Ball mill question

[BingBong]

I'm new to the hobby and I want to purchase a small ball mill to make small batches of black powder, will this rock tumbler I saw online work? Not from the US so no Harbor Freight for me. I intend on using lead media, but the interior of the jar seems to be made of stainless steel/aluminum. Will that be safe? I can't find any rubber jars. Should I just use a plastic canister instead?

[Richtee]

Naw, that jar is likely synthetic rubber. Can’t really see the pix, but metal would be a poor choice for either rocks or powder.

[BingBong]

I see. I'll just go ahead and buy it, it's only 28 bucks anyways, I'll just use some food containers if the jar is made of stainless steel.

[MicroGram]

You can get the Harbour Freight/Chicago Electric ones on Ebay/Amazon or resellers outside US.

 

The one you pictures will most likely suck.

[TXpyro]

If there's an treadmill, there's a ball mill. Just get some PVC and make a jar then you'll be good to go. You don't even have to modify it if you don't want to. You can just run a board across the belt to prevent the jar from falling off. 

[BingBong]

The description says that it has a 100 volt motor, I have no benchmark to compare that to. Is that strong enough?

[cmjlab]

Well for $28, it's definitely worth a try!  If it works great! If it don't - then you're just limited to smaller batches of B.P. till you can make / buy a bigger one, and it only cost a few bucks. Win/win.

[Guest]

On 12/12/2023 at 12:30 PM, TXpyro said:

If there's an treadmill, there's a ball mill. Just get some PVC and make a jar then you'll be good to go. You don't even have to modify it if you don't want to. You can just run a board across the belt to prevent the jar from falling off. 

Treadmill you say?

Hmmmm….🤔