Pyrotechnica

[jimjones]

I live in Brazil and here it is very difficult to find and buy charcoal other than activated charcoal and barbecue charcoal. The barbecue charcoal here is made from eucalyptus, I think it is a hardwood.

That`s why I wanted to read this article about charcoals to know which trees are good for BP and to know if I would be able to find it in Brazil.

 

Balsa seems a very good option and the wood can be found here, though it is very expensive.

Willow exists here, but I couldn`t find Willow wood to buy.

[SharkWhisperer]

 

Suffering through your pompous writing style on more than one occasion (through reading your posts here) had led me to believe, or at least to fathom, that you may work in the legal profession in some capacity. Although it wouldn't make writing like a lawyer on a *pyrotechnics forum* any more forgivable, it would help me to understand why you find a need to compose each of your posts in the same stuffy, formal manner as a politicians obituary.

 

Unfortunately, your evident lack of understanding of the most basic principles of US copyright law makes it clear this is not the case.

Sheila hi,

 

Unfortunately, my empathy for you and your limitations being a fellow pyro being based in restrictive Oz have been downgraded because of your inane insults.

 

I am sorry, though, for the "suffering" that reading grammatically correct English and your difficulty with words longer than two syllables has caused you. But I am certain you will be able to advance in the reading department if you continue to work hard on your high school studies. I have faith in you.

 

 

Jim Jones in Brasil: Your country, at least until recently, was the second largest manufacturer of fireworks in the world, after China. There's gotta be a large pyro group there that might be able to assist you in locating what type of wood is best in Brasil. That said, it is a huge country, with highly variable forestry across the geography. What state are you in? I know pines of various types are native to some areas of Brasil and here there are many, but the charcoal quality for pyro is species-dependent. Brasilian imports can be strict (I know firsthand). Besides trying to locate local pyros, I'd imagine that the local model rocket people often make their own motors, which means...BP. They might be easier to locate. Here in the US, most residential construction is timber framed, and inexpensive soft white woods (spruce/pine/fir) can be found at large home improvement/construction stores (here Home Depot and Lowes); some report making decent BP from that. Do you have something similar there? Also, Amazon is very pervasive there now---I'm wondering if you could import a few bags of Eastern Red Cedar chips that we use here as pet bedding and also to make very fast BP. The import/shipping might cost a bit, but the product itself is cheap--this might be worth looking into. If you decide to collect local woods on your own, by now you probably know that fast-growing trees that live near water have the best likelihood of making decent charcoal for BP. This might require some experimentation, but that is pretty easy if you have the other two ingredients. It is interesting to me that a bag of Royal Oak Lump Charcoal that I bought in the USA for churrasco/grilling meats was "Made in Brazil", complete with the government stamp on the bottom of the bag. No idea what wood type was in there, though.

 

Anyways, good luck. Appropriate wood(s) for BP exist in Brasil and I am certain that you will locate what you need. Please keep us updated; your experiences will be helpful to many.

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by SharkWhisperer

[NeighborJ]

I think we need a thumbs down button just for SW. A mute button will do. You have any aliases? ChrisB perhapse? Edited February 6, 2020 by NeighborJ

[Yus]

Buy here:

 

https://www.abebooks.com/collections/sc/pyrotechnics/yUF6NQk2W1tdenSFIJB16

[SharkWhisperer]

Buy here:

 

https://www.abebooks.com/collections/sc/pyrotechnics/yUF6NQk2W1tdenSFIJB16

Yus, thanks for providing another good resource, but they only have Pyrotechnica II here, not the version the OP was looking for...

[SharkWhisperer]

I think we need a thumbs down button just for SW. A mute button will do. You have any aliases? ChrisB perhapse?

Oh my! Now that's not very Neighborly!

 

My delicate sensibilities have been harshly abraded by your slander, and I am getting teary.

 

You're a smart guy (apart from the decision to remain in god-awful Pittsburgh), so what advice do you have to J Jones regarding his true needs. He needs a charcoal source for BP in Brazil (It's spelled "Brasil" if you're from Brazil, btw). He doesn't need a 43 year-old article on charcoal or an education on copyright ethics. He needs charcoal.

 

How can we help him?

[Maserface]

Yus, thanks for providing another good resource, but they only have Pyrotechnica II here, not the version the OP was looking for...

This is the book store for a guy named warren klofkorn, hes a nice old guy whos been slinging pyro literature for a long time. Im sure if you send him a message or an email he will sell you any issue youd like. He and the publisher are both old boys with bad health, you could do worse with your money than by supporting them.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Maserface

[AustralianPyromaniac]

I graduated high school a while back Shark, these days I'm a law student at one of my nations most respected Universities.

 

But thank you for the keen insight.

 

It's not that complex writing is any less correct, but it is unnecessary; often limiting potential audiences and disenfranchising unfamiliar readers.

It can also seem abrasive, as it seems you've found out.

 

Regards, AP

[SharkWhisperer]

I graduated high school a while back Shark, these days I'm a law student at one of my nations most respected Universities.

 

But thank you for the keen insight.

 

It's not that complex writing is any less correct, but it is unnecessary; often limiting potential audiences and disenfranchising unfamiliar readers.

It can also seem abrasive, as it seems you've found out.

 

Regards, AP

So you graduated high school awhile back. As in last year? Congratulations. A first-year law student is fantastic, too & I wish you success. But It also means you are an expert on precisely nothing. Including pyro, writing, and especially US copyright laws (Australian, too). Don't be the equivalent of a first-year medical student who wraps a stethescope around their neck and thinks they know medicine.

 

Now my writing has gone from "stuffy" to "complex"? Well I'll take that as a compliment. If you feel disenfranchised by articulate prose, then that speaks volumes about you. If you're worried about others' perceptions of my writing style, well, ask them--they probably don't need an 18-year-old "helping" them by requesting simplification on their behalf.

 

And articulate writing is not abrasive. Abrasive writing is abrasive. And occasionally deserved.

 

In any event, good luck with your studies. There are definitely not enough attorneys in this world !!

 

Back on topic now: New guy Jim Jones needs help--So what do you know about woods for making charcoal for BP in Brazil?

Edited February 6, 2020 by SharkWhisperer

[NeighborJ]

I'll pray for you SW.

 

Yus, that is an awsome link. I will definitely be stocking my shelves with a few of those.

[AustralianPyromaniac]

Jim, I have got to say, I apologise for hijacking your thread. It seems some of us got a little worked up; I hope you understand why.

 

I can't help you much in the search for a copy of Pyrotechnica or with information regarding sourcing of charcoal in Brazil, but similar challenges with chemical sourcing are faced by pyros in Australia as well. I have looked into charcoal sourcing a bit. I think the best way is just to source a good local softwood and make charcoal oneself. The other option is, as you say, BBQ charcoal. I have attached my writings on charcoal sourcing in Australia. I hope it will be of some help. If not it may help someone else who comes across this thread in the future. If you need info on OTC chemical sourcing of anything else, I have done a fair bit of research and testing into OTC pyro and colour composition development, always happy to help.

 

 

OTC Charcoal Sourcing Information.pdf

Regards, AP

 

 

 

[NeighborJ]

Doesn't balsa wood grow in brazil? You can't ask for much better charcoal than balsa.

[SharkWhisperer]

Doesn't balsa wood grow in brazil? You can't ask for much better charcoal than balsa.

NJ, he said earlier that he does indeed have local balsa availability, but it is expensive as all get-out. Also, as a new guy to the trade, he might have difficulty with the low-density factor when using balsa. Everything from only being able to retort only a small amount at once to charcoal (assuming a smaller hobbyist retort) to BP production issues (overloaded jars, again if starting on a typical new hobbyist scale). But for sure it would make some screaming hot BP!

 

J Jones. Where in Brasil are you located? Perhaps it would be possible to locate/contact a balsa harvesting/processing company and organize to purchase their balsa scraps that are left-over after processing. If they are far away, shipping costs might get expensive because even a very large box only holds a small mass of balsawood... It seems to me that this might not be economically feasible in the long run, though, or many of us would routinely be using balsa charcoal. Probably best is to start investigating what trees grow in your neighborhood. You will really need a sufficient and sustainable source of proven wood, and free is ideal. A suitable wood grows in your neighborhood, for sure. You just need to identify and locate it.

[justvisiting]

jimjones, I'm very familiar with the article in Pyrotechnica 17 by Roger O 'Neill. All the woods tested were American-sourced. Balsa and eucalyptus were not included. The charcoal tests linked to earlier on wichitabuggywhip include both balsa and eucalyptus. The Pyrotechnica study was very interesting, but I don't think it would help you very much. In that study, all charcoals were laboriously processed, as was the sulfur and the potassium nitrate. This was to reduce all the charcoals to a similar state of subdivision to 'level the playing field' for testing. In real-life scenarios, nobody but nobody goes to such extreme efforts to make black powder. My point here is not to disparage the article at all, but rather, to let you know you aren't missing out on information you need

 

The point I am making is that the charcoals that come out on top in the Pyrotechnica study are not the charcoals typically used by amateur pyrotechnists, and quite possibly not available to you anyway. It seems that you are looking for smallish amounts, anyway. I'd say Danny's website and this forum would be all you really need to get up and running. Willow seems to be available in much of the world, and is a good BP charcoal.

 

Another thing you might consider: people base their opinions on BP charcoals by testing the accepted 75-15-10 formula, using generally accepted preparation methods. Extra milling can make a slower BP charcoal perform better. Changing the formula to say, 75-20-10 can give better performance too. In general, you want a fast-growing wood that grows near water. I get the impression you want to buy the charcoal. It's pretty easy to make yourself, and lots of good advice is available on that subject right here. The stuff you lovingly make yourself will likely be better than what you can buy, just like most things we make from scratch.

[jimjones]

Thanks for all the help. I live in a big city near São Paulo. It is far from amazon, but I can find many types of trees around my neighborhood, I just don`t know the exact species and also don`t know about their softness.

 

I will experiment with other charcoals that are available to buy, then I will post the results here. At the moment I have just tested the briquette charcoal from eucalyptus, but it resulted in a very slow BP (burning-rate of about 13cm/s). If none of the commercially available charcoals is good, then I will make my own charcoal.

[NeighborJ]

Generally the charcoal sold for cooking is made under different conditions for a much different purpose. It is undercooked to preserve many of the natural volatiles in the wood to enhance the flavor of the food and extend the cooking time.

 

Charcoal made for BP has most of its volatiles cooked out under higher temperatures to ensure it will take fire easily and burn as fast as possible. The charcoal made for biochar is the most similar charcoal to what we require. You may be able to find some near you sold thru farming supply companies and it may make a servicable BP.

[Piccaso]

Generally the charcoal sold for cooking is made under different conditions for a much different purpose. It is undercooked to preserve many of the natural volatiles in the wood to enhance the flavor of the food and extend the cooking time.

 

Charcoal made for BP has most of its volatiles cooked out under higher temperatures to ensure it will take fire easily and burn as fast as possible. The charcoal made for biochar is the most similar charcoal to what we require. You may be able to find some near you sold thru farming supply companies and it may make a servicable BP.

Good point I never thought of it that way. I knew that charcoal brickets had clay in them and we didn't want that but I never even thought of them not fully cooking it for flavor.