What went wrong?

[GMetcalf]

It looks like pine, but although that usually means it won't make hot powder, it doesn't mean it can't! Trial and experiment with your own homemade charcoal is always the best way! And it does sound like your powder is good enough when it comes out of the mill.

 

Humidity will indeed make things tend to clump (regardless of chemical or mixture) and that's probably what's been happening to the powder. In a humid area like Florida the makeshift drying box is probably a good shout. Try granulating the powder using an alcohol and water mixture. Lots of numbers are quoted but I personally use 75% water with 25% alcohol. The alcohol I use is isopropanol as it's cheap and easy to get but clean (undyed) methylated spirits would probably also work.

 

The quantity of added water will vary based on the starting water content of the powder. This is influenced by environmental moisture which varies based on the weather etc. so a lot of things can change how much water you need to add!

[coogan1997]

This video may help

[BeverFever]

Defiantly moisture in the last mill batch. It kind of feels that way on my fingers. I'll granulate some and save the rest and if it doesn't perform I'll desiccate and remill.

[BeverFever]

This video may help

 

I love that video!

[mikeee]

Bever,

 

You should read up on the TLUD cooking method for making charcoal.

It makes high quality charcoal with half of the wood compared to the retort method.

[BeverFever]

 

I'll look into making one. This is honestly taking forever....... I'm ready for the charcoal to be done.

Edited June 14, 2015 by BeverFever

[Mumbles]

When I was using a stock harbor freight tumbler, it always took 8-12hr to make good quality lift. I always tested it before deeming it "done", but the time required seemed to be a factor of how fine of materials I started with and how humid it was. On overly humid days, I needed to stop the mill and break up the cakes and lumps sometimes. If you make some modifications, you can get into the 4hr or less range though. Mostly, it involves increasing the speed of the driven roller. This is most commonly done by increasing the diameter with rubber tubing.

 

As long as it's white pine, it will probably be fine. It will make something comparable to or moderately faster than commercial BP. This is the type of stuff generally sold for 2x4 and things of that nature. Yellow pine is another story. It's much more sappy than white pine, and is much slower, though good for sparks. This is typically what is used for structural lumber and beams. As the names imply, there is a color difference. White pine is also significantly less dense.

 

Basically, as long as the pallet wood works for you, great. I haven't had a chance to see the videos, but I'll try to check them out soon. If I were you, I'd consider running a magnet through the charcoal. It could be a bad day if a nail ever slipped passed you, and got into the mill.

[BeverFever]

.

Basically, as long as the pallet wood works for you, great. I haven't had a chance to see the videos, but I'll try to check them out soon. If I were you, I'd consider running a magnet through the charcoal. It could be a bad day if a nail ever slipped passed you, and got into the mill.

 

Yes I do run a magnet through it after reading your post and seeing pictures of nails coming out of ball mills.

Mumbles, I read you say to test a match head size pile. I ask because I'm getting inconsistent tests with the same mill batch. Mill powder is what I'm testing.

 

Oh, and to add about the wood. It was easy to split, burns fast and I could easily cut it with branch trimmers. It cut clean as long as the piece wasn't to large.

Edited June 14, 2015 by BeverFever

[Merlin]

What works for me is a 12lb HF ball mill half filled with 50 cal hardened lead balls and 1/4 filled with comp. It will mill for 5 hours and be done. I spent since last spring on and off trying to make BP. DO NOT waste your time on the type of wood you use to make charcoal. Go straight to Wal-Mart or Pet-Depot and get a bag of red cedar shavings. It will last a very long time. Then I use a gallon paint can stuffed with the cedar shavings, drill a 1/4 inch in the lid and hammer it on the can. Place on a hot propane burner. Mine is a bayou classic for seafood boils. You can put a round grill grate on it and process 3 gallon cans at one cooking. That will make enough charcoal for 3lbs of BP. Heat at very high temp until smoke comes out the 1/4" hole in the lid then try lighting the gasses being driven off, they will burn. At some point remove the can with a stick and tip it over a couple times to mix the contents. return to fire. Then when it quits burning and no smoke is coming out cover the hole with a coin or aluminum tape (I use a empty 7.62x39 shell casing- it plugs the hole nicely) You just want to be sure the can is sealed from air while it cools for a couple hours. At that point you have excellent charcoal. make sure your chems are dry before weighing 75/15/10 for milling. Fold a piece of 8x11 copy paper diagonal and weight 3 grams of your DRY finished meal powder. Meal is not necessarily dry directly out of the mill. Place the meal in the fold of the paper and lay the paper flat. Attach a piece of visco with tape to the beginning of the line of meal powder. Have your cell phone ready to video. Light fuse and video the burn. Transfer the video to your PC. Use a video editor like avidemux 2.6 (this is a free download) and move your cell phone video to the editor. Now you can advance or back up frame by frame to determine exactly when the burn began and ended to 1/1000 sec. If you are down to 0.4 sec burn range you will have very good BP. The folks on this forum helped me and I trust them- especially the one's like dagabu, mumbles, nater, calebkessinger ,arthur, mikee and others. They wont steer you wrong.

[BeverFever]

Thanks for the detailed post. If this charcoal doesn't perform then I'll go buy the pet shavings. I just made a 5 gallon bucket worth of charcoal so if it doesn't work well for lift, I have plenty of good sparking TT and N1 charcoal! But let's hope it works. Did you see the videos of my burn tests?

 

Here is another

Edited June 15, 2015 by BeverFever

[Merlin]

Thanks for the detailed post. If this charcoal doesn't perform then I'll go buy the pet shavings. I just made a 5 gallon bucket worth of charcoal so if it doesn't work well for lift, I have plenty of good sparking TT and N1 charcoal! But let's hope it works. Did you see the videos of my burn tests?

 

Here is another

I did and as best I could tell it was .543 sec which is pretty good. What you want to do from batch to batch is always weigh exactly 3 grams of powder and put in the fold of a sheet of printing paper evenly across the crease the diagonal width of the paper. Use visco fuse. Tape it down and weight the edges of the paper so there is no movement. Video it from a foot or two above ground level. You want to see exactly the frame the burn stops and ends. If you video from above the flame and smoke obscure the timing of the video. Also, if you make a drying box which I did out of an old 48 gallon igloo cooler with a short section of clothes dryer metal vent at the intake and a plastic dryer vent with the backflow flapper removed on top for the exit vent be sure you get a non-sparking CERAMIC heater. They are only about twenty dollars. I put a outside temp / relative humidity detector on the outlet vent. When the temp is 135 degrees F and the humidity is 15% a couple more hours and its dry if its bp. A large comet takes overnight.

[BeverFever]

I granulated that powder you timed, thank you by the way. I have the grains in a food dehydrator. The elements are covered

 

I'm not enthralled by the grain size of the powder. I probably should have wet it more. I used 70% rubbing alcohol to wet it. At least it will dry fast. Used a 8 mesh screen.

 

Here is a photo with a penny for reference.

Can I wet it again and redo it if I don't like it? Or does that ruin everything.

[mikeee]

Let it dry and then run it through a screen to sort the larger grains from the fine powder.

There are plenty of uses for the different sized grains of powder.

You will never have too much BP on hand for it to be a problem.

Make another batch and compare the two for performance.

[Merlin]

I don't think wetting more would be useful. I think for 4FA most use a 4 mesh. If I want fine grain I use a 6. Really depends on what you want to use it for. 4FA is a good size for lift. What you have should work for burst in small shells with a Booster added. If you bound with dextrin the grains won't break down by adding Solvent. You would have to ball mill it again. I would save it for burst with a Booster and make a new batch for lift with a 4 mesh.

[jordanm]

Read through this thread:

http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/10839-poor-lift-powder-not-getting-shells-and-baseball-high-enough-into-the-air/

 

I was having the same issues. I believe my ultimate problem was that my bp was not dry enough which did not give me consistent results. I have now built a tlud and am making my eastern red cedar charcoal for my bp (Lowes pet beding). I have to use 8% of the total shell weight for lift due to 10% launching it to high.

 

Listen to every one here and you will get it right.

[BeverFever]

Fast enough? This is the fines that passed a 15 mesh screen.

It honestly startled me. Wasn't expecting that.

Edited June 15, 2015 by BeverFever

[BeverFever]

And here is another video of the granuals that stayed on a 15 mesh but passed an 8 mesh.

Let me know what you think!

[Merlin]

The pile was 0.27 sec. There are two ways to quantify results. weigh exactly 3 grams of powder and put in the fold of a sheet of printing paper evenly across the crease the diagonal width of the paper. Use visco fuse. Tape it down and weight the edges of the paper so there is no movement. Video it from a foot or two above ground level. You want to see exactly the frame the burn starts and stops. video from above the flame and smoke obscure the timing of the video. If you get 0.5 secs you have very good meal-d. Granulate the meal-d and weigh 25g into a 3" mortar and drop in a baseball. Time the flight from explosion to the sec the ball hits ground. From this a approximate altitude can be calculated. My best batch of BP was 900 ft -my worst 500 ft. 17grams of the best will launch a 3" shell to the right altitude while I need 28.8 grams of the worst to do the same. Point is the powder is useable. Just label each batch and you will know how much of each run to use. If you change type charcoal or go to alc/red gum vs dex/water you will see different results. You will see different results if you over wet the meal-d in granulation. Point is you can use all your powder if you compensate and keep it labeled. Someday I hope to be very consistent.

Edited June 18, 2015 by Merlin