Merlin Posted May 5, 2016 Posted May 5, 2016 I have several ball mills varying in size. I have come to use the largest which is 3 gallon. I have only enough lead for the 3 gallon which has been exclusively used for milling BP. My question is would it be safe to wash the media to use in a smaller (1 gallon) setup to mill sodium or potassium benzoate and then wash again before ball milling BP? Lead balls are expensive and all I have were used for BP.Also, I would have to mill 325 perc.
schroedinger Posted May 5, 2016 Posted May 5, 2016 Merlin why not just buy ceramic or steel media for single chemicals?
lloyd Posted May 5, 2016 Posted May 5, 2016 Merlin,It's almost always safe to 'wash' lead media. The simplest way is to first just 'mill' a few jars' full of water. Then, if you need the media cleaner than that, mill some moist sawdust or rice hulls. In my opinion, the lead will come as clean as is necessary to put it to other use. (YMMV) LLoyd 1
Merlin Posted May 6, 2016 Author Posted May 6, 2016 Thanks. I have spent a lot on a press, shielding. Ptof gauge and tooling lately. A couple pounds of comp is all I need for a while. I'm gonna practice pressing 4 and 8 oz BP and work up to hybrid or maybe whistle eventually.
AzoMittle Posted May 6, 2016 Posted May 6, 2016 Merlin,It's almost always safe to 'wash' lead media. The simplest way is to first just 'mill' a few jars' full of water. Then, if you need the media cleaner than that, mill some moist sawdust or rice hulls. In my opinion, the lead will come as clean as is necessary to put it to other use. (YMMV) LLoyd Wow, that is ingenious; now if only I could ballmill my mixing screens to clean them . What is the purpose of the sawdust / rice hulls? Is it to act as an abrasive? I keep a big mixed vat of water and denatured alcohol in order to wet compositions with, would it be fine to ball mill with that, or is ballmilling things like alcohols and solvents a bad idea?
lloyd Posted May 6, 2016 Posted May 6, 2016 I wouldn't see any harm in putting alcohol in a ball mill, but it seems like it would be wasting good solvent.. Adding dry 'chaff' to a mill jar is just another way of carrying away the residues from cleaning, and leaves the medium dry afterwards. LLoyd
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