Start here: (no recipes)
http://www.perfectflite.com/Downloads/Making igniters.pdf
Also look on Richard Nakka's site:
http://quickburst.net/qb/ has kits to make standard motor igniters.
I've used them and they work. That will be the easiest for a neophyte. Can get shooter's wire and 36 or 40 gauge nichrome for wirewrap. Can get stupid and use silver solder to attach nichrome to the wire but I don't do that anymore. Have to use solvent to get off the caustic flux.
Get a wire wrap tool like this:
https://www.amazon.com/22-24AWG-Wir...ocphy=1016342&hvtargid=pla-569553507309&psc=1
Will make your life easier. Do an internet search and if you don't go with a commercial pyrogen, there are plenty of formulas out there. The ones with metals seem to be better. The only metal to treat with utmost respect is magnesium powder. Be extremely careful if you use that one. It's doable mind you but static can set the metal to burning. I measure small amounts I need outdoors and get it into the liquids (lacquer) quickly.
I wished I had videos of some of the rockets I had over the years go up and the rocket flies off the pad with the pyrogen on the igniter still burning coming out of the rocket. Now that's hot pyrogen!
Oh as an aside, as I was doing some diddling with my pyrogen I succeeded in making a GIANT batch of "poppers". What's a popper? It's an igniter due to uneven local heating that "pops", blows off a bit of pyrogen and breaks the bridgewire. The rest of the pyrogen doesn't catch or burn and the thing is a "dud".
I made a butt load of these and thought about the situation. I thought due to the uneven heating along the nichrome bridgewire, localized gas buildup caused some of the pyrogen to "pop off" hence creating a dud. The remedy aside from trying to make a new batch? I simply took both hands and bent the pyrogen heads ever so slightly to crack the pyrogen in two or three places (depending on pyrogen length).
Sometimes a little pyrogen fell off but most of the time it places a few horizontal cracks in the pyrogen. As it turned out, that did the trick as it allowed any gas buildup to vent, the nichrome came to full heat and the pyrogen catches every time without initially breaking the bridgewire. I think this was due to the particular pyrogen I whipped up. I've never had a commercial dip behave that way. Although if one gets a batch of commercial ignitors that pop, try cracking the pyrogen heads with your fingers and you'll likely salvage them.
Safety wise, it's much safer to get a commercial kit pyrogen and use that rather than getting the chemicals yourself. Only mix a small amount at a time as one can dip a lot of igniters in one sitting. I let them dry and can usually do a second dip if I want after I've dipped through the wires as the first ones are dry enough for a second dip.
Kurt