Black Powder Thread #1

[chappers]

they may be available upto 8" but it would probably take two people to tighten the bloody thing.

[Canadian_Pyro]

It is very easy to make BP that will outperform the commercial stuff, even when using AG grade KNO3 and S. They key is to use good charcoal. I use alder charcoal, and my meal is twice as fast as Goex 4Fg. Goex uses maple, which produces a slower BP, but they aim for consistency rather than all out performance. I buy alder wood smoking chips in bulk (20lbs for around $5) and cook them in my Paint can retort (yes I should make a larger one, I can only cook 2 lbs at a time). The resulting charcoal is crushed with a hammer and ball milled until it is airfloat (usually takes about an hour). I use 92% pure garden sulfur and stump remover KNO3, and ball mill the prilled KNO3 until it is a fine powder. The sulfur is already a fine powder, the consistancy of flour. The ingrediants are weighed and placed in my mill for around 3-5 hours, and then removed. I then add 1% dextrin by weight, dampen the powder, and granulate the meal through a window screen. The resulting powder works great for lift, and it even worked in a polumna I made a while back.

[joe609]

So you're Bp is better than commercial stuff, using fairly low grade chems? i use willow charcoal airfloat, 99% pure kno3 and 98% pure sulfur, mill it for 24hours or so and then press it into a puck crush it and i have my Bp which is brilliant for pyro uses but it wouldnt compare with the likes of goex etc.

[Canadian_Pyro]

Something must be wrong with your method of production. Are you buying the charcoal or cooking it yourself? Because Goex uses maple charcoal, their BP does not burn as fast as BP made from a more reactive charcoal, such as willow or alder. I found a comparison of various charcoals used in BP on rec.pyro:

 

5 gram samples

Type Ave. Velocity (ft/s)

 

Goex 4F 250

Comm. air float 14

Cotton balls 36

Grape 180

Cotton fabric 180

Apple 210

Teak 220

Cherry 230

Serviceberry 260

Rock Mt. Willow 300

Alder Buckthorn 320

Silver Maple H 330

Aspen H 360

Silver Maple S 360

Carolina Buckthorn 380

Red Adler (1) 410

Red Adler (2) 410

Pacific Willow 420

NLC 430

Goex 2F 200

 

So it looks like Red Alder, Pacific Willow, and Narrow Leaf Cottonwood make the fastest BP. The commercial airfloat you can buy from Skylighter is just sad in comparison to good charcoals.

[aquaman]

What did you use to figure the Ft./s?

[Mumbles]

There are burn rate testers that can be made fairly easily. I'd point you to Dan William's site but it is down. We are already working on contacting him to host a mirror.

 

By the way joe, it is possible to make powder faster than commercial. It's just a matter of what you compare it to. Comparing to cannon grade will be different than 4 FA. Interestingly enough, Dan Williams got his -4+10 to burn the fastest. It all depends on materials, degree of intigration, and granulation. There is certainly something wrong somewhere along the line if you can't even compare it to commercial BP. Perhaps you can, but have just never had proper commercial stuff to compare to.

[aquaman]

I saw that rate tester on Dan's site, but was wondering if Canadian_Pyro was using something else. Hope you can get Dan's site back up, it had a lot of good info on it.

[Canadian_Pyro]

Those are not the results of my testing, they were taken from rec.pyrotechnics.

[joe609]

I just compared my BP with a samll ammount of the Bp that was in some visco. I assumed this was goex as i heard that goex supplies visco with the black powder to make the fuse. After a little more testing though it turned out my meal is quite alot slower than their BP my pressed granulated powder on the other hand is very close if not the same speed.

[al93535]

Fuse powder has a different formulation then regular BP. It is made to burn slower. Unless of course you are talking about fast visco. So I would not really compare your powder against that stuff.

 

Meal burns slower because it is one mass of powder burning from one end to the other. Grained BP however has air spaces, and all the grains ignite at just about the same time making the pile burn alot faster.

[Canadian_Pyro]

What kind of media do you guys use in your ball mills? Here are my conclusions based on lots of testing.

 

Antimony hardened Lead: Fastest grinding media of all, due to its density, and is very cheap if not free, but it contaminates the powder, adding lead oxides to the list of combustion byproducts. I dont know about you, but I am personally not in favor of breathing a neurotoxin each time I set off a firework. Lead is out of the picture.

 

Brass: Nearly as effective as lead when it comes to grinding efficiency, and does not contaminate the powder. However, it is horribly expensive. It costs around $80-$100 to properly charge a 6" mill jar. Ugh. Not practical.

 

Glass Marbles: Not very efficient, but they get the job done, and cost almost nothing. However, they will leave ground glass in your composition, making it slightly more friction sensitive. I have figured out a way to get around this. Coating.

 

I recently purchased 1000 glass marbles at a garage sale for a buck, and I wanted to attempt to coat them. I first placed them in a mill jar with some course sand to roughen up the surface of the marbles. They were washed clean with denatured alchohol and dried. I then modified a coffee can to act as a milling jar with a 3" diameter hole in one end, and tossed about 100 marbles into the jar. Some random chunks of PVC pipe were placed in a steel bucket and melted over a bunsen burner until a slightly viscous slurry was formed. Im sure a barbecue would work just as well. The burner was then switched off. I turned the mill on and tipped it at a 20 degree angle with the hole facing upward. The now thicker slurry was poured into the mill as it rotated. The plastic adhered to the rough marbles well, and they were evenly coated. They were continually tumbled until the plastic completely hardened to prevent them from adhering to each other. I repeated this procedure 10 times (took me around 4 hours) and had 1000 coated marbles. No chance of spark, no lead contamination, no shattered glass in the comp, and it only cost $1!

 

I havent milled anything with them yet, but I will let it run while I am at school tomorrow (I am feeling extra brave, due to the fact that I know PVC cannot spark). My other concern would be static buildup, but Black Powder cannot be set off with a static discharge, due to the fact that carbon is an excellent conductor of electricity, and does not heat up sufficiently to cause ignition. PVC is quite impact resistant, so I think it is a suitable plastic. Another choice would be Nylon.

[Mumbles]

And you may be retarded. Only certain forms of carbon are conductive, namely graphite. Unless you cook like a dumbass, you should have relatively pure non-graphitic carbon.

 

Additionally, the PVC you "coated" on the marbles will break off fairly quick. You are back to where you started and wasted 4 hours of work.

[Rooster]

BP can be set off excellently with a static discharge. Also, I would assume plastic, such as PVC to generate more static than lead.

[Canadian_Pyro]

Well it seems some of you are misinformed. The form of carbon used in BP is a fair conductor of electricity, it conducts well enough to prevent a static spark from igniting it, as seen here:

 

http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/mlexperimen...rks/sparks.html

 

The coated marbles have been in the mill for around 2 hours now, milling a pound of balsa charcoal BP, and there are no signs of wear, and the milling process is coming along nicely. I will check again in an hour or so.

[Rooster]

That is pressed and corned powder. Try making the same static discharge in a dust cloud of BP, like the one generated in a mill. I PROMISE you that it will deflagrate. If I were you, I'd drop the marbles, and invest in some real milling media. 2 hours is not nearly enough to examine wear. Think 500 hours.

[Canadian_Pyro]

I have lead, brass, and glass media, this is simply an experiment, I usually use my brass cylinders for milling.

 

Didnt you see the meal powder he tried to ignite?

 

http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/mlexperiments/sparks/sparks_dust.jpg

 

It did not ignite, even with a continuous 40,000 volt static charge passing through it. A dust cloud would not ignite either, because the carbon conducts electricity. God you people are stubborn. Why cant you accept the fact that you are wrong?

[aquaman]

Well when one of your milling jars explode don't come running to us.

[Canadian_Pyro]

I wont have to, because I know BP will not ignite due to a static discharge. Its been proven over and over again, but some people are just too stubborn to accept that they are incorrect...

[dragonman586]

Can we delete all his posts and traces from this board so when he blows himself up the feds wont come running here.... Well thats assuming that they already aren't here.

 

 

 

Hello there Mr. (Insert government agency here)

[al93535]

Ok, so BP is pretty stable. Do you really want to increase the odds of having an explosion? I think using anything, or any procedure, that increases danger, even if only by a tiny amount is stupid to use.

 

Oh and by the way, ANY flammable dust in a cloud will ignite and explode easily. Flour ingites very easily, and you are saying that BP won't? You are an accident waiting to happen.

 

 

"I know BP will not ignite due to a static discharge. Its been proven over and over again, but some people are just too stubborn to accept that they are incorrect..."

 

That is the stupidest thing I have ever read.

 

Edit: It looks to me that the BP grains in those pictures are polished and coated with graphite. Hardly the kind of BP most pyro's use.

[aquaman]

Canadian pyro haven't you ever heard of corn silos blowing up because of the the corn dust that ignited by static electricy? Same situtation but even worse since BP is flamable all by it self.

[Canadian_Pyro]

I cant believe the intelligence level of this board, it is just so low...

 

After sifting through the mess of irrelevant shit and smartass comments, I still dont see anything that PROVES BP can be ignited with a static discharge. I posted an experiment that showed BP, in both powder and granuel form, cannot be ignited by means of a 40,000 volt CONTINUOUS static discharge. Show me something that says otherwise, and then I will believe you, but right now, all I hear is a bunch of bullshit.

 

That is the stupidest thing I have ever read.

 

It may seem that way to you, but alot of correct info seems stupid to those who are misinformed.

[aquaman]

Did you perform these expirements? Or did you just find it on the internet? Doesn't matter really I would rather be safe then sorry.

[al93535]

You know, you can ram BP, you can ball mill it, and you can stamp mill it. Its pretty damn stable. In fact, my mill has never exploded, and noone I know has ever had a mill explode. Does this mean that BP will never ignite from impact or friction? NO it does not.

There HAVE been mill explosions. Sure, they run many many years before an explosion happens. If there is a 1 in 10,000 chance, then it sure will happen if done repeatedly. Hey it could even be the first time!

 

It's the same with the damn static electricity. There is a chance, and thats all it takes.

 

Are you going to now say that because flash powder has conductive aluminum in it that it is immune to static discharge?

 

Also, I see only 4-5 people have disagreed with you, and you say the intelligence level of the whole board is just so low? I thought we had more members then that.

[Frozentech]

I cant believe the intelligence level of this board, it is just so low...

Yeah, funny how one person who overlooks 700 years of BP related accidents based on one internet experiment using graphite glazed powder can do that to a board.

 

The idea that people must PROVE a safety principle to you proves one thing only. You are unsafe. Funny, right after reading your post, before I even moved on as I was tempted to, another person mentioned it is the 6th anniversary his best friends death in a pyro fire. He is a professional manufacturer. I'll ask him next time to come on here and speak about static and BP.

 

Here's a more recent one, from earlier this year, where static caused a BP explosion at a fireworks plant. http://www.esdjournal.com/static/Arizona/explosion.htm

For slightly older cases, look up incidents when black powder explosions were caused by electrostatic sources on: USS Pennsylvania in 1944, LST 999 in 1945, USS Colorado in 1945, the USS South Dakota in 1945, naval ammunition depot Seal Beach, California in 1946, USS St. Paul in 1952, USS Newport News in 1972, and most likely, USS Iowa in 1987. ( large bore naval guns used blackpowder initiator up until recent times in case you wonder )