aa92td Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 There is someone here that using commercial hardwood Charcoal for lifting? If you do what ratios do you using...btw I'm remember that i saw a video of pgf grinding hardwood charcoal so if you have good lifting powder ratios with that charcoal its will be helpfull for me, thanks a lot and forgive me about my English , AgwA.
psyco_1322 Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 Ratios are not really going to make that much of a difference. It the making of the lift thats going to get it to work. I use oak, its hardwood, its from walmart so its commercial and it lifts shells. Read this:http://www.skylighter.com/skylighter_info_...le.asp?Item=115
aa92td Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 Psyco i am not a newbe I do have my own lifting powder from pine three charcoal that lift 1-12. but when i am using commercial hardwood charcoal i've got leftovers and cannot find the correct ratios (i cant run the ball mill to much times because its disturb to the neighbors) so if you have a different ratios with hardwood charcoal it will help me , at least i will know that i tried everything and will choose the best option for me. thanks and sorry about my english.
psyco_1322 Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 I wasnt trying to call you a noob. Sorry if I came off that way. But I dont think that changing the ratio of your powder will make if perform much better. There just is not the potential in the fuel to make it work much better. You shoot 12" shells? I still dont understand why people are worried about their mills bothering nieghbors. How does an electric motor, in a garage, running in the middle of the day, with the nieghbors inside their house watching TV and enjoying the AC disturb them? But the article is by Ned Gorski, a well acomplished pyro about just what your looking at. A suitable lift powder from some crappy charcoal. No milling at all. I read it this morning, its good reading. I instist you read it. Not sure where your from AgwA but for the most part your English is pretty good.
Mumbles Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 I think he means that he uses 1/12th the weight of the shell to lift it. Anyway, as psyco said, the ratio is always the same for lift powder 75-15-10. No matter what charcoal you are using, the ratio stays constant. I'm not sure where the idea that you can change the ratio to get better lift came about. 75:15:10 is a tried and true standard developed over hundreds of years. Of all the formulation variations, and effects, black powder is always the same. If you are going to use commercial hardwood, be sure it is the lump variety. The briquettes are very poor quality. I have used hardwood charcoal in the past with good results. I have since moved back to willow though.
aa92td Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 thanks psyco , and when i said 1-12 i meant that for object that wieght 12 gram i'm using 1 gram of lift powder.my biggest shell yet is 5" round shell
BPinthemorning Posted June 3, 2008 Posted June 3, 2008 Fredbert, I live in Georgia and I can't look out my window without seeing a eucalyptus... I am almost done with my new ball mill. And it should only be a few weeks till I make some BP with eucalyptus charcoal. The stuff grows fast and is basically a weed. These are great characteristics for BP charcoal. On a side note, recent in depth research has led me to looking, in detail at all trees that have had high success rates for BP. Now that I know how to identify them, I see them everywhere. Black willow, Tree of Heaven, Poplar, Empress Trees; their all over the place where I live! God, I'm practically euphoric...
Yankie Posted June 3, 2008 Posted June 3, 2008 I live in Australia so you can imagine how many eucalypts there are. If you could PM me when you make some eucalypt bp it would be appreciated.
aa92td Posted June 3, 2008 Posted June 3, 2008 I have made an eucalypts charcoal in the past something like 2 years ago and I remember that eucalypts bp was very weak and burn in a very deep orange color. Ratios are not really going to make that much of a difference. It the making of the lift thats going to get it to work. I use oak, its hardwood, its from walmart so its commercial and it lifts shells. Psyco i just want you to know that Oak is mentioned in the book as a great charcoal for bp.
psyco_1322 Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 Its pretty ok really. It is better than some hardwood I got from skylighter. Its no where near as good as pine though. But yes it works ok. I did just try the no mill red gum idea with it at 5% redgum cause I didnt know what it really was so I just used something low and the powder fails for any power. Oak deffinately needs to be milled.
BPinthemorning Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 Pine grows everywhere... Why bother with oak? However, oak burn speeds would be desirable for different applications. E.G. slower burning fuses like black match and paper fuses.
psyco_1322 Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 Yah if I used bm for that. I like mine fast! ! ! and fast mines I bought a big bag of the oak charcoal from walmart so I didnt have to cook my own, it was getting to be a pain in my small conatiner, I was waiting to get a 5 gallon can from a friend for mass cooking. Yah I have acess to lots of lumber to make charcoal out of. Thats what im going to after I use up the rest of this 10lb bag.
DIYMark Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 Its been a bit of a challenge to make some decent BP where I live (Australia) This is mainly because charcoal is an issue. Willow is availble from art supply places at the ridiculous price of $10 for like 5-10 grams! And willow trees are no where to be seen where I live. That is why I spent yesterday experimenting this different ("Alternate") charcoal types. I tired newspaper, A4 letter paper, cardboard and some random wood I found. To sum it up they all were crap. Newspaper was okay but it varies greatly. And having the greatest variable in BP (Charcoal) vary, it just plain sucks. Also a week or 2 ago we cut down some trees because they were leaving their leaves all over the garden and blocking the sun - so they got cut down. But from memory the wood from this tree was extremely hard/heavy and the the tree grew pretty quick too (both contribute to decent BP charcoal I say) Anyway I cooked it up and in the end I have 600 grams of charcoal. I ball milled some 75:15:10 for about 3 hours (my ball mill is pretty efficient) and had some meal powder as a result! First I noticed that the meal was air float. Better watch where you breathe when this is around! So I proceeded to do a burn test. In the state of mind from yesterdays slow tests it lit he teaspoon size heap and the thing was SUPER fast. I burnt my fingers This was the fastest meal I have made. It made a nice little thump and burnet super hot and clean for meal and so I cant wait to have this thing granulated! (Meal is slower than granulated) So at the moment I'm drying a little puck for smashing up later. The problem is the tree used in unknown! I looked on Google for about and hour and still am clueless. So I took some branches and made some photos! http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/6771/tree1dl1.th.jpg http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5111/tree2dq8.th.jpg The tree was tall and pretty narrow considering its height. The wood was really heavy and super hard! The only distinguishing feature is the leaves I think. They are small and elliptical with a tiny point at the end. Furthermore the bark was easy to peel off and the trunk had a grayish bark color. Can anyone identify this tree? The only other issue is that well, those trees were chopped down and disposed off and I managed to find some scraps for charcoal. Now theres none left! But I do have 600 grams charcoal which would make me about 4kg of BP! However... behind the house there is 3 more of these trees but their tiny! like 2.5 - 3 meters! I might have to chuck a bit of KNO3 onto them to make em grow a bit more faster! Also would the difference between 75:15:10 and 74:14:12 be noticeable. Like you have to piles and your not told which is which. You light one and then the other. Would you be able to go like "Wow, thats the 74:14:12 for sure" or is it a minor difference?!
Mumbles Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 I merged your thread with the existing black powder thread. I was debating between this one and the "willow alternatives" thread. Both would have been fine. We really don't need more that one thread on the same topic, especially when the threads are still very active.
mike_au Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 DIYMark, I can't tell you what it is called, but I have definitely seen it around so hopefully it shouldn't be too hard to find more of it (having said that I remember seeing weeping willow around but damned if I remember where :/) I have had reasonable success using White Cedar charcoal (aka Cape Lilac) which is also fairly common I believe (it is easy to find because it will be *covered* in caterpillars). I also have some meal powder made from London Planetree (a sycamore cross breed which is literally *everywhere*) hopefully I will get a chance to test that on the weekend and see if its is any good. Edit: What state are you in?
DIYMark Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 Ummm I'm in Tassie My parents wanted to move here for some reason... Not all that bad - you can buy 25Kg of KNO3 at and Ag store with no probs! Also I made a few rockets with that meal. This batch was milled about an hour long then usual (4 Hours) and it was only 5% faster. So the performance of my BP was dropping off slowly (Took considerably longer for a small difference in burn rates). Anyway, I made some end burner tooling which is like an Estes C class motor but with a converging cone in the nozzle. They flew great! My second end burner made! Next I wanted to try a little payload. The BP meal was heaps fast to make a salute/noise so I used that. The motor was the same as before (end burner) but due to the extra mass I used a drill bit and twisted it to make a slight core about 12mm long. Bad choice* The motor over pressurized, the nozzle blew out, continued burning and propelled its self up about 3 meters (a nozzleless end burner!) the fuel ran out really quick (no nozzle) and set the header of above our heads making a nice classic BP salute sound - all of which happened in a mater for less than 1 second! *I should have used a slightly wider drill bit than the nozzle so I would create a core and a larger nozzle at the same time* Anyway, Ive made 8 more motor tubes for tomorrow - 5 plain, 3 with headers! One thing I think that is pretty nifty is that - I will stick to end burners because with fast enough meal they are quite powerful; and if a heavy header needs lifting a small drill bit can be used to make the nozzle wider and the core longer. Plus end burners are way more pleasant to make!
TheSidewinder Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 The leaves in those pictures look like the Weeping Willow here, except the Willow(s) around here have longer and narrower leaves. As shiny as the leaves are, they remind me of the eucalyptus/gum trees I saw when I visited Oz in '06. Could they be the same? (I don't know how many of the trees on the mainland of Oz are common to Tasmania.)
Swede Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 Interesting on your description of the mystery tree, when you said it was chopped and hauled away. How about this for making charcoal? You take your wood of choice, peel the bark, generally get it ready as if you were going to cut it and put it in the charcoal oven, but instead run the wood through one of those "chipper/shredders." Gather what comes out... it should be smaller nuggets, fairly uniform. Pack those nuggets into your canister rather than whole branches. The nuggets should pack well, yet leave room to breathe and vent a bit. Three good things - your charcoal is already in smaller pieces. You can pack MORE into the can, so the yield is higher per burnout. Finally, it may process faster as the cross section of each piece is going to be smaller.
DIYMark Posted June 5, 2008 Posted June 5, 2008 Not to worry. Ive found 3 trees like that at the back of the house and another 2 large ones on the side! Im loaded with good trees for charcoal. I also launched those rockets I made. They were great! The engines were fault free and performed well for end burners. They managed to lift a 30 - 40 gram header of BP as a report. They made an awesome bang as the headers set off. Judging from the delay from the rocket header visually blowing up and the sound coming later Id say they were about 100 metres up (1/3 second delay) which I think is not bad for a 12mm Id 70mm long motor. So anyway, that tree as mentioned before is great for charcoal! If you can find one I say go for it.
Yankie Posted June 6, 2008 Posted June 6, 2008 Im not absolutely sure but they lok like eremophila (emu bush) but theres 241 species or something ridiculous. i will send an email of the picture to a horticulturalist and he should know. I made some balsa black powder and it was really fast, it was as fast as my FFFG corned commercial BP. I decided to granulate the mill powder and it is now only FFG. it really sucks because that was my best bp yet. anyone know what i have done wrong?
ULTRABUF Posted June 6, 2008 Posted June 6, 2008 I made balsa BP before too. It didnt work that great for me for some reason. It was really fast but it didnt seem to have a lot of power. I had much better results when I used a mix of 50:50 balsa/willow. I've stopped using balsa however due to the cost, since I have several willow trees in the vicinity of my home available for use for free.
deadman Posted June 6, 2008 Posted June 6, 2008 I also have made eucalyptus BP several times. It grows crazy in CA where I am originally from and everyone in my region uses it as fire wood since it makes horrible tasting barbecue. I believe it's the "blue gum" euc, but anyways it is always a slower burning powder for me at least. I love it for charcoal stars because like AqwA said it is very bright and leaves decently long hanging embers.
psyco_1322 Posted June 7, 2008 Posted June 7, 2008 Does weeping willow make hot bp? Im not sure that I can find any black willow around KS. I do see these willow trees that grow along the rivers but they dont seem to be weeping willows, so what are they?
psyco_1322 Posted June 7, 2008 Posted June 7, 2008 So its not even a willow tree? or is withe a type of willow?
pyrogeorge Posted June 7, 2008 Posted June 7, 2008 My granulated BP from grapevine charcoal..I think that is fast for lift uses.Your opinion?
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