black powder, lift powder ???

[justanotherpyro]

2 grams of my polverone, depending on the charcoal used, will lift a 35 gram dummy shell 200-400 feet in the air, give or take a few feet. Sometimes I lose the shells due to the immense altitude reached when using reactive charcoals. Pressing gives similar results, but is a waste of time for me.

 

Pressing improves the durability of the grains, not the performance. Polverone often performs better, but breaks down into a powder quite quickly.

Then your circumstances are unique to you canadian pyro. In my experiences BP has been very peculiar 2 grams of pressed and corned would barely pop an object out of the tube. This was due to the fact that the dummy shell was very loose in my 2" mortar. 4 grams of the exact same powder shot it out to several hundred feet. It seems that black powder is sort of like a bell curve in that 2 grams won't give half the height of 4 grams, and that increasing the amount of powder will only increase height to a certain point.

 

Over all though, It has been proven that pressing the powder intimately mixes it more, and increases performance. Granted, when people ask how much lift to use we tell them to experiment because the amount really depends on what works for each individual. If pressing doesn't increase your results by much then don't bother with the extra effort, but don't say that pressing doesn't work better, because its been proven that it does.

 

d4j0n, pressing can be made an exact science if you want it to be, but really all you need to do is find a way to mash the powder as much as you can. Dig around the garage and find some stuff to work with. All I did was make a trip to Home Depot to find a pipe and a smaller end cap that would fit into it, then I press the powder with a 5 ton bottle jack under my RV.

[Pyrohawk]

Its nothing fancy....just a small table top vice. The mouth is 4" across.... I'll post a picture of it later.

 

Pressing makes a ridiculous difference.....no arguments.

[Canadian_Pyro]

Sorry you feel that way, and are wasting your time. Perhaps your polverone is improperly made. Describe your process and then we can have a serious discussion.

[Mumbles]

Ideal is around 1.7. I did tests. This is an old version of the page. The proceedure is outdated, and not everything is clear or correct. The data does speak for itself though.

 

http://mumble.freepgs.com/Pyro/BP.html

[Pyrohawk]

My Pulverone was just standard BP. I ball milled it, added about 5% dextrin and granulated through a 12 mesh screen. My pressed is sized to 12 mesh as well....in fact its the same screen I used to granulate with.

 

Here is a pic of my vice. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v389/pyrohawk_15/vice.jpg

 

Their both made identical except for the pressing vs. granulating. The difference it makes in my lift is very substantial. Not to mention pressing is easier since I don't have to make a mess of my workshop with all the granulating.

 

I don't know what your doing Canadian but your experience goes against every person I've ever talked to who has done both ways....

[Mumbles]

Pulverone is the name generally applied to green mix, generally granulated. To clarify everything both should make clear what they are using. I dislike when people use the term Pulverone, as they use it to describe every type and state of black powders so it's meaning is often lost.

 

Pulverone by the above definition can burn at a variety of speeds. It ranges from snails pace to almost as fast as black powder(pressed & granulated). It all depends on particle size and intimacy of mix.

 

Every person I talk to has said pressing makes all the difference. This includes a 4x PGI grandmaster. I have personally noticed a distict advantage to using the pressed variety. If your pressed stuff, if you have indeed actually tried it, does not preform as well as pulverone I think you are doing something very wrong. Try the two side to side, with the same particle sizes and tell us how it turns out.

[Canadian_Pyro]

I found this.

 

http://www.creagan.net/fireworks/charcoal_tests.html

 

It seems pressed works better when using some charcoals, and pulverone works better when using others. I have never had any pressed powder lift better than pulverone, and pulverone is always faster when burned in the open.

 

I have tried several densities, and 1.7g/cc works the best, but no better than pulverone.

[radiorecker]

well you guys are the best thanks alot been a big help and defently on the right track to making some good lift for the 4th, i just hope theres enough time to prefect it to where i would like

 

you guys also made me make a press, took me all of about 15 mins to build 13 of which were spend drilling holes in some high density board i also had some spring compressers lying around that i used, i may have to add some washers. i have pics if any one would like to see, its not a permanate(bad spelling i know) press but will work till i can come up with the steel to make a much better one

[radiorecker]

oh can someone please explain to me what corning and pulverone are? i searched the forums and google all i can come up with for pulverone is green mix and that doesnt seem to fit the contex here, also i belive corning means to granulate? is this correct?

 

thanks alot

[Mephistos Minion]

Pulverone is made by mixing in dextrin and pushing it through a screen. Corning is when BP is pressed into a disk in a PVC pipe with a plunger, this puck or disk is then cracked into grains, these grains are then screened into their sizes.

[moonshot]

Go to the United Nuclear site and check out the tutorial on making BP it's where I got startd. I'm not saying it's the best way to make it but it's easy to understand and the finished product is a good quality BP. They also show you how to grain it.

Make sure you have good quality chems, especialy the charcoal. Many new pyrotechs don't understand the importance of charcoal in the mix and try to use ground up briquets or charcoal from a campfire. The charcoal is the fuel that the oxidizer reacts with to produce combustion. If it is poor quality or contaminated it will produce a poor burn.

I haven't tried pressing my powder yet but i'm going to since hearing all the positive feedback on it. I would advise you not to bother with this step until you get a decent quality meal BP made. One way I test the speed of my powder is to put a small pile on a piece of brown paper bag light it and see if it burns holes in the paper. If it does then its a bit slow. If it burns off the paper without burning holes your getting there.

I made a batch of "slow" powder and thought it was no good until I used it as rocket propellent and it worked great. Hope this has helped you some be safe and have fun