How to a clean ballmill?

[AzoMittle]

So I'm looking to get my first ballmill but as I'm working on a budget I would also be using it for rock tumbling (I make jewelry). I want to avoid cross-contamination of pyrotechnic chemicals and random found rocks, which often have unknown inclusions. As this will include our standard favorites, mostly bp chems, and possibly metals and god knows what from the rocks I want to be 100% certain there will not be any residues.

 

What would an ideal cleaning process look like?

 

As of now I'm thinking acetone followed by dry wipe with paper towels. I figure there won't be enough residue post-acetone to have to worry about static discharges with the dry wipe.

[Mumbles]

I'd just get/make 2 jars. I'd never trust any cleaning method enough to totally remove things that could be an issue.

[taiwanluthiers]

My guess is you don't. You get separate jar/media for mixing bp, grinding oxidizers, etc. which can get expensive if you have a lot of different chemicals to grind.

[Zumber]

do a search here.

pyrotechnic composition/page 4/Sawdust star

[Arthur]

MIll some bentonite kitty litter to get the jar cleaner. You will NEVER get it clean. Chlorates have one set of tools, sulphur comps have theur separate set of tools.

[taiwanluthiers]

You don't ball mill chlorate comp, just the chlorate itself. Just one set for bp and bp like comp (anything containing charcoal/kno3/sulfur) and another for chlorate.

[horatio]

My answer is also just two jars. In the long run its just safer.

[schroedinger]

Use two jars.

 

For cleaning start with normal tab warm tab watter, (Propably needs a couple times) and mill this. Between every refill wipe dry. After that use destilled watter. After this use Ethanol or Aceton (if your jar can handle it). To get this 100% clean you can be sure that it takes really really long. The big issue will be sulfur and charcoal, as these are insoluble and you can`t just flush em out. If they are fine they will stick to the walls like cinnamon inside a jar