Black powder milling Without ball mill

[Zumber]

Hello All members...!!

Since lots of members dont have ball mill or this is for those who are newbie.

I have been making fireworks shells since 24 years and still today I dont have ball mill.

Now question is how do I lift my shells?

There is one very old traditional method used in our village since 200 years.

All you need is a wooden base to which 1 inch trench is formed in pentagonal or hexagonal shape and in this trench wooden frames are fixed using white fevicol glue jointed to each other by making drill and using wooden pins insted of screw to form hexagonal or pentagonal frame housing for bp.

Everything is made of wooden no metal piece is involved in frame or wooden base to avoid sparking during ramming.

Height of frame and size of hexagon or pentagon frame determines amount of black powder carried by this set up.

This wooden base is then burried half in ground and secured well.

Then damped or wet black powder is poured in frame housing (dont damp too much consistency is important)

Then using heavy duty Iron rod (generally 2.5 inch in diameter and 1 to 1.5 feet height) black powder is rammed for 1 to 1.5 hour manually. As wooden base contains no any metal part there is no chance of sparking but still for safety reason black powder is wetted enough before ramming.

After ramming process it is granulated or if someone wants bp in powder form(say for rocket)
then bp is dried well in sun then sieved it again to get in powder form. This set up gives me 5 kg milled powder in 1 batch.

Safety is almost no 1 priority that why wet bp is milled insted of dry.

Here is picture of set up.

Thank you

 

 

[DavidF]

When ball milling was popularized, the role of water in the processing of black powder was completely disregarded as unimportant. Ball mills will clump if there's moisture in the powder. Powder is milled dry, and rockets are pressed dry. The water isn't just for safety. It has an important role in making better powder by dissolving some of the nitrate and giving better intimacy of incorporation. Commercial black powder manufacturers use moisture as an aid to incorporation and Estes uses moisture to effect compaction in their rocket motors. It's only modern amateur pyros that think water is the bane of black powder, because it doesn't suit the way of milling now in common use.

I would be curious to know how much of your lift you use to lift what size shells? Also, is one of your arms much bigger than the other? 😎

[Sulphurstan]

12 hours ago, Zumber said:

Hello All members...!!

Since lots of members dont have ball mill or this is for those who are newbie.

I have been making fireworks shells since 24 years and still today I dont have ball mill.

Now question is how do I lift my shells?

There is one very old traditional method used in our village since 200 years.

All you need is a wooden base to which 1 inch trench is formed in pentagonal or hexagonal shape and in this trench wooden frames are fixed using white fevicol glue jointed to each other by making drill and using wooden pins insted of screw to form hexagonal or pentagonal frame housing for bp.

Everything is made of wooden no metal piece is involved in frame or wooden base to avoid sparking during ramming.

Height of frame and size of hexagon or pentagon frame determines amount of black powder carried by this set up.

This wooden base is then burried half in ground and secured well.

Then damped or wet black powder is poured in frame housing (dont damp too much consistency is important)

Then using heavy duty Iron rod (generally 2.5 inch in diameter and 1 to 1.5 feet height) black powder is rammed for 1 to 1.5 hour manually. As wooden base contains no any metal part there is no chance of sparking but still for safety reason black powder is wetted enough before ramming.

After ramming process it is granulated or if someone wants bp in powder form(say for rocket)
then bp is dried well in sun then sieved it again to get in powder form. This set up gives me 5 kg milled powder in 1 batch.

Safety is almost no 1 priority that why wet bp is milled insted of dry.

Here is picture of set up.

Thank you

 

 

I think the old English methods back in time were similar, where the wet BP was not milled but "hammered", right?

[Arthur]

A VERY early European method of incorporating BP was the stamp mill, with several pots in a row each under a hammer that was lifted and dropped by a machinery involving a rotating cam. This method was extensive with some factories having hundreds of stamp mills, likely driven by a water wheel or a horse walking round in a circle.

These were superseded by the big wheel mill which would mill ingredients from lumps and at least thoroughly damp to wet. The milled product was placed onto metal sheets and in a press these were compressed into solid sheets which were then put through a corning mill and sorted for size, unwanted grades were re pressed.

[Zumber]

13 hours ago, DavidF said:

When ball milling was popularized, the role of water in the processing of black powder was completely disregarded as unimportant. Ball mills will clump if there's moisture in the powder. Powder is milled dry, and rockets are pressed dry. The water isn't just for safety. It has an important role in making better powder by dissolving some of the nitrate and giving better intimacy of incorporation. Commercial black powder manufacturers use moisture as an aid to incorporation and Estes uses moisture to effect compaction in their rocket motors. It's only modern amateur pyros that think water is the bane of black powder, because it doesn't suit the way of milling now in common use.

I would be curious to know how much of your lift you use to lift what size shells? Also, is one of your arms much bigger than the other? 😎

No my arms are normal.

[DecimusMaximus]

On 1/18/2024 at 1:20 AM, Zumber said:

Hello All members...!!

Since lots of members dont have ball mill or this is for those who are newbie.

I have been making fireworks shells since 24 years and still today I dont have ball mill.

Now question is how do I lift my shells?

There is one very old traditional method used in our village since 200 years.

All you need is a wooden base to which 1 inch trench is formed in pentagonal or hexagonal shape and in this trench wooden frames are fixed using white fevicol glue jointed to each other by making drill and using wooden pins insted of screw to form hexagonal or pentagonal frame housing for bp.

Everything is made of wooden no metal piece is involved in frame or wooden base to avoid sparking during ramming.

Height of frame and size of hexagon or pentagon frame determines amount of black powder carried by this set up.

This wooden base is then burried half in ground and secured well.

Then damped or wet black powder is poured in frame housing (dont damp too much consistency is important)

Then using heavy duty Iron rod (generally 2.5 inch in diameter and 1 to 1.5 feet height) black powder is rammed for 1 to 1.5 hour manually. As wooden base contains no any metal part there is no chance of sparking but still for safety reason black powder is wetted enough before ramming.

After ramming process it is granulated or if someone wants bp in powder form(say for rocket)
then bp is dried well in sun then sieved it again to get in powder form. This set up gives me 5 kg milled powder in 1 batch.

Safety is almost no 1 priority that why wet bp is milled insted of dry.

Here is picture of set up.

Thank you

 

 

Thanks for the share but no one has the time or energy to be pounding black powder for 1 to 1.5 hour manually. 

[Zumber]

1 hour ago, DecimusMaximus said:

Thanks for the share but no one has the time or energy to be pounding black powder for 1 to 1.5 hour manually. 

It was traditional method and still in use.

As we are hobbiest not professional we seldom prepare fireworks only for festival, as we prepare it only for festival we have enough time and enthusiasm which gives energy to consistently work harder. Professionally you don't have time & energy this method isn't suitable, I have posted this method only for curiosity.

[CountZero]

Still 5kg BP in 1.5h is pretty good throughput. Compare to how long time you have to use a typical small ballmill to get the same amount. And we have all seen the kind of results you get, so I think it shows the method to be viable.

I also think many of us could use the workout 😀

[DavidF]

It would still be interesting to know what amount of lift is used per unit of shell weight, and how the powder is processed to be used for lift or burst.

[Almostparadise]

If I needed 5 kg of BP, outside of milling time, I would be a good few hours by the time it is layed out and set to dry. Likley more than a few hour. 

Edited December 10 by Almostparadise

[Zumber]

10 hours ago, DavidF said:

It would still be interesting to know what amount of lift is used per unit of shell weight, and how the powder is processed to be used for lift or burst.

It depends on how you process, weight of shell, granules size of lift, cylindrical or ball shell and clearance between shell and mortar tube, purity of ingredients used and milling time.

First we dry KNO3 for 4 to 5 hours in sunshine and immediately grind it using coffee grinder to fine powder that should pass atleast 100 mesh, also Sulphur is passed through 100 mesh screen , we use commercial Extra fine charcoal for lift.

Mix all ingredients 2 times with 40 mesh screen and 3 times with 80 or 100 mesh screen. Then mixture is damped with clean water with little use of water just to avoid floating it's fluffy airy nature and prevent floating during milling operation. It is screened with window screen to spread water equally into mixture in order to damped it.

Then it is poured into wooden base housing as shown in image above and rammed for 1 to 2 hours till powder burns fast enough tough it still has minimum moisture we do burn test between milling process. Then powder is again screened to break lumps and allowed to dry in sunshine.

Next binder is added 2 to 3 percent using 60 mesh screen and it is granulated and dried.

Size of granules depends on size of shell.

Note:- Operateor who is ramming with iron rod should ram in center part of wooden base only and second operator pushes mixture continuously towards the center using long handle spatula to keep his hands safe and away from rammer.

This is the method we have been using since many years and not to be recommended professionally it is revealed only for curiosity.

Edited December 10 by Zumber