Black Powder Thread #1

[Aquarius]

Mostly I use a good quality hardwood charcoal for rocket drivers, and it works very well, it's cheap, easy and messy.

 

Then I tried homecooked hazelnut wood, and it was a world of difference.

Getting better, I tried some homecooked Alder, 6 hrs milled, wetted and granulated. That was scary stuff!

 

The point is, almost any good (homemade) charcoal works.

If one wish to experiment, there is a wide range of thress, bushes and plants to try out. Good luck, you have found a quest for life.

 

Many of us others have found a good, reliable source of charcoal that works, and I spend my time building stuff instead of the endless "Will XXX charcoal work better than YYY charcoal?"

[qwezxc12]

Tried with newspaper. About 3 hours in a paint can. It stopped smoking so I took it off the fire. Opened it up and poof lmao like a giant lighter it lit up so to try again...

You need to let your retort (paint can) COOL Down before opening it...you just heated up a sizable quantity of combustible material well above it's kindling temperature in the absence of Oxygen. If you give the charcoal air before it's cooled to below it's ignition temperature...well you found out. Hope you didn't lose your eyebrows...

 

Newspaper will work for BP charcoal in a pinch. Here some newspaper BP burn rate comparisons I did:

BP burn tests

 

And a few newspsper charcoal BP rockets:

Rockets

 

Good luck! Keep us posted on your progress.

[Caramanos2000]

Cool, figured something like that. Just tried the local lump charcoal also and it was pretty fast after 3 or 4 hours of miling. Gonna go buy some existing charcoal and try those. Also gonna try with newspaper again.

[Caramanos2000]

Found some oak charcoal, any good? Also found some Sodium Percarbonate, any good?

[Mumbles]

With enough milling Oak can work, however at normal milling times it gives poor results. I beleive someone said around 30 hours in a standard 4hr mill is good. Maple is said to give good results, grape vines, anything in the willow family, a lot of things will work. Never know until you try.

 

Sodium PErcarbonate, no it's not good for anything really in pyro.

[Flamethrowa]

Cooked up some willow yesterday, only I was using some sort of easy-barbecue charcoal to heat the cooker and it didn't last too long.

 

The result was a few brown patches and mostly shiny black.

 

I carefully sorted through and picked what seemed to be the good charcoal, ground it up, and made a 50g batch of meal.

 

I didn't bother with quantitative tests, but from what I see it seems to burn slower and cooler than the BP made with the hardwood charcoal I bought.

 

Perhaps more cooking could fix this, but it almost isn't worth the time.

 

 

Anyways, what I am really wondering:

 

Corning vs. Granulated?

 

I made a really ghetto style press involving a vice and I achieved up to 1.3g/cc which is better than nothing. From what I read around these parts, the general consensus is that corning makes the powder much faster.

 

Then I found this:

 

http://www.creagan.net/fireworks/blackpowder2.html#process

 

"Pressing powder makes it sturdier - it does not make it faster than an equivalent grain size in pulverone."

 

I think it says somewhere there that it makes it slower, actually, due to less air spaces. So.....the verdict? What do you guys think?

[Caramanos2000]

With enough milling Oak can work, however at normal milling times it gives poor results. I beleive someone said around 30 hours in a standard 4hr mill is good. Maple is said to give good results, grape vines, anything in the willow family, a lot of things will work. Never know until you try.

 

Sodium PErcarbonate, no it's not good for anything really in pyro.

Am I better off with oak or with my Airfloat from Discount pyro?

[Mumbles]

One and the same actually. Commercial airfloat is generally highly made up of oak. They literally take old hardwood furniture and such and cook it up. Oak, maple, and I believe hickory or cherry are primarily what you will get. Perhaps some pine or cedar, I don;t know if they specify between hard and softwoods.

[tentacles]

I live in Puerto Rico, that why its more complicated. looked on ebay, Im not paying $30 for a pound of charcoal.

The balsa tree may be native to puerto rico - the national forest service lists it "Balsa Ochroma pyramidale Cav."

 

Other possibles might be: tropical ash, kauri

 

There are a LOT of woods I bet have never been tried down there - http://www.fs.fed.us/global/iitf/native.htm

 

Try the balsa it makes very good BP! but you may have to hunt for it in a forest.

 

Otherwise you might try contacting customcharcoal.com and seeing if they will sell you some of their willow or alder lump charcoal and mail it to you. There should be no shipping problems as USPS ships to PR for the regular rates but I believe customcharcoal usually ships UPS. If you don't want to buy that much, I am thinking about going for a 20# bag of the red alder, and would be willing to sell and ship you a few #.

 

On that note, does anyone see any point in paying the same price for 8# of willow charcoal when you could get 20# of the red alder for the same price (incl shipping)? ladykate's site shows it on par with paulownia, but they only did a burn trough test.

[Caramanos2000]

http://s104.photobucket.com/albums/m171/Ca...rrent=OakBp.flv

[mormanman]

That burn very fast. I can get my bp to do that and I milled it for 48 hours.

[crazyboy25]

Newspaper will work for BP charcoal in a pinch. Here some newspaper BP burn rate comparisons I did:

BP burn tests

 

And a few newspsper charcoal BP rockets:

Rockets

 

Good luck! Keep us posted on your progress.

it seems in all your rockets you used 10% metal is this acceptable with almost all metals (magnalium aluminum iron) and almost all rockets mainly whistles?

[qwezxc12]

Newspaper will work for BP charcoal in a pinch. Here some newspaper BP burn rate comparisons I did:

BP burn tests

 

And a few newspsper charcoal BP rockets:

Rockets

 

Good luck! Keep us posted on your progress.

it seems in all your rockets you used 10% metal is this acceptable with almost all metals (magnalium aluminum iron) and almost all rockets mainly whistles?

That thread was specifically on meal + metal endburner rockets. Fine mesh Al flake or spherical (as you can see in the vids) added substantially to the thrust, but were too fine particle-size wise to leave any spark trail. Coarse Fe, FeTi, and Ti looked the best. I've subsiquently used coarse MgAl for a white crackle tail, too.

 

(edited 'cause I can't spell...)

 

I do not know how (uncoated) Mg would react with the K-nitrate. I have no experience with whistle rockets, so I cannot help out there.

[Caramanos2000]

You guys think someone would want Oak charcoal for $3 per lb. Turns out it grows locally.

[Mumbles]

Oak grows almost everywhere locally. I think you'd have a hard time selling it period. People generally want known fast woods such as willow and such. Oak is not well known for it's speed.

 

As far as whistle, Ti is the only thing I know of that will leave a tail. Others will probably just burn up inside the rocket perhaps increasing thrust.

[Jason]

Has anyone ever made meal coated millet? I don't know where to find rice hulls, and millet is very cheap at the local pet shop.

 

Heck, millet looks like it would be a good core for stars too.

[gods knight]

why don't u use rice krispies thats what i use for my shells, but it probably wont work for smaller shells

[Mumbles]

Oh look, holy shit, it's rule #6.

 

"6. Use proper English. Capitalize the beginning of sentences, use correct punctuation, use full words (“you,” not “u,” “two/too/to,”, not “2,” and so on). The most important thing is that it can be read and understood. If you take the extra 2 minutes to look over your post, you can save yourself a warning or two. Hint: Run your post through a word editor's spelling check and it will catch almost everything, except maybe chemical formulas and mistakes in nomenclature. Perfect grammar is not necessary. As long as your post is readable, and it isn’t an eye sore to read due to lack of one of the above fields, there is a good chance you will remain warningless due to english skills."

 

 

 

 

As far as the millet. Yes, it is a good star core. For a burst maybe not. They kind of have opposite ideal qualities. For a burst charge you want something lightweight, decently large and have much airspace. For a rolling core, you want something small, and relatively haavy to pick up the comp. I'd suggest rice crispies like the guy who spells like a 14 year old girl suggested. Another possibility, especially for larger shells is cotton seed or puffed rice cereal(different from rice crispies), say 6" and up. I've heard of people using grass seed before. Small cork bits also are an option. Vermiculite from the gardening store would make an excellent choice if you don't might going through the trouble of screening out the large and small material.

 

Where do you live that you can't find rice hulls? Call around for local microbrew shops. If you're not old enough to drink(which I don't think you are), say they're for your dad who makes his own wine. Reading a bit on wine may make you seem more believeable. It's used as a filter to get all the grape skin and shit out of the finished wine.

[gods knight]

Sorry for the grammar

 

I live in Florida and so far I couldn't find anywhere that sells rice hulls,does anyone know where I can buy rice hulls, other than internet purchases?

 

 

 

the guy who spells like a 14 year old girl, that was cold

[Jason]

Thanks mumbles. You're assumption was correct, I am only 17.

 

I live close to Flint, MI. I'm going to check out Vermiculite, since there is actually a gardening store about 8 minutes away.

[Polumna]

Hi all

 

godsknight,

 

Your problem can be solved this way:

 

Just go to an asian store and check wether they have rice hulls,

they usually have them in store.

 

That´s where I got mine from:)

They are very cheap, too

 

Polumna

[gods knight]

Thanks, do you know where I can buy(dusting) sulfur,other than Home Depot and Lows

[al93535]

Call around to all of your local hardware stores and nursery's. Or go visit a volcano.

[Mumbles]

You're probably not going to find rice hulls at an asian grocery store. I've never seen them, nor know of any reason they would have them. They serve no real purpose for anything. It's a biproduct of the rice industry, that to my knowlege mostly goes to waste, probably burnt as fuel. It'd be like corn cobs in America. Most of it just gets burnt as fuel, or turned into animal feed or something. There is a small percentage that is turned into animal bedding though. Corn cobs may work too, but they are relatively heavy.

 

If you don't mind ordering stuff online, here you go. http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/si...SearchStr=hulls

 

There is another site that sells 55lb bags for about 11, but that may be a bit much for you.

[gods knight]

Wow!, thank for the site, I cant believe how cheap they are 1$ a pound, amazing, and the shipping is very reasonable.

 

By the way can you tell me what ratio do you use to coat rice hulls?