Poor lift powder not getting shells and baseball high enough into the air

[memo]

the granules are not super hard. but firm and don’t crumble. I use it for lift and MCRH for burst.

 

memo

[jordanm]

the granules are not super hard. but firm and don’t crumble. I use it for lift and MCRH for burst.

 

memo

I was doing some reading and it seems the resin in eastern red cedar helps bind it together. About how much alcohol does it take to wet it enough to granulate?

[FlaMtnBkr]

It's thought there are some compounds that the alcohol dissolves but I have never tried it and the alcohol is an added expense you don't need with hot charcoal. It also isn't supposed to be very hard grains with just alcohol.

 

I use only water and get it pretty wet so that it's like pliable modeling clay and the surface glistens with water and then granulate through a screen. If you get it in full sun in a 1/4" average layer and rotate it a couple times it should be bone dry in 2 or 3 hours. Placing in a plastic bag in the sun is a good idea with anything that is bound with water. If there is any water in it, it will show up fairly quick as condensation droplets on the plastic.

 

There has been quite a bit of talk lately of BP being hygroscopic and absorbing water. This just has not been my experience in over a dozen years of making BP and pyro. If I put my dry BP in a sealed container it stays dry. Even a zip lock inside a paper bag and then in a heavy storage tub is enough. Things that are truly hygroscopic will still absorb water in a zip lock in my humidity after a couple weeks. If a person's BP is really absorbing a lot of water it must be because they have some contaminate, perhaps a chloride in their nitrate. Just my experience and I still have some bags of BP probably close to ten years old from my hottest batches of BP when I was testing different local woods for charcoal. The BP tester I use was made by FPAG and uses a PVC shuttle of a certain weight so members can compare BP. 4g of BP is used and the flight time recorded and averaged. Goex is 5 second powder and almost all my home made charcoal made 5 sec or better powder except a few things, one notable one being wild grape vine. My fastest was in the 9-9.5 sec range.

 

I also know the guys that brought TLUD charcoal making to pyro and they did extensive testing for close to a year before sharing the results. They used a 5 gallon can with no lid and another 5 gallon can as the chimney that had a lip of metal left on the bottom to catch and sit on the bottom burn can. There were no holes added and it worked great with no ash as long as you blocked heavy wind with something like a section of plywood. Someone else added a narrower section for a chimney I would assume to help in wind. So a TLUD can be as simple or complex as you want. You might have to make a few changes with the design you choose but if it makes good charcoal cooked through and without ash then it is working right.

 

Well that ended up a lot longer than I planned but hopefully it helps.

[jordanm]

Ok the only benefit i saw with using alcohol would be faster dry time but if you say that it only takes 2-3hrs that is plenty fast enough for me. I think im going to granulate through 8 mesh from now on since 4 mesh is giving me to big of granules and i would like around 4FA for my shells.

 

My BP i had made in the past, which is not working good, was dried for about a week in the garage and then placed into a sealed glass container. There might still be some water in it though so i will try drying it more if the plastic bag turns up some water after leaving it in the sun. I hope there is not water trapped on the inside that is not coming out.

[jordanm]

I was very busy tonight here is my TLUD does it look sufficient:

The charcoal that comes out looks pretty good. I made 2 batches tonight and they are taking about 20 minutes to go to completion. As soon as the flame goes out and it start to smoke i dumps the charcoal into a bigger container and seal it until it cools down. I do not see ny pieces that are white and turned to dust. I do however see a few pieces that were not burn right at the top of the container before i dumped it and you can see a few of these in the picture. Will these pieces matter? Should i pick them out or just mill them and pick them out if they dont make it through the mesh screen.

 

I dumped the bag of 2FA granules in a plastic bag and sure enough after an hour their was moisture. I left them out on a cookie sheet after i got home from work for the rest of the day in the sun. Hopefully they are drier but this was most likely the issue. Quick question, this weekend if it is not sunny how will i be able to granulate black powder and get it dry enough in a few hours like you suggested? Will putting a box fan blowing on the granules be sufficient. I was to get alot of black powder and charcoal made this weekend so that i am prepared.

 

Here is the burn test of the hot black powder i was using:

Can someone time this and see what the burn rate is? This was milled for 6 hours but it is the mixed hardwood charcoal.

 

Right now i am milling the red cedar black powder and will do a burn test in a few minutes to see what its burn rate is.

[jordanm]

Here is the burn test with the charcoal i made tonight with the eastern red cedar wood chips:

Can someone tell me what the burn speed of this is? I noticed a considerable difference! I milled the cedar black powder for 3 hours then did this test.

Now i have to really get going on making my black powder with this charcoal.

Thank you everyone for your help in resolving this problem!

[jordanm]

How long would BP take to dry in a drying box like this:

http://www.skylighter.com/fireworks/how-to-make/drying-chamber.asp

[nater]

Usually it takes a few hours in a box like that.

[jordanm]

Im guessing using a blow dryer would be frowned upon due to the possibility of throwing a spark but if i made a trap to catch these would a blow dryer work instead of a heater?

[Mumbles]

I'd be concerned about two things. Firstly, and most importantly, they tend to have exposed heating elements which is a recipe for disaster. The second is more of a practicality concern, rather than safety. Hair dryers simply are not designed to run for several hours on end. I'd be worried about a catostrophic failure resulting in sparks or a fire. They may actually blow the air too forcefully as well. You really want a gentle breeze going over the composition. I'm sure that part could be engineered to work better though.

 

Ceramic heaters are quite well suited for this application. They do not really have exposed elements, and can be run essentially continuously. A small one is really all you need. They'll run you maybe $20-30, but you might be able to find some on clearance around this time of year. Here are just a couple I found with a quick Home Depot search to give you an idea.

 

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lasko-9-2-in-1500-Watt-Electric-Portable-Ceramic-Compact-Heater-754200/100669067?N=5yc1vZc8og

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Warmwave-1500-Watt-Ceramic-Electric-Portable-Heater-HPG15B-M/202270270?N=5yc1vZc8og

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Hunter-1500-Watt-Oscillating-Ceramic-Electric-Portable-Heater-with-Thermostat-HPG15-M/205200345?N=5yc1vZc8og

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Optimus-750-Watt-Ceramic-Electric-Portable-Heater-with-Thermostat-H7004/205495270?N=5yc1vZc8og

 

They're not all going to be optimal, but they are all under $30. Ideally, you want one with off, fan only, low, and high heat settings. Just like with drying stuff normally, you can still drive in stars with a drying box. For this reason, I like having a fan only setting. I typically run this for about 12-24hr first to do some initial bulk drying, and then use the heated air to finish things off. This is particularly important when working with larger stars or comets. For granulated stuff, you can probably go with heat immediately.

[jordanm]

Well I lucked out and had a sunny day so it was an all day lift powder making day. Now time to do some lift test tommorow or Monday and hope for good results!

[calebkessinger]

It's gonna be GREAT !!!

[jordanm]

It seems like my burn rate has went from .5 seconds up to about 1 second now. It may be because I am milling bigger batches now. 1 second is still better than the 3 seconds with the charcoal that I was purchasing.

[jordanm]

I got out even in the high wind today to perform the baseball lift test. My black powder is very powerful now! Here are the results:

1. 5.88 Seconds

2. 7.80 Seconds

3. 10.69 Seconds

1. 2/3*5.88=16*3.92*3.92=245.86 Feet

2. 2/3*7.80=16*5.2*5.2=432.64 Feet

3. 2/3*9=16*6*6=576 Feet

It is very hard to tell when the baseball hit the ground for the ones that were further away. Based on this data it seems that for lift to achieve the desired height i would need about 8% of the finished shell weight of granulated BP for lift. Does this sound and look about right?

 

I believe my biggest issue was that my black powder was not dry fully before performing the last test since it was not dried in the sun, but the red cedar charcoal far outperforms the charcoal i was buying and it is very easy to make. Looks like the issues i was having have been solved. Now to test some actual shells.

 

Thanks to everyone for helping me figure this out!

[FlaMtnBkr]

I'm glad you got it figured out. Once you you do and 'see the light' so to speak, it's easy to make good BP so you can focus on other things.

 

In my experience there are 3 things that are important. A good mill and media, good hot charcoal, and drying quickly when you add water to granulate. Probably listed in decreasing importance. Though drying completely is part of the drying quickly.

 

How long did you find it took to dry in direct sunlight? Did you make fairly thin layers of granules?

 

Glad you got it figured out!

[jordanm]

I made it about 1/4". I think it Probably took around 4 hours to dry completely but I left it in full sun all day Saturday and the. Tested it in a plastic bag for moisture. Now I have it stored in a glass jar with desiccant.

[Merlin]

I had a lot of trouble with BP. It boiled down to my charcoal. Even though it was willow it wasn't processed long enough. I have used alder and red cedar pet bedding. The red cedar does not take very long as it is shavings. One gallon can and very hot flame-30 min. My last batch of BP was with alder. I dried the alder in the oven at 250 degrees for a hour to be sure it was dry. I balled milled in a 12lb rock tumbler with lead balls for 12 hours. My 3g burn test was 0.45 sec and I decided to granulate to 6 mesh instead of 4 mesh. I have a lot of BP guns and it came out about FFg.

Anyway, I did a baseball test and according to the calculation it went to 1000 ft with 25g. The hottest stuff I have ever made. If I didnt know I would think it was benzolift. One other thing I think it is best to hold the dextrin to around 2% and dissolve it in a very small portion of boiling distilled water to wet the comp to granulate. I think it best not to over wet. Add water/dex very slowly and work in well between increments. Too wet and it is not so good or I cant get it dry. I wet just until you can squeeze a handful and it takes a shape then granulate.

[Merlin]

Holy cow the 5cuft bag will only make 4lbs? or the smaller bag?

4 lbs of airfloat is a lot. I make 20 oz batches of BP and only 3 oz is charcoal. That makes 21 lbs of BP. Thats a lot to me. Anyway with the cedar shavings to dont have to make into airfloat just use in mill as is. I am continuing to experiment with cedar but so far the hottest BP I have made was with alder. The cedar has done almost as well but my technique comes into play but cedar, alder, willow or white pine will all work.