From left to right: End cutters, roll of bailing wire, duplex nails, masking tape, road flare, 3-cell maglight, aluminum foil, hammer
What are some of the common tools that a Pyrotechnician Uses?
Hammer - Used mainly for kleeting mortar racks, but always a useful tool to have around anyway.
Flashlight - An essential item for working any pyro show since your usually shooting at night. I reccommend having a three cell maglight. That is what I have been using, since they are bright, reliable, and weather proof.
End Cutters (a.k.a. nippers) - Proabably the most useful tool a pyro can have. If you forget all your other tools, you can probably still set up the show with a pair of these. They are used to cut and twist bailing wire, cut and strip electrical wire, cut quickmatch/fusing, and pretty much everything under the sun.
Bailing wire - Used to secure setpieces as well as other low level devices such as roman candles, cakes, gerbes, etc. Also used to secure firing rails to mortar racks.
Masking tape - this is the most common type of tape that is used at a pyro show. It's main uses are taping down foil on finale racks, splicing quick match fusing, fixing lift charges, and labeling slave modules or cues.
Duct tape - just something handy to have around. Since it is a little more costly than masking tape, it is used more sparingly.
Road flares - always good to have extra. This is what you would physically light each fuse with during a hand fired display.
Duplex nails - Used to hold the kleets onto the mortar racks. Duplex nails have two heads, so that you only pound the nail as far as the first head, so that they are easy to take out after the show when it is time to unkleet the racks.
Shovel - Not only is it required by law in the state of California to aid in possible fire supression and dud retrieval, but it is essential for filling sand boxes, or diging trenches at the beach.
Rake - Not required, but it's always good in the light of professionalism to clean up after your show is over since the pyro stuff leaves quite a mess.
Plastic five gallon bucket - Also required by law to soak duds in, but also a useful item for transporting sand or equipment from one place to another.
Sledge hammer - Needed to pound in stakes for setpieces and certain other low level devices.
Zip wire - Extra wire used for running a connection from an electric match lead to your slave module. Used when some of your devices are not close enough to your slave modules to be plugged in directly.
Aluminum foil - Used to cover finale racks, tubes that contain shells with tails, and cakes. You cover the finale racks and cakes so that sparks from adjacent devices do not prematurely set them off (In case you didn't know, this would ruin your show).
