inches apart, are driven into the frames so as to stand forward, at right angles, and the lances are fixed on them. The following is the way of proceeding. Procure some inch French nails, or inch rivets; the former at the ironmonger's; the latter at the grindery shops. Drive them in, at the proper distances; then, with a pair of cutting pliers or nippers, cut off their heads. Drive a piece of wire, the same thickness as the nails, into a bradawl handle, and leave it projecting 3⁄8 of an inch; file this triangular, or three-sided, and pointed. Push this triangular bradawl up the bottom of the lance, then fix the lance on the wire destined to receive it; it will be more secure if the wire is touched with a dip of glue before pressing the lance on. Having completed the letter or device, proceed to leader it. For this purpose have a supply of 1⁄2-inch rivets; they may be purchased at the grindery shops for about 5d. per lb. Take a length of leadered or piped quickmatch; lay one end of it on the mouth of a lance; push the triangular bradawl through the match and down into the lance; turn the bradawl round, which will insure the breaking of the match and of the priming; withdraw the bradawl, and push in a rivet; and so proceed. Take a strip of flannel 3 inches broad, roll it into the shape of a cork, and secure it from untwisting with a bit of string. Dip this into a solution of gum arabic or thick dextrine, and rub it over a sheet of double-crown. When dry, cut the sheet into pieces about half an inch broad and an inch and a half long, something like postage stamps. Take one of these, damp it like a postage stamp, and press it over the joining, and smooth it round the lance. Or a strip of paper may be pasted, and pressed round. The match will thus be nailed, as it were, to the lances; and prevented from slipping off by the gummed or pasted strip of paper. A common bradawl will not answer the purpose so well as a triangular one, as the sharp edges of the latter break the match and priming, and insure the ignition.