From what I understand reading this forum, some of you are actually
buildings your own fireworks. I find this stuff fascinating and I'd
like to do it too but I don't know how to get started. I live in the
Montréal area. Are there any fireworks club? Where do you get the
chemicals? A-Z Lab? And most of all, where do you blow up this
stuff. I was alway under the impression that using the kind of
fireworks that are interesting required special licences. Are those
licences hard to acquire ? Can an amateur get them or do you have to
actively work in the field ?

Anonymous,

In any case, you should take care when handling any type of pyrotechincs, and it's best to understand how many concepts work by doing initial research and some readings.

I think there are some books that you can look up and get a good understanding of different pyrotechical terms and different chemical and molecular breakdowns. Here's a link to a thread a made over a year ago:

http://www.montreal-fireworks.com/forum/index.php?action=vthread&forum =5&topic=156

You should be able to get some comprehensive information there.

As for getting a license, I'm guessing you have to take some courses and do some tests before you can actually acquire an official one.

Hope this helps.

Trav.

Hi Anonymous,

hobbyist pyrotechnics is in somewhat of a legal grey area in Canada at the moment. However, the good news is that the Canadian Fireworks Association was founded with the mission (amongst other things) of leading the way to legal hobbyist pyrotechnics in Canada. This is in progress and theplan is that new legislation will be announced later this year.

In order to be a legal hobbyist, you will have to be a member of a recognized club. At the moment, the only club with that status is the Canadian Fireworks Association. There is a link at the bottom of this page to the CFA website, but here is the link for your convenience:

http://www.canadianfireworks.org

I am president of the Association and look forward to welcoming you as a member. We also have a yahoo discussion group which I encourage you to join as there are many other hobbyists active there:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cfa-acp

Best regards,

Paul.