Quickmatch & Stickymatch
Why do we need to splice quick match if most shows are electrically fired?
1) You may have to repair it from time to time, so it is important to know how to deal with it.
2) If you have 5 finale chains that are supposed to fire on one cue, instead of using 5 electric matches, you can splice all of the chains together and only fire it with one (two electric matches are standard practice for redundancy).
3) Give redundancy to multiple chains firing from a single cue. For example, if you have 2 chains firing on one cue, and you have two electric matches to fire them, you can splice the two chains together to give you additional redundancy/reliability.
How Quickmatch and Stickymatch Works
Why so much redundancy?
Because it’s your finale! When quick match fires, it is very violent, which frequently causes it to blow apart before it has a chance to transfer fire to all of the shells in the chain. This is the main cause for shells not to lift in the finale. By adding redundant splices on both sides of the chains, you are giving additional paths for the fire to travel around the chains, thus circumventing and blown piece of quick match.
How to Splice Quickmatch
Step 1) Expose black match on both pieces to be spliced. You will generally create one “male” end and one “female” end for easy splicing.
Step 2) Insert the male end into the female end, making sure to have black match touching black match. It is very important to make sure you don’t insert the male end between the different layers of paper. Black match on black match!
Step 3) Using masking tape, tape the splice together, making sure to cover at least two inches on both sides of the splice to ensure it stays together long enough to transfer fire from one piece to another.
The adjacent picture shows two separate finale cues. The two chains on the left are spliced together, and the three chains on the right are spliced together. This means one cue, two chains will fire, and the other cue, three chains will fire. See the video below for step by step.
Splicing Quickmatch Tutorial
In this video you will learn different techniques to redundantly quickmatch your fireworks finale, balancing speed and reliability.
How to Insert an Ematch into Quickmatch / Stickymatch
In this video, you will learn the safe and efficient way of inserting ematches into quickmatch and stickymatch for electrical ignition.