jtspyro Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 Hey all, I am a fairly new member here but have spent a lot of time researching. I have made a few 2.5" shells and have had really good luck with them. I am ball milling my black powder using chemicals from skylighter, I have been using their air float charcoal. I have good lift using it in my BP but I have read here about the different types of charcoal to make your BP stronger. My question is had anyone used ball milled coal in place of charcoal or would it not work. Its just a thought that came to me and I was curious if it would work or not.
asdercks Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 I've never heard of someone using coal to make bp, I don't think it would work. just google the differences between coal and charcoal.
Nessalco Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 From what I've read, coal will not work. Some of the hottest charcoal you can make is from eastern red cedar, sold as animal bedding. A bale of shavings and a TLUD will set you up with all the hot charcoal you need. Kevin O
LambentPyro Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 What Kevin said is a good tip. Just go to Walmart and grab yourself a bag of Eastern Red Cedar chips from the pet isle as pet bedding. This shit makes some hot charcoal, Ned used like 7% lift on a 3" shell and got it to a perfect height.
schroedinger Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 Coal won`t work.The reason the "hot" charcoals are working god, is that they contain a lot of different other organic compounds, which make it easy to burn.
ollie1016 Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 I ball milled coal to dust. Added 20% weight of KNO3, mixed it all up, and used it in a cremora. Works great!
CannonBall Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 Actually as a fact, my first ever BP was made with coal, and i can say that it does work pretty good. The only problem with it is that it's full of moisture and oils and it's rock hard making not that easy to use. I actually used sandpaper to grind my coal back at the day it was such a mess.
Mumbles Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 I've only seen a handful of formulas that actually call for coal. As a fair warning, if you read some of the older literature or some of the things sloppily translated from other languages, you'll probably see them throw around the term "coal" regularly. They're actually referring to charcoal in this case. The few formulas I've seen make explicit reference to either bituminous coal or anthracite. The formulas I've seen it used in were for streamer type compositions. It might work for that type of thing, or in place of lampblack or something if you have some laying around.
jtspyro Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 Thanks for the reply's, like I said I was just curious.
taiwanluthiers Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 problem with coal is they do not burn that fast... it's better for steam boilers than blackpowder.
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