I spent some time today with Toni Busuttil of Malta, world renowned for
building Irdieden - a type of wheel. Wheel is something of an understatment;
an econobox is a car as is a Ferrari - similarly with regular wheels
and Irdieden.

I met with Toni a few weeks ago when he arrived in Montreal to build his
Raddiena, together with his son Clint. To say these men are passionate
about fireworks is an understatement; Clint was following the old tradition
of learning his craft from his father and it was a joy to talk with both
of them. By the way, a Raddiena is a specific type of Irdieden.

The Raddiena that will be displayed in Montreal this coming Saturday
as part of the Hop Kee display is around 5.5m in diameter (about 18 feet)
and will be mounted atop a pole of the same height, making the top around
9m (30 feet) above the ground. The pole has a special pivoting mechanism
which allows it to be laid flat in order to mount the Raddiena and then
lift the whole thing vertically with not too much effort - a design that
Tom Dimock was responsible for and to whom Toni asked me to express his
gratitude.

Now to the Raddiena proper. At the centre is the hub of a car wheel, so
it runs very smoothly with almost no friction. Surrounding the hub, a large
toothed wheel, under which there are eight spokes. Into each spoke, an
action arm consisting of two gears is placed, one of the gears meshing with
the large toothed wheel. This allows all the eight sub-wheels at the end
of the spokes to rotate in synchrony as the whole thing turns about the
centre wheel. The whole Raddiena weighs in at around 150Kg (330lbs) so the
low-friction hub is very important. Drivers are placed on each spoke for
which gives 8 spokes times 19 (2 groups of six and a group of seven), a total of 168. Each of the eight sub-wheels
has a circuit of red and a circuit of green each consisting of 12 lances.
There are a further 8 outer segments with 15 blue lances each - this makes
a total of 312 lances and, as far as I understand, there are also gerbs
placed in strategic locations as well.

Toni told me he thinks the Montreal site is fantastic and was telling me
how he visualized whole armies of Raddiena and Irdieden, as well as some
other interesting ideas that I better not share since I think he intends
to use them sometime!

For anyone within driving distance of Montreal, Saturday's display
presents an almost unique opportunity to see a famed Maltese speciality
in action, save for a trip to Malta. I'd like to thank Toni for taking
the time out of his busy schedule today to show me his creation.

Stay green,

Paul.