Wiley's Shells

[Wiley]

Get the 6lb, take one jar, put 5lb of .5" balls in it, and make BP.

 

Here's the black willow mill dust. I don't know if this is considered "fast" or not. .66 seconds to travel 12"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DUPwi3ezUY

[coogan1997]

I think i might just do that. would it still work well if you used both jars with half the amount of lead?

[Wiley]

No, you need the jar half full of media, and a quarter full of chemicals. Check out Ned Gorski's article on the subject: http://www.skylighter.com/fireworks/how-to/ball-mill.aspThe follow-up article has all you need to know about using that rig to make BP. Getting it dialed in is what this forum is for. Here's the follow up: http://www.skylighter.com/fireworks/how-to-make/Black-Powder-Quick-and-Cheap.asp

Edited March 24, 2015 by Wiley

[braddsn]

Wiley, I watched your video and that bp looks great! Granulate some and compare it to the Goex. I think you will be happy! Well done

[Wiley]

Thanks! I should have WRC powder coming out of the mill in a few minutes.

 

Edit: some initial "poof tests" seem to show that the western red cedar BP is not as fast as the willow. A little disappointing, but I need to do a few further tests and granulate the stuff.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Wiley

[braddsn]

Yeah Wiley, when I saw how big of a difference there was between Eastern Red Cedar and Western Red Cedar on the Janka hardness scale, it surprised me. They are obviously very different and I certainly don't have any experience with the WRC. The pet bedding is Eastern Red Cedar, and I believe you will see quite the difference. When I tested ERC vs. Willow, there was very little difference. I have been very happy with ERC and will likely not look back.

[Wiley]

I may try the pet bedding, though I'd have to build a TLUD for it first. For now, I'm going to see how the willow, western red cedar, and Goex compare. Then I'll decide whether or not it's worth it to try the pet bedding.

[Wiley]

If I want to make BP particles in the 15-20 mesh range, should I try granulating through the 15 mesh? What I've been doing was granulating through a 4 mesh and breaking up those coarse grains to get 15-20 mesh grains, which is approximately 2Fg. The only downside is that method makes lots of fines which are wasted. I could always regranulate the fines once I accumulate enough of them, but I would like to get most of my powder to be 2Fg. Edited March 24, 2015 by Wiley

[dagabu]

If I want to make BP particles in the 15-10 mesh range, should I try granulating through the 15 mesh? What I've been doing was granulating through a 4 mesh and breaking up those coarse grains to get 15-20 mesh grains, which is approximately 2Fg. The only downside is that method makes lots of fines which are wasted. I could always regranulate the fines once I accumulate enough of them, but I would like to get most of my powder to be 2Fg.

 

I would use an 8 mesh screen (10 mesh if you dont have one) to make the the 10-15 mesh BP, there will be fines from pressing the grains, those can get whetted again and pressed through or used for making rockets etc.

[Wiley]

I made a mistake in typing that the first time. I meant do say 15 to 20 mesh, and I would like to know if that 15 mesh screen will make 15 to 20 mesh granules.

[Mumbles]

The willow looked about like what good hot BP burns like.

 

Danny Creagan has some burn rate tests to compare to. It takes a bit of reading, but the values appear to be seconds per 2.5 feet. I would also assume that it's the time it takes for the flame front to travel that distance, not total burn time or time for the flame tail to pass that point. They're also for granulated materials, which will propagate faster than powder, for what it's worth.

http://wichitabuggywhip.com/fireworks/charcoal_tests.html

 

15 mesh seems like a reasonable place to start to try to get -15+20 granules. You can always re-process the fines. If you find you're getting too many fines, you may want to start a tad larger, say 12 mesh or so. That way the median size will be a little bigger. You'll lose more to granules that are too large doing it this way though. They can always be crushed as you have been doing it. This is purely speculation, but my gut says that starting from granules closer to the desired maximum size will give you less powder out, since the granules need to be crushed less.

[Wiley]

Alright, I'll try granulating the black willow and western red cedar batches with the 15 mesh. In the meantime, I want to do some head-to-head tests between the two in powder form.

[WonderBoy]

Wiley, I do use 75:15:10 polverone, with a medium booster, in all of my shells and inserts.

 

Also, don't be afraid of a TLUD cooker. In the past I used a 6gal metal trash can filled with ERC chips or other splits, and two torn up 5gal metal paint buckets with the tops and bottoms cut open as my "chimney" (I'll look around for a photo). It doesn't take much for the TLUD method to work.

 

 

WB

[Wiley]

I burned 3g of Western Red Cedar mill dust in a 12" line. Dang! Just a hair under .5 seconds to travel 12"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ8Jsud6eGo

[braddsn]

Boom!! And there is your powerful bp! Now granulate it, and make it exactly the same every time. Well done! I told you that you would have fast bp within a week!

[Wiley]

The granules are drying as we speak. I hope to get some tests in tonight.

[Wiley]

Well, I'd say the tests went well. My Western Red Cedar BP milled for 4hr in an optimized HF tumbler and granulated to 2FA size worked just as well or better than Goex 2Fg, a much finer powder.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVFRkgZFO0A

[Wiley]

I made some red carbonate organic stars today using acetone to activate the parlon and slicing them through a screen. I was happy with the result, since they turned out much more uniform than my hand-sliced stars. The color isn't the reddest red, but it was unmistakable in person.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e90FNh02wdc&feature=youtu.be

[braddsn]

Your red stars look great! Time to put em in some shells!

[coogan1997]

I read somewhere that parlon bound stars are a bit tricky to light is that true? or are they just as easy to light if they where dextrin bound

[Wiley]

Not so. It's only certain parlon comps that are hard to light. Those usually use nitrate as their primary oxidizer. These use perc, and only need to be primed with a thin layer of BP greenmix +5% silicon.

[coogan1997]

Thats good to know. Btw those red stars look great, i think i just might try those instead of the veline color system since those are less expensive

[braddsn]

Wiley, something you might want to try/consider... IF later on you notice excessive orange fallout from your prime burning and you don't like it, switch to ball milled (lift quality) bp+silicon for your prime. I know I am too picky at times, and many ppl may not even notice something so small.. but a while back I gave 'green mix' bp a try for the outer prime layer, and I got some orange fallout, plus the prime burned considerably slower thus giving an orange appearance to the star before the color comp actually lit. I know that the theory is that green mix will burn slower.. but since there is silicon providing slag already, I don't believe the slower burning bp is necessary. I did plenty of testing to come to this conclusion. I switched to lift quality bp for my outer layer and it solved this issue. But again, this is opinion based...there are other variables involved too (like my green mix vs yours, etc). Another note on that red..( I may have mentioned this to you before, can't remember) but the ONLY downfall to that particular red is that it doesn't burn hot enough to ignite Ti. I added Ti to a batch of these stars and there were no sparks. I consulted Mumbles and he confirmed that temperature was the problem.

[Wiley]

Thanks for the advice Brad; I'll try that if I notice any excessive fallout.

 

Spent all afternoon building a TF cutter. It still isn't complete, but should be by tomorrow. Then lots of cutting will ensue! Hopefully of fuse, not my fingers. It's already drawn blood once Then filling a metric crud ton of inserts and bottom shots to be used in the next test session.

 

My green stars didn't turn out. They looked more of a sickly white than green. I'm happy with the red and purple for now, so I'll leave the green alone for a while until I get some other stuff figured out.

[braddsn]

What green comp did you use?