Black Powder Thread #1

[InRainbows]

pipi, that link would work, but it's typically easier to do it in a way described here: http://www.pyroguide.com/index.php?title=Charcoal

 

Pyros usually use this method because it can be scaled up infinitely, just get a bigger pot. The Al Foil method described is for very small batches, and a paint tin can be used more than once.

[justanotherpyro]

Conceptually that will work just fine. Scaling it up a bit though is how you can really make it worth the time and effort to cook charcoal. Try a cookie tin with a hole punched in the top of it as the container.

 

*EDIT* yeah what he said.....

[TheSidewinder]

Yes, a heavy-duty cookie tin, or anything similar, with some holes punched will work fine.

 

From what I've seen and heard (and hope to do myself some day), the most important thing to remember is that once the charcoal is "done" (no more volatile outgassing from the tin), you HAVE to prevent any air from getting inside or it will continue to burn to ash. Turn the tin upside down in soft dirt and cover it with more soft dirt, whatever, keep the air OUT after you remove it from your heat source, then let it cool *completely*.

 

If you've done it right, when you open the tin you'll behold sticks of nice glossy, hard, solid black (no gray ash) charcoal, which should snap in half cleanly with the CENTER being as dark and shiny as the outside.

 

If you get this result, you'll have excellent material for making any mesh-size charcoal you want, from coarsely-ground to airfloat.

[psymon]

I heard that slightly brown charcoal has some good uses too. Sometimes making good BP.

Not sure about this though as I tend to cook my willow charcoal until it is completely black and rings when you hit it.

 

May try some raspberry canes and budlea to see if i can make some faster stuff soon.

[TheSidewinder]

I had heard something like that, too, but never heard exactly WHAT to use it in, or how.

 

Anyone have further info on that?

[lja]

There is quite a bit of info on cocoa powder here:

 

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.pyrotec...08e73cf99d9cb4e

[pyrogeorge]

i found this..credits to sasman

 

 

Hi

Charcoal plays a very important part in pyro and trying to buy cheap good quality willow charcoal is pretty hard ..

..So my only option is to make it yourself..I have started making some this week and will make as much as i can before i get fed up of debarking the willow mad.gif ...I have chopped up some old willow tree branches and debarked them and left them out to dry for the last 2 weeks orso..I found that it didnt have to be dry but it stops a lot of smoke when the wood is drier..

 

...I placed the willow in to a metal box which i made out of mild steel sheeting Willow before atkins diet out of intrest i weighed it on an old bathroom scale to see what yield i would get..

Here you can see the box in the kiln Ready steady cook! ..

One good thing about making your own charcoal with an electric kiln is that you can control the cooking temp very constistantly,so in theory my charcoal should be fairly consistant quality..I used an electronic thermometer to measure the cooking temp..389 centigrade ..

 

..As you can see the wood starts producing lots of grey smoke..temp was about 390 C..After about 40 minutes the color of the smoke changes to a white/blue colour this is a sign that pyrolysis has begun, i ignite this smoke with lighter and it burns with a yellow sooty flame.Burn Baby Burn!..After about another 40 minutes the fire goes out and there is no more smoke..this indicates that the charcoal is ready and needs cooling down!

Stop Cooking!

Now what you have to do is to stop oxygen getting to the charcoal so what i do is quickly remove the tin from the kiln Turn the box upside down with the lid still on?and cover it with earth..Soil

I leave this to cool down its very important to do this ..here is what happens if you try to rush things.. Ashes to Ashes.. as you can see if oxygen gets too warm charcoal it er burns blink.gif .. and not much use..Look at all that horrible white ash..

 

Now look at the nice shiny black charcoal Cooked to perfection and here is my grubby little hands on it Charcoal stick it breaks with a sharp crack and its black all the way through no brown bits of under cooked wood smile.gif

I weighed it before it was cooked now lets see what it weighs after cooking After atkins diet. . 16 lbs before and about 9 1/2 lbs after so 6 1/2 lbs lighter? Now the tin box weighs about 7 1/2 lbs So i have about 2lb of Willow Charcoal left from 8 1/2 lbs of wood.. So a yeild of about 25% ..

 

 

Also going to make some Pine charcoal as that sounds pretty good for producing nice sparks..

 

sasman

[TheSidewinder]

There is quite a bit of info on cocoa powder here:

 

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.pyrotec...08e73cf99d9cb4e

Ah yes, it figures Don Haarmann would be in on that historical aspect of BP-making posted there.

 

Still and all, I'll stick with my "regular" BP.

 

I don't need MORE variables in my shell-building.

[marks265]

I just made some charcoal the other day. So IF you want to see the container and some charcoal check these out;

 

grape vine and willow charcoal w/tins used. After loading tin I put it on a hot charcoal grill and put a brick on top. After tin stop smoking about 1/2 hour or so I removed from heat. DO NOT let air hit it until cool! The last 2 are grape vine.

 

 

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00074.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00073.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00072.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00071.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00077.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00075.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00076.jpg

[0nE.sh0t.kIll]

Isn't all the white stuff (ash) on the charcoal bad?

[TheSidewinder]

That looks more like reflection from the camera flash, unless I miss my guess?

 

A *little* ash won't hurt, you just brush it off.

 

And nice-looking charcoal, btw.

[marks265]

Ya that is kind of weird, looks whiter closer and looks browner when farther. It is pretty much black. Yes there is a very small amount of ash which is very minor as The Sidewinder said. I suspect hot spots that touch the tin when in the fire.

 

Thanks M

 

Maybe I should have used black paper for back ground!

 

Lift powder experiments are now on the menu.

[Bonny]

A *little* ash won't hurt, you just brush it off.

I've had batches with some ash a few times. I have washed off with water and dried (waste of time IMO) or simply blown the ash off with compressed air.

The BP lift performed without any noticeable difference in any case.

[marks265]

I did some testing with black powder manufacturing and I want to share what I found with youse guys. The 2 things I concentrated on were mill time and charcoal type (which is the exact charcoal pics I posted earlier) for this short test. Because willow is supposed to be one of the best I only milled it 2 hours to see how it would respond and I thought that it did quite well. The grape vine was milled 2 hrs then I removed 100 grams of meal and resealed and continued milling until it reached the 5 hour mark. All powder was made the same day, allowed to dry over night (after corning) without any drying aid and then tested the next day. The willow was an 800 gram batch and the grape vine was a 1100 gram batch. This is a small difference but this size of a batch fills my jar about 1/2 way. The KNO3 and S were of the same batch.

When the BP trials were pressed they were prepared with 10 grams of tap water added to 100 grams of BP. No dextrin or alcohol was used. These are the results of the pressing and corning. I used passfires calculator to figure density but they call out dry PB where mine was wetted. I made 3 pucks from each 100 gram test batch posted is 1 puck of each batch.

 

Willow Grape 2 hr grape 5 hr

1.5015 1.503 1.500 diameter

.670 .725 .745 tall

36.2 39.3 40.3 weighed grams

1.88 1.80 1.87 density

 

69 68.2 65.5 weight ofwindow screen corned (2F?)

26 30.7 26.5 weight of dust through a juice screen

5.0 1.1 8.0 lost in processing

 

54.6 56 52.6 burn trough powder weight used

 

I did not make my corning drum yet. These pucks were so hard I had to break them apart and reduce their size with a channel lock pliers. Then I had to put my screen on several layers of newspaper and ground the pieces through the screen using the butt end of a wooden hammer handle. And the corning was done immediately after pressing!

 

As a wild card I have black powder that I made last year by pressing it by hand in a ricer through a coffee filter. It is hardwood charcoal and is included to show what inferior powder can do. It made a mess of my burn trough! Also the powder was much lighter than the others. I only used 36.4 grams to fill the trough!

 

And now for the cool stuff--pics and vids!!!!!

 

Burn trough 2-1/2 feet long with 3/8" square grooves in pine 2x4.

 

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00085.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00086.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00088.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...65/DSC00089.jpg

 

Burn tests. Man I love watching these things!

 

meal with willow and milled 2 hours

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kho1ByNpv1w

 

meal with grape vine and milled 2 hours

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8AuNfT3vxU

 

meal with grape vine and milled 5 hours

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8SZDcun9B0

 

meal with hardwood and pressed through ricer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhlLstZ5YrA

 

 

Lastely I wished I would have done a 5 hour meal test with the willow. I can't tell but I think the longer mill time on the grape vine is a slower burn than the 2 hour mill time. Suspect the possibility of such a thing as over milling but can't proove it yet and I'm sure someone will yell "sacrilege" So now I may have to look at repeatability which should be done anyway! Can anyone give exact times on the burn tests?

[Mumbles]

To me the 5hr looks somewhat faster, but is just a qualitative guess based upon watching them back to back.

 

It wouldn't be too hard to get approximate burn rates with some sort of video editing program(+/- 0.1 seconds at the worst). I'm partial to virtualDUB, but probably anyone will work. virtualDUB is free as well. I have no idea if it's possible to save videos from youtube. I know there used to be at least. I would be willing to take a look at the video files if you give me links to the actual files.

 

Feel free to upload to the forum filehost if you don't have other storage means.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/

 

It might be interesting to see other variables such as if breaking the pucks up after they dry, or right after pressing makes a difference. If density makes a difference. If over milling is possible(mill for 60hr or so). Comparison of simple ricing to pressing and granulating. Granulation speeds.

 

http://www.fogoforum.us/bptester.php

That link may be of interest to you as well. It will eliminate the need for any video editing software, and will likely give more accurate results.

[marks265]

After further review I think you're right, the 5 hour is faster.

After 5 hours of milling the powder was warmer than ambient temp and it was not hard to tell. This was not noticable for a 2 hour run. So this may be another facet to monitor along with your suggestions.

Right now I am going to purchase some industry standard screens and get my corning drum made so that I can be consistant. And while I'm at it a pressure gauge or sensor for pressing pucks.

What bothers me is what do we use bp for where granulated burn rate is needed? I think I will build a small dummy shell and mortar to observe lift or gas pressure produced as well.

I will post the vids later to APC. I think someone is going to have a lot of BP laying around for a short time!

 

Thanks for the links, I gotta get going.

 

By the way the hand pressed BP I made only used 36.4 grams to fill the trough

[qwezxc12]

If you upload the files to APC, I can count the frames with video editing software...assuming they were filmed at 30fps, you'll get your burn times. PM me with the links.

[marks265]

Ok,

 

I uploaded the 4 burns to;

 

http://www.apcforum.net/files/handpressed2f.mpg

http://www.apcforum.net/files/2hrgrape.mpg

http://www.apcforum.net/files/5hrgrape2f.mpg

http://www.apcforum.net/files/2hrwillow2.mpg

 

These were filmed in HD/SP with a Sony handy cam and then converted to mpg. And thank god I got it this far. I had to type in all the links.

 

I can't get the last link to work will try again tomorrow.

Edited March 25, 2008 by TheSidewinder

[TheSidewinder]

Marks,

 

Your link was malformed:

 

it displayed "2hrwillow2"

 

but the imbedded link-pointer said "2willow2"

 

I've fixed it and it works fine now.

 

M

[qwezxc12]

FWIW, here's what I got:

(Assuming 30fps source video)

 

"2HrGrape": frames 42-63 = .7 sec

"2HrWillow": frames 34-49 = .5 sec

"5HrGrape": frames 36-55 = .633 sec

"Handpressed": frames 55-101 - 1.533 sec

 

As a comparison, the BP tests at cregan.net list Elephant 2Fg @ .501 sec and Elephant 4Fg @ .77 sec in a 30" burn trough, no weight given.

 

So, you're in good company any of the grape or the willow should get shells up there with 1/12 - 1/16 the weight of the shell in lift. Good job on the data and tests.

[marks265]

THANKS for your help guys! That is why I used the 30" burn trough so that a comparison can be had against others. With qwezxc12's info that really puts the icing on the mortar tube

 

Now back to the corning drum build, 1/2 way there now. I bought a rack of pool balls EL Cheapos cost me $30.

[marks265]

Ok so now I learned how to make black powder. But the pucks are a pain in the back side to reduce to wanted grain sizes. The plan was to build and use Passfire's corning machine and spin it on my Pyro Machine. And so I did but the drum size is too large and would walk off the shafts. If I did anything to contain it it would look like an after thought and take away from the looks of the machine.

I then built a "corning jar". It follows the Loyd S. ball mill design but I cut the end caps way back leaving only an inch of glue socket at each end. Instead of lead media I used pool balls! The pipe was drilled with many 3/16" holes. Then I lined the inside with a window screen and stitched it with wire. It was not a good seal because it is a protype and so I had leakage up to 3/16" grain size of course but I screened and reran the larger chunks.

It turned out that it was well worth the effort. I got about a 3:1 ratio, if I got about 21 grams of 2 fg I got about 7 grams of dust. I milled 500 grams of pucks fairly easy. I was playing with speeds, times, sampling output and inspecting the screen so it still took awhile. On a good final screen design this will be a value added tool! Anyone using a jar this size or larger I would recommend trying this.

 

Here are some picks:

 

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/m...corningmill.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/marks265/cm1.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/marks265/cm2.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg146/marks265/cm4.jpg

[Stinger]

Hi

 

I have finally made some very decent blackpowder .

 

The chemicals KNO3, sulfur and charcoal (pre-milled) were screened together.

Followed by dumping the mix in th mill, wetting it with a spray bottle and then I milled it for one hour.

The BP kept sticking on the walls, but I think thats the clue, the charcoal is mixed wih th sulfur and KNO3 and the lead balls force the KNO3 into the charcoal, as if you press BP pucks, just much smaller, with the help of the mill.

 

I used willow charcoal and in the video I used mealpowder.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRO0COye04o

 

Stinger

[frogy]

Here's some Willow Pulverone I made...

 

I don't think it's quite done drying...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHKFo9taQPI

 

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/2440/willowpulvkraftkn9.th.jpg

 

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/5964/flakebpop2.th.jpg

 

Also, here's some cool looking White Pine BP flakes recovered from my Crispie Coater

 

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/7590/willowpulvcontainerjz7.th.jpg

[50AE]

I have a question about black powder :

If I get white drop while burning, does that mean that BP's not dry yet ? I speak for wet grinded BP.