Okay -- HAPPY 4TH OF JULY everyone!! Be safe - not sorry!
So.... thought I might post a few pics up of what I would normally be doing this last 10 days or so... (I'm an internationally licensed pryo and have done many of the shows in New York City - Vegas - Korea etc)
This would be me.... after catching an 8" mortar... and dropping it in the rack. This is ONE barge (each barge in NYC has TWO pyros - there's typcially 6 barges total for that show.... in 2000 we had 13 barges!!). A typical barge has 4500 shells (in NYC - which is the largest show - period).
My buddy Lee -- a rather big boy -- throws the mortar to me... and YES THEY ARE HEAVY -- this is thick wall steel - with a heavy bottom! He throws it to me so that I really just catch it and drop it in... I'm standing up on the rack in this shot. BTW -- If I miss it -- it goes past me and into the water (we're on a barge!).
The "mother of all shells" --- this is an ATTEMPT to create a shell 50 INCHES in diameter. I'm in the plaid shirt.... the short one. And this was taken while I was at a munitions factory in Inchon, Korea.
At noon on the 4th -- a large tug hooks up to each barge and pushes us up into position - mid town in the East River (NYC)... where we do a bunch of final prep and checks (two of us per barge plus one or two firemen). There is a barge between us and the tug - a 'safety' distance... and we can use the facilities etc on the tug - because we won't see land again until 2 or 3 AM on the 5th. Note the background of this photo!
PS -- The big mortars in the sanded barrels -- those are 10" and 12" shells! The mortars weigh a couple hundred POUNDS each...
Here's a 3" shell - deconstructed.... Note that the CENTER of this shell is nothing but COATED WHEAT or RICE... it's the stuff you see that FLOATS down and fizzles etc... funny huh! BTW -- the shells have a lift charge fuse - the long one - then a lift charge (black powder) on the bottom which then ignites the timed fuse in the center (see it?) and that then does the detonation of the shell.
