Black Powder Thread #1

[styropyro]

I think grapevine charcoal is pretty overrated for being the best charcoal. In my experience it was nothing compared to my black willow. But it was better than some of the other charcoals like skylighter's. And wet black powder won't work like dry black powder. You have to let it fully dry before it will work good. In fact when it's wet I'm surprised it worked at all. And 2 seconds isn't very good considering black powder. It should burn with a "whump" and disapear almost instantly when lit. But I'm sure you will have much better results when dry Hope this helps!

[itwasntme]

No, meant the grapevine wood. It was wet when cooked and cooked at a very low tempature. The BP wasn't wet. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[styropyro]

Oh it is fine if the wood was wet. When you cook the wood it dries out the wood and cooks it at the same time so in the end it dosen't matter if it was wet.

[Mumbles]

The willow droppings may not work that well as charcoal. It's not really branches. If you've ever seen a willow tree, the leaves arn't actually on the branches. They're on these vine-like tentacles, these are what fall.. I think you want the actual wood. I'm not sure if the tentacles contain much actual wood, if any at all.

[itwasntme]

The willow droppings may not work that well as charcoal. It's not really branches. If you've ever seen a willow tree, the leaves arn't actually on the branches. They're on these vine-like tentacles, these are what fall.. I think you want the actual wood. I'm not sure if the tentacles contain much actual wood, if any at all.

Ehh, what about black willows? They grow by creeks, so most of their dead branches go down the creek. Since most of the leaves on trees around here are gone, would this be the best time to take the branches from Black Willows?

About weeping willows, theres a few in my neighborhood, so how would I get the wood from them, without the owner seeing/harming the tree? thanks

[justanotherpyro]

Great idea trespassing and messing with someones stuff. I got tons of willow branches after a small windstorm kicked off the dead stuff on my girlefriends willow tree.

 

Remember its more of a hassle to them that there a bunch of sticks in the yard. Offer to pick them up free of charge. Hell, if you don't even want to be suspicious call it community service. Everybody wins.

[Mumbles]

I agree with Justanotherpyro. It is best to stay away from tresspassing and potential distruction of private property. As far as safety of the tree, I would say the best time to "prune" would be in the spring. It will have ample time to regenerate and heal itself.

 

In the creek area, I also suggest against just taking branches. Look for trees with dead branches. These you could safely cut/take without anyone caring I would say. Off shoots off of exposed roots should also be considered fair game. There are ways to kill live branches, but I don't want to divulge that sort of thing as it could be used to the wrong purposes. Another thing I recomend is checking back after every thunderstorm with the hopes of one of them being hit by lightning or high winds. Branches are easily found then usually. You will get a high yield of branches less than 2" in diameter, which are ideal for BP from the basis of a minimum need of splitting before cooking.

[Chemguy]

That is a good idea, we had a storm of winds reaching 160Kph. I'm sure there are lots of willow branches down by the river/pond. , I will go get some. Also I thought it would be interesting to make some BP with bamboo . Tommorow it will be 25 degrees celcius so it will dry . I only made 20 grams because I do not want to waste KNO3 on potancially useless BP. Although it will probably be one of best yeilds yet (the real reason I didn't make much is because I couldn't be bothered making lots of charcoal from the bamboo ) I am hoping it will work.

I am experementing with making small rockets now, but my BP isn't good enough. Embarrassingly I made my Charcoal from timber in my last batch of BP. It is very fine. It burns reasonably fast. About 10grams in a semi-whoosh... But no success in making the rocket even move, hang on, I'm getting side tracked. So do you think bamboo will work well?

[itwasntme]

Thanks mumbles and justanotherpyro. Waiting for a wind storm, just rained and stuff yesterday, not enough lightning/wind though. I used bamboo shish kabob(sp?) sticks for BP, it was pretty good. TRy it, take a lot just in case it does work You could also go to the lumber yard and by some poplar wood, it's supposed to be as good as willow. I use it and its good.

[maximusg]

A while ago i use to just go down to the river, and collect all of the branches of the ground, there are usually plenty that have naturally fallen off the trees, there are very strict laws around here concerning the dismemberment of trees. But since then i have found a source for piles of big willow logs that the council gave me. good stuff

[Chemguy]

I couldn't decide where to ask this, as I didn't want to start a new thread, so anyway.

Because I do not have scales or anyway to way things that are like 10g etc, go by the way said in the DoItYourselfGunPowderBook. In the volume ratio KNO3:C:S - 4:3:1/3, but I do not know how much dextrin to put in. I will be making around 150g of BP so I know I need about 15g of dextrin, my dextrin is extremely fine.

Does anyone know how much dextrin weighs per teaspoon? I am sorry for having to ask such a simple question but I want to get it right this time, unlike last time!

 

btw, the bamboo charcoal was OK. It was medium burning pace, it made cool mushroom clouds of smoke on windless days.

[Frozentech]

I couldn't decide where to ask this, as I didn't want to start a new thread, so anyway.

Because I do not have scales or anyway to way things that are like 10g etc, go by the way said in the DoItYourselfGunPowderBook. In the volume ratio KNO3:C:S - 4:3:1/3, but I do not know how much dextrin to put in. I will be making around 150g of BP so I know I need about 15g of dextrin, my dextrin is extremely fine.

Does anyone know how much dextrin weighs per teaspoon? I am sorry for having to ask such a simple question but I want to get it right this time, unlike last time!

 

btw, the bamboo charcoal was OK. It was medium burning pace, it made cool mushroom clouds of smoke on windless days.

Stop doing pyro, get a scale, and start again. Use reputable reference material.

 

Why are you adding 10% dextrin to your BP ? There is no reason to do that, I can't think of any comp that uses that much. You don't really need *any* dextrin in Black Powder, some people add a few percent if they are pressing and corning it, but otherwise, it just slows it down.

 

Seriously, get a scale. It just isn't going to work well for you without one.

[Chemguy]

Read this

Ok it's 9.11111%, no big deal!

And yes I did mean lift powder so sorry. You might think a scale would be easy to get, but the things that measure down to 0.1 grams cost hundreds of dollars(according to my science teacher but then again he said hydrochloric acid and magnesium made chlorine gas), If I had infinite money then I would buy one, but I don't, I don't have a job and I still have 3 years of school left.

Infact, I might look on trademe...

[Chemguy]

Thanks for the site, I am thinking of buying this one. I can get it for $25 (US I think) but I don't know how much the shipping is to New Zealand. It isn't big so it shouldn't be too much .

It measures to 0.1 grams and can hold up to 300 grams at once. Plus it comes in a unique, 'hand designed' patented design .

[rocket]

You should check Ebay out, I got my scales from there for $10AUD 0.1g accurate and they have lasted me about 5-6 months which isn’t bad for the price I paid for them. I think there still on Ebay.

[Von Bass`]

You should check Ebay out, I got my scales from there for $10AUD 0.1g accurate and they have lasted me about 5-6 months which isn’t bad for the price I paid for them. I think there still on Ebay.

Yep, you can get some remarkably cheap scales on ebay, just watch out for the ones that are offering you it near free, but from somewhere like china. They often have large import taxes that you have to pay

 

I bought some off ebay for £10, have had them for two years without anything going wrong

[Mumbles]

Only a retard believes everything they read on wikipedia.

[Chemguy]

^^Not exactly a 'useful' post, but nonetheless, I will buy one off trademe or eBay today or tomorow, thanks for the ideas guys .

[moonshot]

According to my scale a level teaspoon of dextrin weighs 1.2 grams. I use United Nuclears ratio of 10 grams dextrin to 100 grams BP to grain lift powder. You could probably go a bit lower with the dextrin and still get a reasonably hard grain. I still need to try pressing my powder into pucks and corning it. The dextrin is a fuel so it will slow the powder down somewhat but if your BP is fast to begin with I don't think it's going to matter much.

[itwasntme]

1.I've heard of people using coins as milling media, can this be done? I'd prefer to use pennys, but they don't way as much but are everywere. I dont have much nickles, just cashed them in at a bank. I saw someone here use pennies and say that they turned black, no one said that they should use them due to saftey issues, can I use them? I dont care if I need a lot or need to mill longer, not a prob as long as my bp wooshes. Can copper, zinc or nickle spark? What about contamination? Anything to worry about?

 

2. Oh, also it is sorta cold around here, about 30-45 tonight, will this effect anything? Like increased danger?

 

3. Does anyone know how much a .454 lead ball will weigh? My rock tumbler can only take about 1 lb. I won't be milling much, about 40 grams of BP at the most.

 

4. Can marbles be used for single chems? Like charcoal, kno3, or something else like coffee creamer?

 

thanks.

[Chemguy]

According to my scale a level teaspoon of dextrin weighs 1.2 grams

Thankyou, My scales won't arrive for a while so now I can do some lift powder. .

 

Itwasntme, Wouldn't pennies have a chance of sparking?

Also cold temps shouldn't effect anything.

I would use marbles for milling one at a time, why not?

[styropyro]

Marbles do wear down pretty easily, I'm speaking from experience . But if you don't need a super high purity chemical then you could give it a try. But your once shiny marbles will become frrosted marbles after a while. The one problem is the tiny particles of glass could be bad in a friction sensitive mixture. I would suggest trying to find some better media, but you can try some marbles, but the milling won't be as good as with lead milling media.

[itwasntme]

According to my scale a level teaspoon of dextrin weighs 1.2 grams

Thankyou, My scales won't arrive for a while so now I can do some lift powder. .

 

Itwasntme, Wouldn't pennies have a chance of sparking?

Also cold temps shouldn't effect anything.

I would use marbles for milling one at a time, why not?

I got about the same, it doesn't matter much, as long as there is enough to hold it together. Thanks for answering so quickly, I'm milling my kno3 over night. 1 hour of milling from table salt size particles to finer than 3 times coffee ground particles. Its amazing, only about 12 marbles(lost most of them and the dollar stores were closed tonight) maybe? What about nickles? I'm getting some from the bank tomorow.

 

Balsa charcoal is overrated to, I though it would pop or something when lit like 3FG, it was only milled for about 1.5 hours though, and undercharged. It was pretty good, my poplar bp is still better, but havn't tested that with the new mill yet.

[millhouse]

MAKE ONE YOUYR SELF~!

[itwasntme]

MAKE ONE YOUYR SELF~!

What? Make what my self?