First (about) serious BP.

[pyrosailor99]

Hi all!

 

i'm here to just describe my next (n-th) BP experiment.

 

Well start from chemicals:

 

KNO3 (agriculture grade - NPK 13-0-46)

Willow charcoal (ordered from a famous good supplier)

Sulfur (Agric Grade 90%)

 

Stuff: CoffeeGrinder

 

Method:

1) grinded about 50g of KNO3 for 2 minutes. it become lose, i opened grinder and dust flyed way as smoke. so i think KNO3 is good.

2) mixed 50g of BP (75K 15C 10C) and than put this in the Coffee Grinder. Grinder on for about 30 seconds for 4 times. in each stop i checkd grinder temperature and shaked it to make powder mix in. (as the noise become as the powder was so fine that stopped to round in the grinder)

 

3) checked BP. WOOW, it seems to be airfloat.... opened grinder and powder leaved as smoke... i thinked... wow this could be good!

 

 

4) made first test. put 2 grams in a piece of kraft paper. put 3cm of visco and ignited. FUUUUSH. Well this is my first time i can say this powder is the best i ever did (not the best i could obtain for sure!) I can say this because this is the first time i don't see any BUBBLE in the fire!! you know, usually, when BP is not well grinded, KNO3 cristals melt during burn and make orange bubbles. My only concern is that the BP non burned all in an instant but made a FUUSH for about 2 second. i'm worried about its a bit slow.

BUT AS I NEVER SEEN FFF not-granulated powder in action, i have no idea if mine is good enough.

Just tell me, milled BP should burn in a eye blink??

 

5) Granulating the powder - PAY ATTENTION HERE. i need help on this.

in my previous experiment (no topic on this) i granulated my un-grinded and un-milled BP (i just made it to test the charcoal quality, it improved my BP!)

the result was a BP quicker for sure than the un-granulated version. but not so quick to be used as Lift powder. I made various test and the BP was good enough that confined in a closed paper roll it EXPLODED with a great BOOM!

As lift powder, the bp was not so good to make a 10mm star fly over 20cm. i had some Lift bp stealed to a pro-cake and the same quantity in the same cannon type make the star fly for over 10m!!

 

NOW, i'm expecting my NEW GRINDED BP should be good enough to launch some kind of object from a cannon.

this is what i did:

 

1) taken 25g of BP. added 0,8g of yellow dextrin (some supplier of charcoal). [ok. i know 1% is 0,25g not 0,8 but i added dextrin directly in the cup of BP while it was on the scale... my hand vibrated when someone called me) DOH!

2) mixed with a spoon

3) added few hot water to make a dough

4) passed it trough a screen (mosquito-net)

5)put to dry in a cardboard box with suspended mosquito-net (a raw dryer)

 

 

now i'm waiting it dry.

 

my concerns are about:

what speed-up the BP for lift? Grain dimension count?

actually i can't say mesh of my aluminum mosquito-net, but i can say to you that in 1 cm2 there are 6 X 7 holes and the wire is 0,24mm thick (digital caliper).

Why in some cake i see BIG BIG grains and in some other i see little little grains for Lift charge?

 

 

I will update you on this.

if you have suggestions you are the welcome!

tell me some test i can do to measure the quality of my BP.

[dagabu]

 

Stuff: CoffeeGrinder

 

Method:

1) grinded about 50g of KNO3 for 2 minutes. it become lose, i opened grinder and dust flyed way as smoke. so i think KNO3 is good.

2) mixed 50g of BP (75K 15C 10C) and than put this in the Coffee Grinder. Grinder on for about 30 seconds for 4 times. in each stop i checkd grinder temperature and shaked it to make powder mix in. (as the noise become as the powder was so fine that stopped to round in the grinder)

 

 

Everyone take note, this is the kind of behavior that makes all of us look like mad bombers.

 

Sailor, have you NOT read about Mums accident? What makes you think that grinding a completed comp in a coffee grinder is EVER safe?

 

DO NOT DO THIS!! EVER!

 

Thank God that you are not in the burn ward getting your face debrided as we speak!

 

-dag

[pyrosailor99]

sorry sorry sorry. just forgot to mention something...

 

yes i've read many and many time about Mums accidend.

 

never wanted to be crazy enough to kill myself.

 

precautions i taken to grind BP:

20m of cable. putted the grinder behind a big large tree. locked to ON the button of the grinder. (i'm in a country-land , no house near me in 10km round)

putted it ON with a switch i mounted on the opposite side of the cable (it was an old cable i used to light bulbs in my old green gazebo).

i put it on when i was far 20m. stopped. go to check. turn back 20m away, and again... (remember that a big-large tree was between me and the grinder).

 

No, i'm not crazy at all.

simply this is the 10th time i try to make BP and as i'm buying expensive things to build a decent mill (see other topic) i have to be sure that my chemicals are good and that in general i have good chance to make HQ BP.

[pyrosailor99]

PS. thanks to have noticed me of this. i thing that GOOD topics are the topics that ever explain all, ALSO safe way to do things.

I ever wanted to open a topic where other (newbies like me) can learn something. and i think is RIGHT that i have to underline i did this experiment in a safe way.

[PersonGuyDude]

Not sure what your net is like, but for me a 1/4" mesh hardware stainless steel mesh works well to granulate the right size BP for lift.

Be careful advocating that method without explaining the safety precautions taken, thankfully this forum as a community corrects such mistakes amazingly fast.

I would suggest trying to lift star mines before shells too test a new powder, at the very least you will save the money/time invested in making a shell.

Pyrosailor, is it possible for you to explain where you got your willow charcoal?

 

 

In other news, is this what happened to Mumbles? I never got the full story on that...

Edited August 6, 2011 by PersonGuyDude

[guntoteninfadel]

Sailor I am not the one to tell you that what you are doing is right or wrong, but it is unsafe unless you are trying to have an unpredictable spontaneous ground salute. It has been proven on this forum many times that you can make quality BP without a ball mill and as such I do not think you are going to find anyone that will support the coffee grinder behind the tree scenario. Though this may be fine where you live I can just see some kid trying it in the middle of the suburbs.

 

As far as your process goes, I think you are not getting a very good mix of your chemicals. I would suggest you coffee grind each chemical individually then screen screen screen. The chemicals need to be mixed very well. As I understand it that is mostly what ball milling does. I do not believe that 2 min in a coffee grinder is anywhere near enough.

 

QUOTE -As lift powder, the bp was not so good to make a 10mm star fly over 20cm. i had some Lift bp stealed to a pro-cake and the same quantity in the same cannon type make the star fly for over 10m!!-QUOTE

 

I think you are saying that you got some lift from a commercial/pro cake. Who knows what that was? You say lift but it could have been anything. Now your back to the realm of KEWELS.

 

I have made rocket fuel with the same chemicals that you use but with hardwood charcoal. My one pound rockets utilize almost 80g of bp. When one of them catos it is very impressive and if it was inside a coffee grinder I could only imagine the shrapnel. As Dag has nicely suggested do not continue with the grinding of complete compositions.

[dagabu]

 

As far as your process goes, I think you are not getting a very good mix of your chemicals. I would suggest you coffee grind each chemical individually then screen screen screen. The chemicals need to be mixed very well. As I understand it that is mostly what ball milling does. I do not believe that 2 min in a coffee grinder is anywhere near enough.

 

 

Gun,

 

While ball milling does make a nicely homogeneous mixture, the ballmill actually pounds the KNO3 and S into the charcoal (and vice versa) so that the composition is much more reactive.

 

Sailor,

Almost the same thing can be accomplished by blade milling each component separately to air float (charcoal can and has burst into flame in a blade type grinder) and then add enough boiling water to a well screened batch to make it into a ball and then extrude it through a screen of your choice.

 

The resulting BP will likely be as fast as the blade milled BP.

 

-dag

[guntoteninfadel]

LOL, thats what I meant

[pyrosailor99]

Not sure what your net is like, but for me a 1/4" mesh hardware stainless steel mesh works well to granulate the right size BP for lift.

Good. i will try. effectively i see my actual mosquito net give mo grains too small. in my cakes i see the smallest grain si 4 times bigger than mine.

 

Pyrosailor, is it possible for you to explain where you got your willow charcoal?

Sure! http://cgi.ebay.it/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270603377229

 

As far as your process goes, I think you are not getting a very good mix of your chemicals. I would suggest you coffee grind each chemical individually then screen screen screen.

this is what i was trying with the coffee grinder. in my mind grinder should mill and MIX at the same time chems. so the final result should be powder like milled for few time in a ball mill.

the scenario is that i tried to make bp much more than 10 times (you can see my old topics on this) and i'm very tired my BP was never good enough! i've done many mistakes like wrong charcoal, wrong sulfur, wrong mill (yes, i had an harborfreight mill + fishing lead balls and got only bad results - then i sold it out) etc... so, as i'm buying all stuff to do a great mill i've to be sure the problem is not in any other step of the process.

Grinding BP in a coffee grinder is ever WRONG, but i think that in the safe way i did it, it is very acceptable as an extreme try to have an answer to 'Will be my investment in ballmill a waste of money?' .

before try this i taken in consideration so many things... sometime is not easy to remeber all and put it in a post. Too long posts many time go OT. i can undesrtsand you don't know enough me to think that in each experiment i take all safety precaution i know (this dont mean i know it all... i will ever have to learn something), but i can ensure i'm not so stupid to try unsafe experiment. i ever read more than a forum (yes i'm not only here) and read about other experiments and safe rules before start an experiment.

 

I can assure you that in my scenario, my experiment was absolutely safe. My coffee grinder cap wasn't locked. i locked it to the base with a turn of light paper tape (you don't know my paper tape, it is not the brown you use. it don't exist in US like your don't exist in my country. mine is more lightweight and easily breackable.) the paper tape avoid that powder go over the cap. as the cap was not locked mechanically, if it was exploded , it just was popped out like a champagne cap. if really i was obtaining FFF grade bp, the cap was so light that chips didn't go over 5m...

believe me i've not risked anything grinding... i risked in another way!!

 

well, i think the major risk i had in this experiment was the lamp on the desk. (i just forgot it was there... and it could be hot!)

a bad thing i did is that after grinded and put the bp in a plastic container, i went in a room (not the room where i have chems) and opened the container. on the desk there was a hot lamp (it was the energy saver bulb, but it was hot)!!! when i opened a bit the container, some powder flight like a smoke... when i see it, i quickly closed container and runned away to avoid incident. then i retried in another room (garage) where i have glass protected neon on the top of the room. (no light bulb near the table).

So please REMEMBER ALL to not handle POWDERS near light bulb!!

 

 

I think you are saying that you got some lift from a commercial/pro cake. Who knows what that was? You say lift but it could have been anything. Now your back to the realm of KEWELS.

right. i handle cakes since years and i ever seen this granulated powder under the mini-shells. yes i don't know if it is pure BP, but when i light it this powder burn in a flash but don't make any flash light (so i don't think it could contain alu or other metals).

The grains are deep black and when burned the the few instants i can see a violettish flame like the standard BP... - do you think that grains could contain some booster chem to burn so quickly?

i've seen some video on youtube of granulated and ungranulated bp burn test... it the author didn't made a fake video (i can't imagine why make a fake video on this) the granulated pure BP in the video make the same burn flash of the lift charge i can find in the cakes i have...

 

thanks all for the help!

 

Hoping i will be able to do a good BP! i hope this since years.

[pyrosailor99]

URRRAAAA' guys!!!!!

 

I've just tested the grains!! burned about 5g and i see a big FAST woosh! it seems like the lift charge of pro cakes! i think it is just a bit slower but i think this grains have the power to launch something out of a cannon!

 

i'll do a test with some old tigertail star i build for a test some week ago (see my topic+video about). i don't know if i will find some non-broken star to make a single star shot... but i will try to make somethink like a starmine of tigertail.

 

i have to say A BIG BIG BIG BIG THANK YOU to all the users of this wonderful forum! after years of tries (in free time is intended!) i have my first HQ BP!!

 

Now i can buy Zirconia used (or cheaper brand new Brass i hope) Medias to build my mill. i have already the WashingMachine motor and some bearing. wooow!

 

 

i will update you on the starmine test!

Edited August 6, 2011 by pyrosailor99

[guntoteninfadel]

Gun,

 

While ball milling does make a nicely homogeneous mixture, the ballmill actually pounds the KNO3 and S into the charcoal (and vice versa) so that the composition is much more reactive.

 

Actually research has been done and there is no chemicals in the pores of the charcoal. The increase is speed is created by the greater degree of mixing the balls do. It also makes the chems even finer. No matter how "airfloat" your chems are, they won't be as fine as they can be. Even airfloat charcoal isn't as fine as it can be

 

Either way you look at it though ball milling is the way to supercharge your BP

Edited August 7, 2011 by guntoteninfadel

[pyrosailor99]

Test done!!

 

loaded 3g of my new granulated BP in a 2cm ID paper tube (13cm lenght) + 1,5g of my first tigertail stars (made roughly for a test). it was about 6 pieces of broken stars.

tube had a bottom bentonite plug and on the top i just inserted some piece of paper over the stars and covered the top of th cannon with a piece of paper tape.

 

TEST GONE GOOOD! i've seen starf flight for over 5 meters. i'm sure the stars was so little to go over. stars (as they was little) consumed before reaching the apogee!

 

i can confirm my BP is good!

 

 

----

 

built another little test: black match. some cm of cotton string in a bp slurry with 3% of dextrin (i finished the last grams of the test bp batch).

now they are drying.

 

under this hot sun i think they could be dryed after 24h. what do you think? how much time i should wait?

 

thanks!

[50AE]

Pyrosailor99, I really do like your enthusiasm, but my advice is to not to tend to be hasty, listen carefully to the other members of the forum. Be careful, safety first.

 

The most of my black match dries after 24h on shade in a hot summer day. So you should be ok.

[pyrogeorge]

pyrosailor99 try to make a ball mill..you will get better results and you will safe than the coffee grinder...

[pyrosailor99]

Pyrosailor99, I really do like your enthusiasm, but my advice is to not to tend to be hasty, listen carefully to the other members of the forum. Be careful, safety first.

Sure! safety first! but after all my experiments during years i just can be told as hasty... i've spent much money in this years for my failed experiments (i wasn't on this forum and since i started this adventure i had no guide in this field...) so before i spend further for a decent ballmill i had to be just sure there was no other problem in making my own BP. Anyway i ever did 'apparently' unsafe experiment in a real safe way (safe for me and other people).

 

 

pyrosailor99 try to make a ball mill..you will get better results and you will safe than the coffee grinder...

yes it is what i'm building. i'm just ordering medias. then i need only 4 bearings and 2 metal pipe 20mm OD.

 

Black match test gone perfect!

[guntoteninfadel]

 

 

yes it is what i'm building. i'm just ordering medias. then i need only 4 bearings and 2 metal pipe 20mm OD.

 

 

Dude, seriously, get used rollers from a conveyor system. Find them all the time on ebay and they contain their own bearings. Not sure about the longevity but mine are going strong so far (2 months).

[pyrogeorge]

Also take a look to the ball mill topic..you will get ideas from other ball mills.

[pyrosailor99]

Thank you guys!

 

the ball mill topic is one of my favourite topics! i love to see picture of your machines!

[guntoteninfadel]

i love to see picture of your machines!

 

 

I knew there was something I had not taken a pic of

[ChloRure]

Hi,

 

Sorry to post my questions in this post but since I am a new member I need to first reply.

 

Allright,

 

I am new to pyro but really like this stuff, I mostly want to do some aerial shell (starting with 1,75" then 3 and probly no more then 4 ")

 

I have already a lot of chemicals on hand for the stars composition but waiting on next summer to really work on these.

 

Right now I am working on my black powder so I can have a good lift one.

 

My Kno3 is from an Aquatic seller that told me it was something like 98% + Pure

My sulphur is from Garden Store 90% Pure. (I have some sulphur about 98% + pure but want to keep it later)

My charcoal I'm using right now is : https://www.currys.com/catalogpc.htm?Category=GENERALS_POWDER_CHARCOAL&Source=Search

 

As I dont have a ball mill yet, I grinded the kno3 in coffee grinder then mixed it in a pestle and mortar with sulphur and charcoal.

 

After that, I used alcool iso 99% + about same amount of water to granulated it in a window screen.

 

Let it dry for 24 hours and tested it, I don't have any trouble to lit the powder but it don't burn fast. No way it is burning like the fast one you can see on youtube (one that look like flash)

 

Is my problem only because I don't have a ball mill? If so I will buy one soon... I don't want to do a lot of powder at once, so a small ball mill may be ok.

 

Here is the one I was checking : http://www.canadiantreasureseekers.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=325

 

for the media I think I would use some lead ball .50 cal .495 diameters. (100 in a box should be enought for this jar size I think)

 

 

Thanks

 

PS: Sorry for poor english, this is not my main language.