black powder (separately milled/ screened) and wood discussion

[Arthur]

Well incorporated and milled powder comes from all sorts of wood. If you only get decent powder from balsa then your method is sub standard, balsa makes insanely fast charcoal/powder when milled properly.

 

A good means of checking is to mill for a while then take out a sample and repeat. Take all the samples press and corn them and then fire a baseball with each. You should see an improvement in the powder for each increasing mill time to a peak where no further milling improves performance -that's your process time.

[SignalKanboom]

I have to mill comps separately. Sulfur And charcoal in one jar, and kno3 in another jar, both running on the mill at the same time. I then screen them. Milling together is not an option due to safety and consideration of others that dont understand.

[MikeL]

I have to mill comps separately. Sulfur And charcoal in one jar, and kno3 in another jar, both running on the mill at the same time. I then screen them. Milling together is not an option due to safety and consideration of others that dont understand.

That's how I plan to do it. At the moment I don't have the space to place the mill far enough from anything, like neighbors, that wouldn't understand the unlikely event of 1/2" lead balls flying out of an exploding mill jar. For that matter, I wouldn't be all that thrilled with it either.

[SignalKanboom]

Well I had a enclosure that would stop any of that from happening. Im just in an area where I dont need someone misunderstanding the hobby. Its sad the world works the way it does these days.

[Arthur]

Perhaps a trip out "fishing" to somewhere suitably wild but not too dangerous would be an alternative. Weigh out several bags containing a pound/kilo/etc of ingredients and use a mill off an inverter or something like a drill battery and a 12v mill. Come home with a fish from the shop and a load of bp to press and corn( or rice it)

[SignalKanboom]

Everything I do stays on my property, unless I was able to travel to pgi. I would only travel with separate components though. Not to derail the thread, but can anyone go to pgi and build things? Edited October 30, 2020 by SignalKanboom

[Arthur]

At WPA Do-It there is a strict rule that nothing live passes out of the gate unless you have permission to possess it in NV and all states to home and the proper store. Don't know about PGI.

However for a week's attendance fee you could probably get the right store (for your local state county/district) and buy powder from a reloading supplier.

[Mumbles]

Any member in good standing can manufacture at PGI. The catch generally comes in having space reserved. You can/have to reserve a table ahead of time. Generally speaking, you can almost always find someone to let you share some space with them. A number of APC members go every year, and it'd be a good way to meet some people. Depending on what you want to do, certain items like rocket presses I believe, need to be against a wall. There is a dedicated area for some electrified things like drying boxes, ball mills, and hot glue guns.

 

If you want to totally assemble something on site starting from scratch it can be quite a task. You can buy many items on site if you're not looking to bend any rules.

[MikeL]

I'm very new to this- is PGI membership "generally" recommended? I checked the website and it seems it would be if you're serious about this (I am)

[SignalKanboom]

I would definitely do what you said mumbles (Not bend anything lol).

Arthur,I dont have a problem with my technique, or powder anymore. I did, but now I understand the variables involved in the process enough. I started this thread out of the sheer amazement over the variation in charcoal types. When you here about charcoal from the higher ups, I think most newbies think, Im gonna try it with readily available supplies, and then ask why it didnt work. I know I had a false hope that it would work with any old charcoal mentioned on forums, so ordering air float was the first kind I tried ignorantly. I believe most dont truly Grasp the importance of the variables until they follow all the necessary steps to make bp and fail to meet their own expectations. My goal is to help people understand this Their first time by appealing to their desire for a easier way to make usable bp in a short amount of time. I know there are people more likely to enjoy this hobby if ball milling remotely could be removed from the equation. It seems daunting when you hear you need screens, ball mill, and media. The media is lead and thats scary, on top of all this you have to have a remote area.

 

One could argue that you shouldnt be involved in this hobby if you arent willing to do it right, but some people are more nervous than others and some want to try in their garage, this offers an easy Method with a high success rate in my opinion.

[Arthur]

Most to all new starters in pyro begin by making a shopping trip for BBQ charcoal or worse briquettes (which contain cement!) then after several fails they realise that the old traditional ways for making good powder really do work, and good powder can be made cheaply and rapidly with select ingredients.

 

DIY pyro relies totally on having a good supply of powder in several mesh cut ranges. Dud powder from failed batches is called fountain mix!

[MikeL]

 

 

I think most newbies think, Im gonna try it with readily available supplies

 

I did that but this forum pointed me back to center and now I'm on a mission to carefully and correctly make black powder.

 

That said I am about 1-1/2 hours away from shutting the ball mill off and dumping my small sample of charcoal made from pecan out. I have a media separator. I have screens (2 through 100 in 9 steps), and I have a bucket. As I was getting things in place I realized that I'm in the "now what" phase. I'll be surprised if I have anymore than 1/4 to a 1/2 cup of charcoal. A couple of film cannisters would suite me right now. It's hard to tell since it's distributed with 35# of lead balls.

 

Now I have questions. What screen size do I start with? Once I have it screened do I weigh it, add the correct weight of sulfur and mill some more? Can I store the mix for a week or so or should I wait? Patience I have. It's the knowledge that's missing. Ie what's next

[justvisiting]

Your test is probably not 'perfect', because the mill was grossly under-charged. This will cause accelerated wear on the media, and the worn off lead will be in your charcoal. It's very hard on lead media to mill charcoal, never mind in tiny amounts. I don't say this to burst your bubble, but it's info you need to know and seem to want to know.

 

Storage is no problem, but keep it dry.

 

When I make screen-mixed black powder, I mill the 3 components separately. Lots of folks mill the sulfur and charcoal together in a 1:1.5 ratio. You can mill much larger amounts of your charcoal/sulfur than what is needed for one batch. You can mill it for a long time, like 4-6 hours, and then mill 3 batches worth of potassium nitrate for 2 hours each. I do this on my 2 jar mill, so the nitrate jar is run 3 times during the 6 hour charcoal milling cycle.

 

When I make screen-mixed powder, I use a 40 mesh screen, and run the powder through twice, blending by hand in between. 60 or 100 mesh are not needed, and take way too long. The potential danger of milling live powder is replaced with the potential danger of way too much facetime with the powder So, 40 mesh is good.

 

There's no such thing as black powder that isn't good for anything.

[MikeL]

It definitely was. I didn't know it was hard on lead to mill charcoal. Is there a better media? I definitely want to know anything I need to know. This is long term process for me.I don't have thin skin or ego issues <-- I hope that doesn't qualify as an ego issue If it's delivered as help I'll take it.

 

40 mesh it is then. I stopped the mill earlier at about 4 hours of total time with one hour of only 15#'s of media (yet another lesson). I'll dump it in the morning after a little coffee.

 

Too much face time... I have PPE and I can get better if what I have doesn't work. I'll weight it tomorrow and add sulfur... the ratios are all by weight correct?

[justvisiting]

Yes, always by weight. The PPE wasn't my main concern, and I don't use it for BP. The longer black powder is open and exposed, the greater chance that a stray spark may find its way to it. Maybe a glue gun shorts out, or a cell phone battery ignites, or a light bulb bursts. Newbies don't always look around them at potential ignition sources. It's advisable to wear cotton clothes, long sleeves, work outdoors when possible, and always have a clear path to safety. It's standard practice to keep combustibles and other pyro out of any area where live pyro is being handled. In the event of a mishap, it's a small mishap. An abundance of caution is good at first, until the risks are better understood. Making black powder is not at all hard to do. It's just hard to know the right things to do sometimes, starting out.

[justvisiting]

P.S. If you are in the mood to quantify your media wear, weigh the charcoal going in and coming out. I use 302 stainless steel media. Ceramic is inefficient, and I would not use it. It can work OK, but I'd rather put the money into better media.

[MikeL]

All good points. It seems like there's always a cell phone around. I wear company supplied FR and by now, after all of the washings, it's cotton. The price is right though.

[MikeL]

P.S. If you are in the mood to quantify your media wear, weigh the charcoal going in and coming out. I use 302 stainless steel media. Ceramic is inefficient, and I would not use it. It can work OK, but I'd rather put the money into better media.

 

I missed the chance to weigh it going in

How much SST are you using? I'm using a hexagonal "jar" that requires 35 pounds of lead. I'm seriously considering make the current charcoal jar only charcoal and use my second jar for mixing. Actually... that's what I plan to do. It's why I have two jars

[Bourbon]

Between 9-12# charge wouldn't be out of the ballpark for 35# lead media. I'm probably wrong, but that's why I come here to. These guys are sharp and quick to point this stuff out.

[Arthur]

I have a strong preference for ceramic media, it makes the drum lighter and easier to turn.

It's mostly convenient for me to run a mill for about 10 hours, it turns while I'm at work for the day. Ceramic media is much more resistant to wear.

 

Be realistic about mill jar batch sizes. Weigh out the media needed to half fill the jar, use that much regularly. Almost fill the "jar with media" with coarse ingredient and weigh that ingredient. That's a fair load for a mill batch. When you open the mill after time the ingredient will have become smaller and filled all the spaces between the media, A good full load should be enough for the finished product to just comfortably cover the media -under load the ingredients and the media will abrade, overload a mill with ingredients and it will take much longer to mill.

 

A rubber mill jar will be a lot quieter than a plastic one. There is lots of sense in having a large mill and a small one -often you don't want to mill several kilos of expensive ingredients.

[justvisiting]

Sorry Bourbon, but yeah, that's a bit off

 

I use the Rebel 17 'jars', which I've found to be about equivalent to standard 6" diameter Sponenjars, run on the same mill. The Sponenjars run at 68 RPM, and the Rebel jars run at 58. For me, a typical run of charcoal would be 500 grams. If it's super fluffy like balsa, I may have to load and mill half of it, and then introduce the other half of the 500 grams because the 500 wouldn't fit. When I run complete BP in the same jars, I'd run 750 grams of powder. If I mill just potassium nitrate, the charge would be 1kg. of crystalline KNO3. I don't mill the sulfur with the charcoal, myself. It would be good to do experiments with that, but I haven't gotten to it.

 

The 'rule' about loading 1/4 of the jar volume with powder to be milled and 1/2 of the jar volume with milling media is a general rule that does not apply in many cases with black powder. It's good to talk about weights of powders rather than volumes, in my lay opinion. If you want to mill 'airfloat' charcoal, sulfur powder, and crystalline potassium nitrate, the 1/4 of the jar volume rule works. Most folks don't use airfloat for BP, and most folks don't pre-mill their charcoal. That's where the rule doesn't apply. Lots of folks (successfully) mill BP with raw ERC charcoal 'chips' as the starting material for the charcoal component. This works well but the rule is broken- OR, the mill is undercharged if the rule is followed?

 

I use 30# of stainless steel media instead of 35# of lead media. The lead media I use is hardened- a must, in my opinion. It should be noted that I'm more of a pyro investigator than a pyro expert, or even an active pyro. I chose black powder as my area of fascination to start with, and I've been unable to move on from that.

 

The good thing about stainless steel media is its versatility- IF you don't intend to mill complete black powder. If you do, there's a chance of ignition. Anybody milling complete black powder with any media should assume an explosion could occur and locate the mill accordingly. I look back on the times I milled complete black powder in a garage or basement, and I shake my head. Nevermind the fire, the flying lead (Sweet Child In Time reference), or the noise. The smoke alone would be bad enough. Milling in a safe location is more important than milling 'safely', IMO. An explosion should be expected, and the fallout of same considered as a possibility to deal with. The reason I like single component milling is because I never EVER have to worry about an accident, which frees me to run my mill whatever hours I want. I can mill in the basement or shed without fear of a mishap.

 

Milling the charcoal or charcoal/sulfur with stainless steel media, and BP/BP mixtures with lead would be a very safe way to approach things.

[SignalKanboom]

Honestly the chances of an accident with lead media is slim, but it is the thoughts of could you live with a mishap on your conscience, not to mention the new garnered attention if something does happen. It causes me to worry to much to be worth it. Once I have acres of my own property, if ever then its not a worry.

 

Definitely grind charcoal and sulfur at the same time.

Edited October 31, 2020 by SignalKanboom

[SignalKanboom]

Sorry Bourbon, but yeah, that's a bit off

 

I use the Rebel 17 'jars', which I've found to be about equivalent to standard 6" diameter Sponenjars, run on the same mill. The Sponenjars run at 68 RPM, and the Rebel jars run at 58. For me, a typical run of charcoal would be 500 grams. If it's super fluffy like balsa, I may have to load and mill half of it, and then introduce the other half of the 500 grams because the 500 wouldn't fit. When I run complete BP in the same jars, I'd run 750 grams of powder. If I mill just potassium nitrate, the charge would be 1kg. of crystalline KNO3. I don't mill the sulfur with the charcoal, myself. It would be good to do experiments with that, but I haven't gotten to it.

 

The 'rule' about loading 1/4 of the jar volume with powder to be milled and 1/2 of the jar volume with milling media is a general rule that does not apply in many cases with black powder. It's good to talk about weights of powders rather than volumes, in my lay opinion. If you want to mill 'airfloat' charcoal, sulfur powder, and crystalline potassium nitrate, the 1/4 of the jar volume rule works. Most folks don't use airfloat for BP, and most folks don't pre-mill their charcoal. That's where the rule doesn't apply. Lots of folks (successfully) mill BP with raw ERC charcoal 'chips' as the starting material for the charcoal component. This works well but the rule is broken- OR, the mill is undercharged if the rule is followed?

 

I use 30# of stainless steel media instead of 35# of lead media. The lead media I use is hardened- a must, in my opinion. It should be noted that I'm more of a pyro investigator than a pyro expert, or even an active pyro. I chose black powder as my area of fascination to start with, and I've been unable to move on from that.

 

The good thing about stainless steel media is its versatility- IF you don't intend to mill complete black powder. If you do, there's a chance of ignition. Anybody milling complete black powder with any media should assume an explosion could occur and locate the mill accordingly. I look back on the times I milled complete black powder in a garage or basement, and I shake my head. Nevermind the fire, the flying lead (Sweet Child In Time reference), or the noise. The smoke alone would be bad enough. Milling in a safe location is more important than milling 'safely', IMO. An explosion should be expected, and the fallout of same considered as a possibility to deal with. The reason I like single component milling is because I never EVER have to worry about an accident, which frees me to run my mill whatever hours I want. I can mill in the basement or shed without fear of a mishap.

 

Milling the charcoal or charcoal/sulfur with stainless steel media, and BP/BP mixtures with lead would be a very safe way to approach things.

 

I wholly agree with all of this!!!!!

[MikeL]

I ordered some SST media. I just hope we (the media and I) don't pass each other (shipping home since I'm there for work next week).

 

 

Milling the charcoal or charcoal/sulfur with stainless steel media, and BP/BP mixtures with lead would be a very safe way to approach things.

 

That's my ever evolving plan

 

I am very grateful for this forum. I've turned down so many wrong alley's in the last few weeks but people here always tug the reins and turn me the right direction.

Edited October 31, 2020 by MikeL

[MikeL]

Honestly the chances of an accident with lead media is slim, but it is the thoughts of could you live with a mishap on your conscience, not to mention the new garnered attention if something does happen. It causes me to worry to much to be worth it. Once I have acres of my own property, if ever then its not a worry.

 

Definitely grind charcoal and sulfur at the same time.

 

The first of many pieces of good advice that I've gotten here is to learn to make BP first. I see why now. It's not complicated but it is a process that needs to be done in the right way. It's a good step. I need to come up with cost effective way to make larger batches of charcoal. Not large necessarily but larger than a 1# coffee can full of wood. Large enough to efficiently mill...