Black Powder Thread #1

[psymon]

I am lead to believe that its the Sulphur in BP that creates the static. So u can mill the ingredients without Sulphur and not get any static problems.

[Canadian_Pyro]

Well, yesterday, during milling, I heard a tremendous bang in my backyard, and I ran out to see what happened. The wind had knocked a large tree over. A pine tree. I might have to cut it up and make some pine BP. I hear it makes some nice sparks.

 

I have milled over 100 batches of BP, and I have never an explosion, never had an accident, everything has worked flawlessly, because I take the nessesary precautions too ensure my safety. Calling me "unsafe" is just laughable, I dont care how you word it. How many of you place your mill in a 5ft deep bunker with 50lbs of sandbags placed around the hole?

 

I didnt say BP cannot ignite accidently. Of course it can. Friction can set it off, impact can set it off, a flame can set it off, anything that can cause it to reach its iginition temp has the potential to cause a disaster. I have performed experiments that show friction can be the culprit here, it is certainly not easy or practical to accidently ignite it, but it can happen. It is quite stable, and the only mixture I would even consider storing.

 

How do you know these buildings exploded due to static igniting BP? There is no way to prove what set the powder off, so these are just assumptions. My bet would be friction.

 

I suppose it COULD set it off during the early stages of milling, when the carbon was not intimatley mixed with the other components. A static charge could pass through a sulfur particle, igniting it, which would then ignite the sulfur around it, and decompose the KNO3, creating superheated gasses, which would then ignite the charcoal, and it would burn like green meal under pressure, causing an explosion.

 

This argument is becoming pointless. You will never agree with me, I will never agree with you, so I think the best way to deal with this is to agree to disagree, and move on.

[Frozentech]

I didnt say BP cannot ignite accidently. Of course it can. Friction can set it off, impact can set it off, a flame can set it off, anything that can cause it to reach its iginition temp has the potential to cause a disaster. I have performed experiments that show friction can be the culprit here, it is certainly not easy or practical to accidently ignite it, but it can happen. It is quite stable, and the only mixture I would even consider storing.

One other thing I forgot to mention. That experiment where the arc was being drawn across grains of BP does not duplicate the condition where BP was set off by static. There, current was between two electrodes, with the BP at some point between. I suspect that in the static caused BP explosions, the BP itself had a difference of potential between itself and ground or another conductor. That is, current was between the BP granules and another point.

 

I'm glad that you personally are safe, it just sounded as if you advocated ignoring long standing ( hundreds of years ) of safety procedures, based on one interesting visual on the internet, which didn't duplicate the conditions of past explosions at all.

 

It's like the other BP milling cautionary tale, re: using ceramic media. Many people have denied that ceramic media can cause any problem. One , Steve Baron ( seller of fine Pauwlonia charcoals and many years experience ) one day loaded up his ball mill with ceramic media and went back into his house, shortly to be startled by the loud BOOM of his milling shed going up. His say on it is "the old stories were true, don't use ceramic" Probably his 1000th or more batch of BP, so a .1% chance each time of an explosion ?

 

Stay Green.

[Canadian_Pyro]

The test that placed the powder between two electrodes was invalid anyway, due to the fact that the powder was graphite glazed, and so the graphite conducted the charge away from the BP. However, the test that involved the meal powder was valid.

 

Another precaution that I take when milling BP involves the jar. Some people use screw on lids, which turns the mill jar into a pipe bomb. I use a lid that presses on tightly, meaning that in the event of ignition, the lid should pop off, acting as a sort of safety valve. After numerous batches of powder, I have never had the chance to test its usefullness, thankfully.

[Douchermann]

Charcoal is not conductive. Certian types of carbon like mumbles said is. If charcoal is conductive, it would be a poor conductor and possibly resist the current, causing heat. If its graphite, or conductive lampblack, thats a different story. I'm not going to say any body is wrong, I don't like to start arguments up. The point is, you could probably pass 40,000 volts of static through flashpowders and not get it to go off every time. But it has happened before.

 

I do have a question though, how do they polish the comercial blackpowder? Also, does it improve performance? or is it just for show.

[Mumbles]

Polishing of BP grains isn't exactly polishing in the sense you would with your fine silver, or your bowling trophy. You tumble the BP grains in finely powdered graphite. It coats the grain, giving the shiny appearance. It is done to improve flowability. As you may know, due to graphite's structure it is a good lubricant. It basically lubricates the BP to let it flow over each other easier and more fluidly.

[Canadian_Pyro]

If carbon was non-conductive, the meal powder tested in that experiment would have ignited, especially after a dozen attempts.

[joe609]

This is probably wrong but just a thought maybe black powder went of in the past due to contaminants in the black powder which would heat up/ ignite from static thus causing the whole batch to ignite as i said just a thought but maybe this could be the reason?

[Douchermann]

Charcoal is not conductive. No matter how many times you say it, its not going to become true. Neither is blackpowder. If you don't believe me, test it. The electricity passes through it because arcs can jump. Thats how they jump through air, and they can do it through other crap as well. You can also test this yourself. Send an arc through a peice of paper. I've never heard of paper being conductive.

 

Graphite however is conductive. Blackpowder made with graphite will be very poor in quality but it probably will conduct electricity.

 

 

Joe - You might very well be right, it could be impurities. This would really only apply to the past though, as high quality ingredients and well kept work areas are neccesary these days.

[Rooster]

That discussion stops right now. This is not gonna be a thread for throwing shit at each other. Until someone can come up with some incriminating evidence for either side, this is dead. Any more smartass posts with no evidence will be deleted. We simply agree to disagree, as canadian pyro said. I would love for someone to find evidence it can be set off by static though. Crazy_Swede?

[Canadian_Pyro]

Tests will be done once I finish my miniature Van deGraaf generator, which may take awile due to my lack of funding. A couple hundred thousand volts of static electricity passing through some BP meal should be sufficient to put an end to this 'shit throwing' fest.

[Douchermann]

I wasn't trying to 'throw shit' I just merely stated that I tested the conductivity of my blackpowder with regular charcoal. I also rammed it into a solid grain and tested it and its still not conductive. I was also stating that if blackpowder cannot be set off by static, its not because the charcoal is conductive. I wasn't saying whether or not it can or can't be set off by static.

[Canadian_Pyro]

Maybe carbon, aswell as the other BP ingrediants, are completely non conductive, thus the BP would not heat up, because the current would not pass through it at all? That would explain why flash powder is easily set off with static electricity, the finely powdered aluminum conducts the current, but with high resistance, thus it heats up and ignites. Hmmm...

[Mr. Crackle]

I have done a test, with a flyback transformer powered with a 9-volt battery, to see BP will ignite easily from the spark.... And yes it did. I have video of it but I used my phone so it is in 3GPP2 format. If anyone can tell me how to turn it into mpeg I will post it.

 

From what I saw I have to say blackpowder is static sensitive.

 

 

Test 2

I used a piezo igniter from a lighter to better copy static discharge. Over fifty sparks to the meal powder and no ignition. So I don't know if normal static can ignite BP but it is better safe than sorry, that one in a million chance could be bad. I should have better duplicated static the first time.

[Douchermann]

The arcs can pass through the blackpowder just like they pass through air. It can pass through any non-conductive particles just as long as the point its arcing to is within reach.

 

Static is a tad different than regular DC or AC current. DC is one solid line of electrons, AC is an alternating line of electrons, static is just one hell of a mess of electrons. The spark from AC as well as DC can get hot enough to melt steel while static electricity (such as piezo-electric transducers) will simply go through stuff. A good example of this is a van degraf generator where you can touch the charged parts without getting harmed. The point is; who knows if BP can be set off by static or not, lets not risk it and stay as safe as possible.

 

Canadian pyro, I do disagree with your comment on the intelligence level of this board. Quite a few people on this board are very intelligent and do infact know what they are talking about. Though I'm not going to say that everybody knows what they are talking about. Hell, I could be wrong about the whole AC/DC/static thing, thats just what I got from what I read a while ago.

[Canadian_Pyro]

I will retract those comments, knowledge has no direct relation to intelligence anyway.

[Douchermann]

Yes you are correct, and few people seem to know that. I swear, in my school; a zombie would starve to death. But anyway

 

I'm thinking about tumbling some pulverone with graphite just to see what its like. Does anyone have any idea on how long it would take to completely polish the pulverone grains?

[Canadian_Pyro]

Yes you are correct, and few people seem to know that. I swear, in my school; a zombie would starve to death.

So your saying they have no brains because they dont posses a certain amount of knowledge?

 

But I agree, very few people know this.

[lacrima97]

I was just wondering, has anyone actually compared, side by side, sodium made bp as opposed to potassium made bp? I would be very interested to know the outcome. It seems like a neat little project.

[Canadian_Pyro]

NaNO3 BP will be slower, due to the fact that NaNO3 decomposes more endothermically than KNO3. Beyond that, it is quite hydroscopic, and for that reason I would not use it when the far less hydroscopic KNO3 is readily available in 50lb bags for $30 at the local garden center.

 

Sometime this week I will be conducting a test using lift powders made from various different types of charcoals. A 35mm film canister will be fired out of a 1.5" mortar using 2 grams of BP. Some of the contenders are:

 

Alder wood smoking chips

Spruce from the lumber yard

Poplar

Balsa

Birch

Maple wood smoking chips

Weeping willow

 

Should be an interesting test, and this time the shells will not be fired from my backyard.

[kwstag]

Sodium made BP is horrible compared to Potassium BP. Then again it might have just been my shitty Charcoal, but it was horrible... Way too slow. I'll try again with better charcoal tonight.

[kwstag]

Double post sorry, but as for different Charcoals, what I have right now waiting to be tested are:

 

Cooked and ready to be tested: Hardwood Lump Charcoal (Store Bought)(Rest were cooked to perfection) -> Oak, Maple, Cherry.

 

Uncooked and waiting to be cooked: White Willow, Weeping Willow, Balsa, Birch, Cedar, Pine, White Elm, Basswood, Beech, and Rosewood.

[Karl]

I suspect the willow charcoal will burn quicker and leave the least residue. But I suppose everyone knows that already.

 

And the Hardwoods wow! Obviously they will burn slower and create more sparks than the Willow. I like to use Pine and other Hardwoods in rocket comps for a nice thick tail.

[Canadian_Pyro]

Willow is a Hardwood, I think you mean hard wood, as pine is a Softwood. My white pine BP always beats my weeping willow stuff.

[Karl]

Ohh yeah, I seem to have got mixed up there. Sorry about the confusion

 

Karl