willowchar Posted October 24, 2020 Posted October 24, 2020 Contemplating buying a blade mill. One dedicated for creating air float oxidizers (not ap.) and one dedicated for fuels.Has anyone used one for these purposes?Will a blade mill reduce particle size better than a coffee grinder?Thanks.
BetICouldMake1 Posted October 26, 2020 Posted October 26, 2020 Most coffee grinders are essentially mini blade mills unless you buy a more expensive burr mill. They do sell larger blade mills for milling flour, herbs, and the like. I have one with a 700g capacity and it works far better than the old coffee blade mill I had, surprisingly well for the cost actually. It's capable of producing much finer particles, though it needs to be run intermittently and has a open brushed motor which does pose a hazard.
Jazzbass5 Posted November 2, 2020 Posted November 2, 2020 A "bullet" style mixer, nutribullet, magic bullet style are very good for blade milling.
Richtee Posted November 2, 2020 Posted November 2, 2020 A burr mill will produce reasonably even sized grains.. not powder easily. If yo want to shoot for a mesh size, a burr is the tool. If ya wanna dust something the blade is the deal.
BetICouldMake1 Posted November 3, 2020 Posted November 3, 2020 The other downside to to burr mills is that they are much harder to clean. If you use them to mill oxidizers you may run into issues with rust fairly quickly.
shockie Posted November 30, 2020 Posted November 30, 2020 A "bullet" style mixer, nutribullet, magic bullet style are very good for blade milling.Have a link to any?
royster Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 Have a link to any?Search Nutribullet on amazon, or walmart has them, they are quite powerful for $50 and you can buy extra containers and blades.
NeighborJ Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 I use a flour mill for my blade mill. A nutribullet would be frustratingly slow due to the small processing batches. Flour mills can be loaded with lbs and cost far less.
willowchar Posted December 1, 2020 Author Posted December 1, 2020 I too went the flour mill route for a blade mill and was very impressed with how efficient it is. It definitely beats a coffee grinder and bullet hands down. 1
SeaMonkey Posted December 13, 2020 Posted December 13, 2020 Would this machine be a good choice? Or possibly one like this? Their descriptions and specs seem potentially suitable.
justvisiting Posted December 13, 2020 Posted December 13, 2020 BetICouldMake1, do you have a lot of experience with burr mills? I don't. The owner of our local grocery store has a burr mill they used for coffee, that I could have for 200 bucks- if I had the 200 bucks It's the usual brand, can't remember it off-hand. Anyway, I thought the burr mill would be good for making particulate charcoal, along the lines of commercial airfloat. I've enquired a few times about how that charcoal is made. My impression is that it is broken up into ever-smaller pieces, and floated on a stream of air to a receiver vessel. Commercial airfloat charcoal makes a predictable, particulate effect, due to the mix of particle sizes. I have made comets before with a very narrow cut of particle sizes (by accident, as a beginner) and the effect was amazing. I believe that ball-milled charcoal is not so good for charcoal stars and comets, because it smashes down instread of breaking it. It's hard to explain what I mean, but think of a piece of titanium sponge. Hit that piece with a hammer, and it's not sponge any more. It's a button, and doesn't burn the same. I thought the grocery store burr mill, with its various settings, like 'espresso' and 'Turkish' could break charcoal down in a way that is more flattering to the effect than a ball mill. What does anybody think? Am I nuts? OK, I am, but what about the idea?
BetICouldMake1 Posted December 14, 2020 Posted December 14, 2020 JV, I would think one of those commercial burr mills (probably a Bunn?) would be great for charcoal. I wouldn't say I have extensive experience but I use a burr mill for coffee, and I've used cylinder burr mills for grinding grains to brew/distill. When I first got started I used a hand crank mill, a plate burr mill, for reducing charcoal before milling and it worked awesome other than being messy and tiring. The garbage disposal is faster and easier but doesn't grind nearly as well in terms of final particle size after a single pass. Quality burr mills are usually quite good at producing relatively uniform grinds, particularly if you want an intermediate size, which is why they are preferred for coffee and grain milling.
Mumbles Posted December 15, 2020 Posted December 15, 2020 There was someone who made or was selling a charcoal grinder at one point that basically looked like a grain mill from hell. The rollers had raised ribs to pull the charcoal chunks through the rollers. It worked pretty well at smashing up chunks into more manageable pieces. Around the same time things like garbage disposals became popular, and I don't think it was economically viable to make custom charcoal crushers like this. I think the same idea, possibly just with a repurposed homebrew mill or something might be a neat idea to try to make more uniform coarser pieces for tails. My one concern with uniform sizing is the friability of charcoal. I don't know how well it'd be crushed to a uniform granule, vs being sort of shattered apart. Only one way to find out at least. With homebrewing, it's become popular to slightly wet and condition the grain before grinding. This is for basically the same reason. It reduces the friability of the grains and soften the hull a little bit. You get a more uniform crush with less flour, and the grain husk stays intact better for improved lautering.
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