black powder

[Bobosan]

Thanks, NYpyro. Going to try some willow BP with and w/o water and "experience" the improvement for myself.

 

I've always timed the baseball test from launch to the ball hitting ground as mentioned in this skylighter article. My old eyes just ain't good enough anymore to spot an apogee.

[Mumbles]

I also have a chem degree. You are correct in that dextrin is not water soluble. If you use dextrin you have to use a ethanol/ water solution. I don't use dextrin at all but I do dissolve 2% red gum as a binder in ethanol to make a paste and granulate the bp. I thought alcohol only would result in less grain strength. I have found the alcohol/gum method to be far more powerful than water and produces excellent bp for pyrotechnics and also for muzzle-loading rifles.

 

 

Dextrin is in fact soluble in water. I thought it was just a typo at first, until I read the second sentence. If you use dextrin you absolutely do not need to use an alcohol/water mix. In fact, too much alcohol will start to inhibit it's binding strength.

 

On the same note, I have been in the pyrotechnics industry in the states for 15 years. I have been making shells for 10 of those using commercial BP. With the rising cost of blasting BP to outragous heights, ive decided to make my own cannon grade. I hear alot of talk about people using alcohol vs water to activate the dex. I have been experimenting with different formulas and here are the results shooting a 150g baseball. Desired height is 300 feet. First batch was 75% KNO3 15% willow airfloat 10% sulfur, +4% dextrin. Milled for 5 hours, then formed into a dense clay ball with hot water and grated with a cheese grater. Second batch was the exact same only 100% denatured alcohol was used. Dried over night the water bp granuales were tough but not rock soild and grey. The alcohol bp was very tough. Could not crush and was much darker. I used 1.3 OZ of each to fire the baseball. I used the formula to figure the height of each. Water based total height 289 feet. The alcohol based was 658 feet. Same exact composition and milling but only difference was the water vs the alcohol. Sorry for the long post but for newbies who are havimg trouble getting hot bp this is an option.

 

I appreciate seeing the video confirmation. I still have to think there is something not quite right though. Everything sounds right, but the water results are really low and the color is rather odd. Maybe it has something to do with using hot water? I really only do that with polverone. Hot water might just be dissolving too much nitrate and giving the effects/issues described earlier. I'd be happy to be wrong, but I'd like to see some other people come to the same effects.

 

As far as alcohol giving hard enough grains, it's one of those things I'll have to experience for myself before I believe it. I'd also have to wonder if the small amount of water in denatured alcohol is activating the dextrin somehow, giving the grain hardness. Having granulated some related mixes, without dex, with alcohol before, I can pretty comfortably say that the grains were quite soft. Have either of you tried it with isopropanol instead of ethanol? Either way it is going to more than double the price of BP. If it doubles the performance then it might be worth it of course.

 

You may also want to try giving the lift more confinement. I've always had trouble with lift on smaller shells underperforming if it was just secured in a baggy.

[alpinecb]

As a newbe I made my second batch 75 15 10 5% home made dextrin ball milled and wet with 90% IPA. I can't speak for how fast it was but it was the hardest I ever made. I over wet it and it took a couple of days to dry. It was so hard you could not break it unless you did it between two hard surfaces. Was kinda grey so maybe the nitrate crystallize some.

 

Edit to add: Skylighter airfloat charcoal used and dextrin added to ball mill dry. After wetting pressed thru 1/4" hardware cloth and left to dry. Broke up some as drying with fingers.

Edited August 2, 2014 by alpinecb

[nater]

Mumbles, I was wondering the same thing about the water in the alcohol activating the dextrin, although I have been under the impression that too much alcohol destroys the dextrin's binding ability.

 

I do think that BP granulated with alcohol and no binder is "hard enough", but I would not call the result a durable grain which would not store too well. Ned's results differ, but I don't think he stores much for any long lengths of time.

[Mumbles]

As a 90+% alcohol solution, I doubt the water there would be activating the dextrin to any noticable degree. I was wondering if the alcohol just evaporates faster than the water, or absorbs more water as it dries, leaving a water rich mix toward the end of drying that activates it. Unclear, but something doesn't make sense to me yet.

 

There are a lot of tests that could be done to try to figure this out. I could believe that some charcoals may still have enough resins, tars, or volatile materials to provide some strength. Using things like pines, cedars, evergreens, or maybe even maples might be better for this.

[ChrisDeHont]

I agree with all of you on everything. It just doesnt make any sense from a chemistry stand point. I have made a few batches of the water BP before this whole big bang theory using, cold, room temp and hot water. All similar. Ive also used different charcoals with the water bp. Same affect. Currently on a beach getting ready to shoot a show and when I get back tuesday I will run a full experiment on all possibilities and bring the results to my lab (partnership gives me privileged access to it) and scrutinize every batch. I can also take pics at a molecular level amd will post. I would like ideas for mixtures to test as my brain is quiet full. Ideas that we missed. I will then run the lift test again with 5 of each to get the mean.

[Merlin]

Posted Yesterday, 12:33 PM

Merlin, on 01 Aug 2014 - 11:23 AM, said:

I also have a chem degree. You are correct in that dextrin is not water soluble. If you use dextrin you have to use a ethanol/ water solution. I don't use dextrin at all but I do dissolve 2% red gum as a binder in ethanol to make a paste and granulate the bp. I thought alcohol only would result in less grain strength. I have found the alcohol/gum method to be far more powerful than water and produces excellent bp for pyrotechnics and also for muzzle-loading rifles.

 

 

Dextrin is in fact soluble in water. I thought it was just a typo at first, until I read the second sentence. If you use dextrin you absolutely do not need to use an alcohol/water mix. In fact, too much alcohol will start to inhibit it's binding strength.

 

Grandmaster you are correct it should have read dextrin is not "alcohol only" soluble. I use red gum and denatured alcohol and willow lump and get great results. I think my problem early on with water was using commercial AF charcoal and my drying. Here in Alabama it is mostly humid and I dont have a drying box and probably incorrectly dried my first runs of BP. I have no doubt that dextrin and water used with good charcoal will produce excellent results as well. But for me alcohol/red gum is easier and faster despite the expense. If red gum becomes scarce I will build a drying box and again try water/dextrin. I have read you can use dextrin with a mix of alcohol and water but I have not tried that.

 

Edited August 3, 2014 by Merlin

[Blaster5337]

Newbie here, haven't attempted anything yet just doing lots of reading and coming up with probably stupid questions that are probably answered somewhere else in this forum, so forgive me but here is my question. In the process of making BP I see dextrin is utilized as a binder, can that be replaced with nitrocellulose lacquer as a binder? Would there be any benefit?

Blaster

[gregh]

I don't think it would provide any benefit to the performance of your BP. It would, however, get pretty expensive.

[Blaster5337]

Skylighter has 2 different BP kits. One is if you are using a ball mill, the other if you are not. The one where you are not using a ball mill uses "RED GUM" vice "DEXTRIN".

 

My question is can you make BP with "RedGum" in a ball mill?

[Merlin]

I would not hesitate to purchase red gum, potassium nitrate or sulfur from Skylighter. I would not load up on the airfloat charcoal. I would purchase willow lump from custom charcoal and grind or hammer it to a usable form. You do not put red gum in the mill with the BP. Mill the BP and then dissolve the red gum in denatured alcohol then add to the milled BP to granulate.

[calebkessinger]

arrr.... if you want nice and fast bp easily you just need to make some ceder charcoal or purchase some alder or other from someone. I fooled with skylighters kits for a while... what a waste of energy. Sulfer and pot. nitrate can be found way cheaper elsewhere.

 

Yep the dang humidity will foil your best efforts of dextrin water bound bp. If it doesn't dry completely in a couple hours it is about half as fast as it could be.

 

That being said, I just make dextrin bp now. The other stuff is too soft, too expensive, and unnessisary. Well, I take that back , I do granulate my bp rocket fuel with laquer thinner, or alchol whichever is cheaper and i have on hand.

 

pn and sulfer you can get from phils general store, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ihaveadotcom.com%2Fcart%2F&ei=E9ODVOn-BsilyATB9oH4BA&usg=AFQjCNHdxzbi8pf1_w-o3jBHgcgFil4Lbw&bvm=bv.80642063,d.aWw

The charcoal you can make very easily out of cedar animal bedding( from walmart or farm store/pet store)

If you make it out of that you won't be kicking the dog wondering why nothing works. believe me I made at least 100 lbs. of crappy stuff and shot it out of my cannon before I found how to make good stuff.

[patsroom]

Skylighter has 2 different BP kits. One is if you are using a ball mill, the other if you are not. The one where you are not using a ball mill uses "RED GUM" vice "DEXTRIN".

 

My question is can you make BP with "RedGum" in a ball mill?

My question would be do you yourself need to add either of these two Red Gum or Dextrin? They are both added most of the time as binders and they both can effect the speed of the powder. If you are good a making BP then you can start adding as needed when needed. As far as making black powder goes there are all kinds of ways to make a usable powder, in fact there are books of all kind written on the subject......Pat

[Blaster5337]

I just ordered BP manufacturing & handbook on making charcoal. I don't have any particular need to make it one way or the other, I'm just a new guy asking questions. I have yet to start any projects.

 

My question remains, Can u make BP with "RedGum" in a ball mill? Why/why not?

[calebkessinger]

No idea. Might be sticky. But. that can be overcome( if you ballmill in a freezer) I do...

[Blaster5337]

Mill in a freezer?!

[Col]

dont need a freezer, its cold enough outside

No point to putting red gum in the mill, just add it in liquid form when processing the bp. Screening in the dex after milling works just as well as milling with it in and gives you more flexibility over what you can do with the bp. You cant take stuff out once its in.

[Merlin]

I have done it repeatedly. Just weigh the red gum into your alcohol for wetting after ball milling. It holds together quite well and drys very fast.

[captainG]

Ok just out of curiosity lets say there is no power to run your ball mill is there another way to make bp? How did they do it in the old days?just a bit of knowledge i would like to have in the memory banks.I did a search couldn't find anything so Seeing that this post just says black powder I guess this is as good a place to ask as any. Thaks cap Edited February 18, 2015 by captainG

[dagabu]

Pestle and mortar, after that it was horse powered, water powered, steam powered and electrical powered. BP has been made with powered equipment for several hundred years.

[Ubehage]

Ok just out of curiosity lets say there is no power to run your ball mill is there another way to make bp? How did they do it in the old days?just a bit of knowledge i would like to have in the memory banks.I did a search couldn't find anything so Seeing that this post just says black powder I guess this is as good a place to ask as any. Thaks cap

As Dag says, pestle and mortar, or just about any non-sparking type of grinder.

 

BP is one of the most stable compositions.

It CAN be ignited by friction

But it takes a quite huge amount of Pounds per milimeter, if you use non-sparking tools.

[schroedinger]

Wheel mills are also used for quite a long time. Even stamp mills where used.

Other older method for hand making are more like the cia method. E.g. one method was to dissolve the kno3 in Water add charcoal and sulfur.

Spread out dry half a day and ram into a tube. Split the tube lenghtwise, dry and brake up.. Other methods where just drying the powder and crush it up.

Sometimes even just dry mixing was used.

This powder is obviously not as strong as nowadays bp, but if you use enough it works.

 

Also one of the last inventions in making bp is granulating. For a long time seperation of the components during transport was big issue, due to the use of meal powder. Before binders got used other methods where tried e.g. melting the sulfur in the Bp (under pressure). Many of them didn't work, rendered the bp useless or where to hazardous (like the molten sulfur) as they liked to ignite the bp during the process.

Edited February 19, 2015 by schroedinger

[dagabu]

Wheel mills are also used for quite a long time. Even stamp mills where used.

Other older method for hand making are more like the cia method. E.g. one method was to dissolve the kno3 in Water add charcoal and sulfur.

Spread out dry half a day and ram into a tube. Split the tube lenghtwise, dry and brake up.. Other methods where just drying the powder and crush it up.

Sometimes even just dry mixing was used.

This powder is obviously not as strong as nowadays bp, but if you use enough it works.

 

Also one of the last inventions i making bp is granulating. For a long time seperation of the components during transport was big issue, due to the use of meal powder. Before binders got used other methods where tried e.g. melting the sulfur in the Bp (under pressure). Many of them didn't work, rendered the bp useless or where to hazardous (like the molten sulfur) as they liked to ignite the bp during the process.

 

You are likely to get a lot of disagreement with any other method other than pressing and corning to make BP, the rest is all pulverove.

[schroedinger]

Yes of course nowadays corning or ricing is the way to go. But the question was about historic methods.

[FlaMtnBkr]

My 'pulverone' blows away commercial powder.