Red gum based Black powder

[Zumber]

I have an email from skylighter 'Make black powder using GROUND BREAKING method' without ball mill.

Does anybody knows step by step procedure of this method.

Thank you for any reply.

[Bangkokpyro]

I'm sure all the information is in the links of the email you recieved if not look here

http://www.skylighter.com/skylighter_info_pages/article.asp?Item=115

Edited July 30, 2012 by Bangkokpyro

[The504]

Has anyone tried it?

[californiapyro]

yep. nothing special. crumbly grains, not as powerful as regular BP.

[busspuppy]

I milled up a batch or BP with RG as a binder wetted with acetone and it gave pretty crumbly grains. Was fast and dried quick. The crumbling may have been an error on my part though. Hard to tell.

[Mach25]

I milled up a batch or BP with RG as a binder wetted with acetone and it gave pretty crumbly grains. Was fast and dried quick. The crumbling may have been an error on my part though. Hard to tell.

 

I have used the redgum method and it works pretty well. I did use a ball mill to doubled mill. I used 1% redgum dissolved in 1/2 cup of Denatured Alcohol. Made a ball wetted with the redgum solution and then and grated on through a window mesh screen. The BP is ready in a few hours so its kinda cool. I am going to try some dextrin next to see if the grains hold up better.

[mikasaurus]

I used 5% redgum dissolved in 1/2 cup of alcohol and got reasonably durable grains. Not as good as corned BP but quite servicable.

[Arthur]

With a couple of tries with milled dust 1 - 2% RG made fast enough powder but weak and crumbly grains. any more RG and it was slower but with firmer grains. OK for fast production, but the trad process produced better powder overall.

[AirCowPeacock]

2% RG disolved in Acetone is what I used to bind BP, produces strong grains, 1% works O.K..

[Seymour]

Faster drying is one advantage, as already said. I also get the feeling this is a 'reintroduce the volatiles' exercise to an extent. Red gum can be expected to burn with more energy than the standard BP fuel mix, so by lacing a bit of red gum in, you should be able to get a bit more power out of the BP, and as long as you don't add too much it won't be slowed so much that this is all futile.

 

I actually think the crumbliness is in part to help the originally stated screened together BP get up to a higher pressure and work a bit more like normal black powder.

 

While I sincerely appreciate the information coming out of Skylighter, which is reputable, and has helped me a lot over the years, this instance reminds me of an advertisement for a product. There is nothing that I believe justifies the use of the words 'ground breaking' in the article, or the CAPS. I also consider it highly unlikely that they were the first to bind greenmix with red gum.

 

Perhaps they were just aiming to lure in more periphery 'lurkers' who are unsure of committing. A reminder that you can make usable BP with little to no dedicated equipment (especially if you have skylighters pre powdered products), even if it might be a bit temperamental and tedious to make during some methods. But not this one, not if you buy their pre powdered chemicals and use the fast drying red gum. Pro tip for laziness bonus points, you can use acetone, or even other, even faster evaporating solvents for the red gum so that you can get a product even faster.

 

While I see the use of some aspects, I can't say I'm bought. When possible rushing, and aiming for the fastest drying and so on should be avoided. That, obviously, is when accidents of various kinds are more likely. That said, it's unrealistic to expect that we will never be short of time trying to get a project done.

 

I like to mill up ten kilos of good BP and grain it all using the water, 1-2% Gum Arabic, and a kitchen grater method, screening it in to grades. Then when I'm doing a project, there's no scrambling around to make and quickly dry lift, I just get it out of a bucket. Considering the relatively quick drying with water in most environments, and the expenses of using solvents once you have up-scaled your hobby (a good idea if you can), water gets more and more attractive.

 

I am interested in how much of a difference for the lifting characteristics adding a little bit of Red Gum would make to BP. Perhaps one day I will do some tests with it and a few other fuels.

[Algenco]

the "Red Gum" BP article was written by Ned Gorski in answer to the question " Do you have to mill BP", Ned set out to find the best "Non milled" method

 

His tests show red gum BP wetted with alcohol produce the hottest BP miiled or non milled

 

We have compared different charcoals and binders and red gum/alcohol wins every time

 

Is it worth the cost? If you have a good ball mill I think not, if you don't, maybe

 

Like Seymour, I mill 20-50 lb of BP and mix the mill powder before granulating/ coating rice hull, etc (more consistency)

 

I primarily use coated rice hulls, but do make some granulated powder and the kitchen grater is the best IMO

[AirCowPeacock]

I do notice, BP granulated with 3% dextrin, is significantly denser, and marginally stronger (as in hardness) then BP granulated with 2% RG dissolved in alcohol. However, I find RG bp faster, perhaps only because of the density difference and less additional material.

[Col]

I use RG for everything except the lift in candles.

[Potassiumchlorate]

I haven't tested the red gum BP, but now it seems that my BP made from compressed pucks is the most energetic anyway. The only disadvantage with it is that it is time-consuming to press it and, above all, to crush the pucks and sieve the grains.

[TritonPyro]

Using dextrin without the ball milling method makes the grains hard and durable for my use. I make 400g at a time, and it is energetic enough for my small mortar.

[TritonPyro]

Further to that what is a good way to coat hulls with bp?

[Psycodelic]

I'm brand new to all of this, I've just made my first batch of d1 stars, the results of which I'm very happy with. Right now I'm very confused as to what the best choice would be for a fast bp used for lift and burst charge without a ball mill. Would this rg based bp be a good choice?

[Draco_Aster]

I'm brand new to all of this, I've just made my first batch of d1 stars, the results of which I'm very happy with. Right now I'm very confused as to what the best choice would be for a fast bp used for lift and burst charge without a ball mill. Would this rg based bp be a good choice?

 

If I was starting out without a ball mill this would be my method of BP.

You'll definitely want a ball mill further down the track though. Corned and graded BP is cheap and has many uses.

[nesc39]

So what is the decision for the hardest grains? Red gum/alcohol or dextrin/water? What is everyone's percentage of dextrin?

[Mumbles]

For the hardest grains, typically the water based binders are better**. Dextrin, SGRS, and gum arabic will all give quite hard grains. Red gum bound BP is less resilient in my experience. The issue isn't entirely with it as a binder (though it is softer than dextrin and the like), but that to achieve a sufficiently hard grain, you have to use enough RG that is noticeably slows the BP.

 

I personally use about 5% dextrin, but that is likely overkill. I use 2-3% in several of my star compositions, and they're quite hard. I've had issues in the past getting BP to stick to hulls and stuff if I used less than 5%, so now I just use it across the board. I suspect those problems were more to do with technique and quality of materials, and less with the amount of dextrin I used.

 

** - there are other alcohol and solvent based binders that probably give quite hard grains, I'm just not very familiar with their properties in regard to BP. Things like phenolic resins, PVB, etc. could have merit.

[DubaiAmateurRocketry]

How about this black powder ?

 

74% KNO3

10% Sulfur

10% Charcoal

5% Hexamine.

1% Magnesium

[Mumbles]

What about it, and what does it have anything to do with red gum based BP?

[nesc39]

Thanks mumbles

[psyco_1322]

And how is it black powder? It's got hexamine and Mg in it!