Charcoal star comp's

[Fly]

How many here ballmill your Charcoal star comp's?

 

Fly

[jwitt]

I will from now on. I shot a bunch of TT and C6, unmilled. The C6 worked allright, TT was not TT though. Sparks, but no neat fire dust. I'd make unmilled chrysanthemum comps in a pinch, but the time in the mill should be well worth it.

[Mumbles]

I've started milling my charcoal streamer comps a little bit at least. A half hour or so minimum if I would normally just screen it. My KNO3 is prilled, and it's much easier to toss in loosely ground granules, and let the charcoal lubricate it, and help grind it very fine. Plus, there's no screening of those messy comps, though getting it out of the mill is almost as bad.

[AdmiralDonSnider]

I try to avoid milling whenever I can, but I too found that starting form about 40 percent charcoal onwards comps do not come out as desired. There´s no willow in an unmilled willow, just a red hot brick.

 

I heard that gunpowder in charcoal streamers makes the star appear as if milled.

[Peret]

I mill mine, except when I start with an already milled BP base and just add air float. Even then I give it an hour in the mill to break up any granulation.

[Seymour]

I mill mine.

[Bonny]

I mill mine quite thoroughly, generally for as long as I mill BP. I usually start with coarse ingredients though. Rather than waste for example - pre-milled airfloat, I just throw in mixed charcoal straight from the meat grinder. Edited August 13, 2010 by Bonny

[50AE]

I mill all my charcoal streamers.

[xBangergoosEx]

I mill all firedust comps. Otherwise they will not have nearly enough firedust. comps with large amounts of charcoal such as willow or C8 need to be milled at least 24 hours to get a good tail and easy ignition.

[AdmiralDonSnider]

I mill all firedust comps. Otherwise they will not have nearly enough firedust. comps with large amounts of charcoal such as willow or C8 need to be milled at least 24 hours to get a good tail and easy ignition.

 

Ok, a quick calculation:

 

C8: fertilizer saltpeter, gardening sulphur, homemade charcoal - about zero dollars

24 hours current, motor and jar wear - ???

 

Have you ever compared the stuff with 2hr milled comp? To me that sounds like you need a new mill...

[50AE]

Really, my life would be very sad if I had to mill a comp for 24h.

 

My mill is running -20 RPM of the optimal speed, I use Al2O3 media and charcoal streamers are ready for 4 hours.

[Twotails]

Gotta make another batch of TT stars. I go as far as to make them twice(Yes, probably not needed, but i have plenty of time to work on stuff like this) Last time I made I for a comet, I made the TT mix(exept dextrin) into a slurry with boiling water, and alcohol, then dried that slurry(it was kinda fuzzy with KNO3) crushed and milled it, added the dextrin, made the stars as normal, and not realy sure if i made a diffrence, but it seemed to work without a hitch(i was origanaly going to make fuse from the TT comp, but ran into a setback, so i just turned it into a comet) now I just need a good night to light the thing! I normaly mill my comps for 2-12 hours on a HF mill if there small batches(charged right, and over filled with 200-300g comp) after 3 or 4 hours i realy dont see a diffrence, but if its a boring day(and i got nothing else to do) i'll keep milling.