Making black powder at home
- Thread starter Ian
- Start date
Ian
Notorious member
I saved about 1/4 bucket of Zamak wheel weights and several chunks of anode rod, but I know the filled and rolled over .45 brass does the trick and it's easy to make. I raided the scrap bucket again this afternoon and cast another 120 or so, crimped them and added to what was already going and that got it almost to a constant cascade. I had ground up and thrown in the pucks and leftovers from the first batch of Cottonelle so I'm working about 13 ounces of meal right now and the extra media really helped. I checked the meal after a couple of hours and am getting that oily slick feeling between the fingertips. Then I checked it after four more hours and it's clumping at the back of the drum. I dumped it out, broke up the packed in meal, dumped the media back in, meal on top, and started it up again. I'll check it again in the morning and see if it did it again overnight, no point in running it all day if half or more of the meal is clumped up and not getting milled. I think there's too much moisture in this batch.
I lit off a little line of the meal and it's starting to whoosh better, so that confirms it was undermilled before with my soft-sided jar and not nearly enough media.
I lit off a little line of the meal and it's starting to whoosh better, so that confirms it was undermilled before with my soft-sided jar and not nearly enough media.
Ian
Notorious member
It clumped again this morning so I left it for after work. When I got home I poured out the media, scratched out the cake at the solid end of the pipe, put it all back in and ran it until after supper. I think it's pretty well milled at this point but we'll find out.
I can't remember if I mentioned this or not so I'll write it down anyway: I added a process to my process which is sifting the dampened, spoon mixed meal through a flour sifter to more evenly distribute the moisture and break up the little dry BBs that compose about 30% of the mix. It makes a big difference as far as pressing goes, no little dry speckles on the surface of the pucks. This is especially important when pressing to a density less than 1.9 g/cc where the water doesn't begin to squeeze out. When it begins to squeeze out you know the moisture distribution is even, but the meal only requires wetting until it quits making dust to make good pucks and good, hard grains (any more water is risking re-crystalizing the oxidizer), but at the lower, commercial density that amount of water isn't forced out and mechanically ensuring even distribution is in my opinion a must.
So I got a fresh stack of pucks all pressed to 1.78 g/cc and made of Cottonelle Comfort Care charcoal at a ratio of 77/13/10. I'll give the pucks a few days to dry and then grind/classify them and see how it performs THIS time. If it is improved, but not as much as I'd like, I'll put all the ground powder on a cookie sheet in the sun all day to get it as dry as possible, then straight back in the ball mill and see if I can get it to incorporate any better without caking up in the drum. If it STILL cakes, I may try a fresh batch with oven-dried oxidizer and not add the sulfur until the last few hours.
I can't remember if I mentioned this or not so I'll write it down anyway: I added a process to my process which is sifting the dampened, spoon mixed meal through a flour sifter to more evenly distribute the moisture and break up the little dry BBs that compose about 30% of the mix. It makes a big difference as far as pressing goes, no little dry speckles on the surface of the pucks. This is especially important when pressing to a density less than 1.9 g/cc where the water doesn't begin to squeeze out. When it begins to squeeze out you know the moisture distribution is even, but the meal only requires wetting until it quits making dust to make good pucks and good, hard grains (any more water is risking re-crystalizing the oxidizer), but at the lower, commercial density that amount of water isn't forced out and mechanically ensuring even distribution is in my opinion a must.
So I got a fresh stack of pucks all pressed to 1.78 g/cc and made of Cottonelle Comfort Care charcoal at a ratio of 77/13/10. I'll give the pucks a few days to dry and then grind/classify them and see how it performs THIS time. If it is improved, but not as much as I'd like, I'll put all the ground powder on a cookie sheet in the sun all day to get it as dry as possible, then straight back in the ball mill and see if I can get it to incorporate any better without caking up in the drum. If it STILL cakes, I may try a fresh batch with oven-dried oxidizer and not add the sulfur until the last few hours.
Ian
Notorious member
It's level (has to be or it drags the roller flanges on one side or the other) but the PVC tube might wobble on one end more than the other, funneling stuff to the one end. There's a wooden plug in the end that cakes and a concave rubber cap on the one that doesn't. The rubber works like a de-ice boot on a wing as the media bumps along it, keeping stuff from sticking much.
I just threw a new, one pound batch together after drying out the oxidizer and then the charcoal at 285F in the convection oven and drying out the drum with the residue and media in it with a heat gun. I also ran with scissors on the way back from the shed. No mishaps.
I ground several pucks from the last batch and did some open-air tests, it's much improved and making white smoke instead of brown now, not as impressive as I'd hoped but seems ok. I'll try to shoot some this weekend and see how it improves.
The reason for making a fresh batch from scratch right away was both to see if the dried ingredients clump and to see if the brown residue on the burn plate goes away when using the broken in (cleaner) media. Much of the brass was dirty and tarnished and had to have the sharp edges worn off and of course that all ended up in the first run of powder, not to be discounted as a performance reducer. The media and drum are pretty well broken in and stabilized now so we'll see how the next batch mills out and make adjustments as necessary. I really like being able to mill a pound at a time and like that the mill is now 150 feet away from my house. I'd never mill that much at a time in my garage, it's just way to big of a bomb. You really have to plan out handling this stuff at all times like the amount you're working with is going to go off at any second because sooner or later it probably will.
I just threw a new, one pound batch together after drying out the oxidizer and then the charcoal at 285F in the convection oven and drying out the drum with the residue and media in it with a heat gun. I also ran with scissors on the way back from the shed. No mishaps.
I ground several pucks from the last batch and did some open-air tests, it's much improved and making white smoke instead of brown now, not as impressive as I'd hoped but seems ok. I'll try to shoot some this weekend and see how it improves.
The reason for making a fresh batch from scratch right away was both to see if the dried ingredients clump and to see if the brown residue on the burn plate goes away when using the broken in (cleaner) media. Much of the brass was dirty and tarnished and had to have the sharp edges worn off and of course that all ended up in the first run of powder, not to be discounted as a performance reducer. The media and drum are pretty well broken in and stabilized now so we'll see how the next batch mills out and make adjustments as necessary. I really like being able to mill a pound at a time and like that the mill is now 150 feet away from my house. I'd never mill that much at a time in my garage, it's just way to big of a bomb. You really have to plan out handling this stuff at all times like the amount you're working with is going to go off at any second because sooner or later it probably will.
Ian
Notorious member
You're welcome.
Powder meal turned out great this morning, no clumping or caking up in the ends of the drum, smooth as silk. Drying the oxidizer and fuel separately before throwing it all in the mill with the powdered sulfur did the trick. I don't know how to dry sulfur without melting it except for a few hours in the sun, but it didn't seem to matter much even if it did contain some traces of moisture.
I'll puck some tonight and get it drying for the weekend.
fiver
Well-Known Member
the blue root stuff dries right out with heat under it.
it'll change color when the water is out.
the yellow stuff i'm sure doesn't, but a simple pan in the PC machine should do it.
melting it would surely dry it, but leave you a thin hard cake to break apart.
it'll change color when the water is out.
the yellow stuff i'm sure doesn't, but a simple pan in the PC machine should do it.
melting it would surely dry it, but leave you a thin hard cake to break apart.
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Ian
Notorious member
All pucked away. Got 15, 1.04 ounce "boom cookies" drying on a paper plate and a spoonful of dampened meal left over, will let it dry and throw it in with the next mill batch.
One thing I noticed with this batch is it was getting hard to press the last 1/16" to the puck die limiting ring. I had to lean into it this time whereas last batch one finger on the handle easily pulled it to the limiting ring. I don't know what that means other than more bulk.
One thing I noticed with this batch is it was getting hard to press the last 1/16" to the puck die limiting ring. I had to lean into it this time whereas last batch one finger on the handle easily pulled it to the limiting ring. I don't know what that means other than more bulk.