Tweetybird88 Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 Terribly sorry if this is in the wrong section. But I was wondering if anyone is selling BP grade charcoal in the USA. I would love to buy some.
ewest Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 Firefox or Skylighter does. Or you can make your own, it's cheaper and pretty easy. Just really messy.
Tweetybird88 Posted February 28, 2007 Author Posted February 28, 2007 So their charcoal makes good BP? I heard that if you want good charcoal, you need willow and theirs is all mixed hardwood. I'm a bit clueless on charcoal as of right now. I didn't know Firefox was still selling chemicals. Last time I looked on the site it said that they suspended sale of chemicals.
Mumbles Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 I think that commercial airfloat is total shit for BP. Probably just needs longer milling though than I am used to though. I don't know of anyone currently selling good BP. You can make your own. There is also commercial hardwood lump charcoal that can work pretty well. Cowboy brand is a common one.
Umphrey Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 If you're looking to make BP without cooking your own charcoal, you might try "Cowboy Charcoal". It appears to be widely available at any store that carries a selection of bbq charcoal. It costs about ~$6.00 for an 8lb bag. So their charcoal makes good BP? I heard that if you want good charcoal, you need willow and theirs is all mixed hardwood Firefox's mixed hardwood charcoal makes quite excellent fuel for rockets, but rather lousy lift. I haven't tried skylighter charcoal, but I imagine it would be about the same. I have actually found that willow, while it is certainly well-regarded, is overrated. Don't get me wrong, it can make some very nice bp, but it certainly isn't the legendly "best" wood. In my testings, willow, white pine, and alder all performed about evenly, with only a fraction of a second difference hangtime on a dummy shell. Balsa and paulownia, atleast from my experience, seem to be dramatically more powerful. For reference, cowboy charcoal comes in a bag like this: http://www.homeclick.com/products/primo_charcoal-PR608.jpg
ewest Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 I didn't know Firefox was still selling chemicals. Last time I looked on the site it said that they suspended sale of chemicals. I just checked their webpage and it looks like they are. I think the CPSC decision is due any day now so that may change, but I doubt it's going to effect charcoal sales. Mumbles is right, the airfloat isn't the best stuff to use for things like lift powder. It makes an adequate lift but it certainly won't be the best quality; I use strictly Goex for my lift. It does however work well for making BP primes and rocket fuels, stuff like that. Cowboy Charcoal is pretty good stuff and you can buy that just about anywhere. It's just that it's in lumps and you'll have to crush it yourself. But that's a good thing anyway because you can get your different mesh charcoal all from one bag.
styropyro Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 Here is a site I've been wanting to order from because it has a bunch of different charcoals and good prices. I haven't ordered from him yet, but it could be a good place to buy charcoal.
Pretty green flame Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 Here is a site I've been wanting to order from because it has a bunch of different charcoals and good prices. I haven't ordered from him yet, but it could be a good place to buy charcoal. Steve Baron aka "the willow charcoal guy" has a pretty good reputation on rec.pyro and i know many from rec.pyro have ordered from him. Shame he doesn't sell outde the US, i guess i'm stuck with cooking my own.
fredjr Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 Steve Baron from that website moved to California recently. He is not yet back to selling charcoal but says he will be sometime this spring. Anyways making your own charcoal is really easy. I made around 25lbs of balsa charcoal recently. Should be enough to last me a long time. Go here to see why I wanted balsa. http://www.wichitabuggywhip.com/fireworks/...coal_tests.html
cocktail76 Posted March 14, 2007 Posted March 14, 2007 Any other places to buy charcoal? I can not get a hold of Steve Baron aka "the willow charcoal guy".
TheSidewinder Posted March 15, 2007 Posted March 15, 2007 LadyKate (Danny Creagan and wife?) sells excellent softwood and hardwood charcoals. Cntact them at: ladykate@wichitabuggywhip.com They don't always have it in stock and, when they get do, it sells outs damned fast. Be prepared to wait several weeks if you catch them "between firings". I have 10 lbs each of Yellow Pine, and Willow, charcoal. They make excellent BP, and I am DELIGHTED with the product. You can bet I'll order from them again when I finally run out of what I have..... M
cocktail76 Posted April 10, 2007 Posted April 10, 2007 Still looking for Paulownia, Willow, and/or Balsa charcoal or other high quality charcoal that I can use to make BP to use as lift powder, Star primer. No one seems to have any. Maybe I should Just think about buying BP at $11-12 a lbs?
Pretty green flame Posted April 10, 2007 Posted April 10, 2007 Still looking for Paulownia, Willow, and/or Balsa charcoal or other high quality charcoal that I can use to make BP to use as lift powder, Star primer. No one seems to have any. Maybe I should Just think about buying BP at $11-12 a lbs? What about making your own charcoal, the process can't be more simple.
Tweetybird88 Posted April 10, 2007 Author Posted April 10, 2007 I bought 10 pounds of balsa wood and now I just have to hope I dont screw it up.
Phildo Posted April 10, 2007 Posted April 10, 2007 I make my own and while it's very easy, I cannot imagine selling it for any price. It may be the easiest thing to make but it's possibly the messiest as well.
pudidotdk Posted April 10, 2007 Posted April 10, 2007 Making the charcoal is easy once you've got the charcoal.Finding the charcoal willow in the nature here is pretty darn hard.
Carbon796 Posted May 2, 2007 Posted May 2, 2007 Cocktail76, I can sell you some Balsa Wood charcoal. $5.00 corse, $6.00 AF - per pound. Plus shipping.
Caramanos2000 Posted May 2, 2007 Posted May 2, 2007 iI will take some of that, 2Lbs for me AF. How much with priority shipping to 00959?
asilentbob Posted May 2, 2007 Posted May 2, 2007 There are different kinds of willow... i didn't think there were any around here, then after talking to my dad found out that alot of the small trees around here are infact willow, just a weird semi prarie willow... ish. So it takes some researching. You might want to ask a botanist.
deadman Posted May 2, 2007 Posted May 2, 2007 Yes, I was talking to Mumbles earlier about charcoal. I decided to look up types of willow and found out there are over 300 kinds of willow. Many of which are small shrubs and not actually trees. I was able to find a list of local trees in my county. No willow, but I am trying to find a chart of volatiles in different woods.
Mumbles Posted May 2, 2007 Posted May 2, 2007 Besides just willow, there are plenty of good varieties. Alder, Cottonwood, Aspen, are a few that come to mind. If you want to point me in the direction of that local tree list Deadman, I'd be more than happy to take a look through Blackpowder Manufacturing, Testing, and Optimization. It has a nice long list of tree tests, as well as some tree family information.
deadman Posted May 2, 2007 Posted May 2, 2007 That would be great Mumbles. Here is a link.http://www.monterey.org/publicworks/common_plants.html
Mumbles Posted May 2, 2007 Posted May 2, 2007 I'd say the best chance you have would be to get some Japanese maple. Maple is actually quite serviceable. The Pine could be used for nice sparks, or possibly even BP. Pine is tricky. There are some fast pines, and some slow pines. From the brief description I found online, it said it was hard and aromatic. I'd say it'd probably be a slow pine, but I've been wrong before. Never hurts to try. For no particular reason, I think the Idaho Loqust might work well. I think that might be Idaho Locust though, with a misspelling. loqust only gets 2 hits, one of which is the site you gave, The other is the following site, which is a lot more optimistic. http://www.ci.novato.ca.us/cd/forms/CDP045.pdf Also the latin name from the site you gave corresponds with the idaho locust. Going through that one gives a lot of good ones. Several willows, dogwood, plum, Alder, all of which will form very well preforming BP. I've heard of a bad result from plum once, but never gotten a chance to see anyone else try.
deadman Posted May 3, 2007 Posted May 3, 2007 Novato is a suburb of San Francisco. On the other side of SF unfortunatley so I think I am going to have to cut some local maple then. Well since the sun is still up I think I am going to go ask a neighbor for a branch of their weeping. I have always wanted to try redwood. Does anyone have any info on it in BP?
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