How to splice fuse

[Blaster]

Sometime within the last four years, someone right here on GBO made a real good post about splicing fuse to fire multiple cannon/mortars with just one lighting of the single MAIN fuse.  If I want to fire three or four of my mortars within a few seconds of each other, how in the world do I splice the fuse so I can "RELIABLY" get all three or four to fire sequentially?  I'm really hoping to see a picture of the proper method.  Seems like old DD may have possibly made that post.  How about it Doug.
With all the recent snow and cold weather, BP cannon/mortar shooting has been on the back burner in my mind but today it's about 60 degrees here in Southern Colorado and I'm starting to think about chasing the spiders out of my gun barrels and start using them once again.
Blaster (Bob in So. CO)

[B.L.E.]

If my goal was to fire a battery of morters or cannons nearly simultaneously, I would use quick matches instead of fuses.  Quick matches are like fuses but burn about 600 times faster.  Have all the quick matches going into a common pile of powder and have a normal slow fuse to light the small pile of powder.

You could also use the electric igniters used for model rockets.

[Double D]

Yep I did with mixed results.  The fuse has a constant burn rate when exposed to air but it slows down when it burns down the vent and you need to know the timing differencial to get it right.

I looked for the post and could not find it.

Here is the video.

http://www.fototime.com/0974A271A002EFA/conv.wmv


Here's how I joined the fuses.



I slit the fuses and taped the slit portions together.



Here's the rigging.



The green fuse really burns to slow.

[Blaster]

Thanks Douglas, I believe that's the method I had seen.  Now, after thinking about it, what prevents the fuse from being blasted out the second gun's vent hole when the first gun fires?  Looks like it may possibly jerk the fuse out of the next gun's vent.  Just wondering.  Doesn't look like the hound dog in the video was too affected by the sounds.
B.L.E., I really want to stick with the plain old green fuse.  Thanks!

[Terry C.]

I wonder if the NC/FFFFg priming mixture could reliably burn through the outer casing and ignite the fuse without cutting or scraping?

[Double D]

Now, after thinking about it, what prevents the fuse from being blasted out the second gun's vent hole when the first gun fires?  Looks like it may possibly jerk the fuse out of the next gun's vent. 

If you look, the fuse going to the second cannon is ignited before the fuse in the first cannon burns down the vent and ignites the charge.  The fuse is just ash at that point and the weight of the unburnt fuse breaks it loose and if it doesn't the ignition of the first gun does.

[Victor3]

 Another opton for using quick match...

 A friend of mine used to do special effects for the movie industry. He had a bank of mortars that would launch 10 salute charges at once. It was a 2x6 board drilled with holes about 3" apart that had heavy-wall 1" ID paper tubes glued into them. Each tube had a vent hole at the base.

 He'd put a short piece of visco into each vent with about 1/2" sticking out, then take a length of quick match and push it onto each fuse into a hole (made with a small pick) through the match.

 It was neat to watch - Whoosh....Poof-poof-poof....................................BOOM-BOOM-BOOM 

 A similar setup could be done with cannons/mortars.

[jeeper1]

Every Independence Day I put on a fireworks display.
Last year it was 318 mortar tubes and 32 roman candles on one fuse in 6 minutes. All I did was tape the fuse from the mortar to the single long piece of fast fuse. The shell fuse was pointed towards the direction the fuse was burning from. As little as one inch of fuse taped with electrical tape guaranteed ignition.