Black Powder six ways, using a hobbyist mill. David W. Forster Introduction: Recently, I was asked to evaluate a sample of dogwood (cornus florida) charcoal that I was given, for use in making black powder. I decided to use it to answer some of my own questions about production methods, with my newer, smaller hobbyist mill.

May 31, 2009· Homemade Black Powder. Registered Users do not see the above ad. ... I use an old rock tumbler as a ball mill and different cheese graters for granule size. Herne ... And let me add, that anyone who uses a coffee grinder to mill black powder is an idiot. Alas, too often the idiots survive but end up destroying someone else's life. ...

This mill is going to come in really handy for lots of future projects. I hope this page gives helpful ideas to anyone in need of a ball mill. They are quick, easy, and cheap to build yourself. I need to add a disclaimer here for anyone thinking of using this sort of ball mill for milling gunpowder or other flammable or explosive powders.

The standard formulation for black powder is: 75 parts potassium nitrate, 15 parts charcoal and 10 parts sulfur (as always, all parts are by weight). You can find these chemicals at Which method to use. There are two methods to make BP: The ball mill method and the precipitation (or 'CIA') method. You'll need a ball mill in ...

2. Interior of Black Powder Grain Produced by Jet-Mill Process 14 3. Effect of Pressure on Black Powder Meal 16 4. Strand Burn Rates at Atmospheric Pressure as a Function of Density..18 5. Strand Burn Rates at High Pressures. 21 6. One Atmosphere Flamespread Rates for Various Classes of Black Powder 25 7. Strength of Black Powder 28

The mixing process for Black Powder is just as important as the formula. Black Powder MUST be made in a Ball Mill to work properly. A Ball Mill is a rotating drum with dozens of lead balls inside. The 3 chemicals are loaded into the Ball Mill, along with the lead balls, sealed shut and allowed to rotate for anywhere between 1 hour and 24 hours.

Wet-granulated will, as you said, be lighter and require more to do the same job as commercial; how much depends on how fast the home made powder is. The method of manufacture you suggest will make weak powder. You really need to ball mill – a good mill can get the job done in a few hours.

I then ball mill the pieces for a couple of hours until airfloat charcoal is produced. The stock pot yields about 3 pounds of charcoal and the paint can produces about a half pound, while the quart retort yields about 2 1/2 ounces. The end result of this process is quality charcoal that is very useful in producing powerful black powder or ...

Aug 02, 2011· For those of you who have never heard of a ball mill they are very efficient at pulverizing things into a fine powder. They are often used in chemistry as well as the making of homemade black powder. The basic idea is the material to be turned into powder and a …

Step 1: Ball mill each of the ingredients separately. Step 2: Mix in the proper ratio of sulfur and charcoal. Step 3: Add isopropyl alcohol to charcoal/sulfur and mix thoroughly. Step 4: Measure 1/4 cup (40 ml) of water for every 1/2 cup (100 grams) of Saltpeter aka potassium nitrate in an old pan. Add your potassium nitrate. Bring to a boil.

Making Black Powder with a Ball Mill. Just so you know what’s going on. This is me in my backyard. I am using a homemade ball mill I’ve had for 20 years, and Skylighter’s ½” antimony-hardened lead balls. Check out my fancy-dancy mill jar! It’s a one-gallon plastic mayonnaise jar stuck inside a large coffee can for reinforcement.

Mar 11, 2017· I keep hearing that making black power is extremely dangerous and I'm going to end up being maimed or killed and maybe even making the 6 o'clock news, so I did a not so scientific test to see just how easily my black powder would ignite. I'm in no way saying that it is completely safe to make black powder.

How to Make a Ball Mill: 12 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow. Make Homemade Red Gum Black Powder. And, theyll try different methods of making and testing homemade black powder. but, this tutorial is aimed at beginning fireworkers who want to try their hand at making their own homemade bp, without diving into the investment in a ball mill, or the challenge of making their own charcoal, yet.

Testing Your Homemade Black Powder It is a good idea to test your black powder's power to verify that it suits your intended uses. One good test is firing baseballs from a 3-inch mortar and timing the flight of the ball from launch to landing. For a complete overview of this type of testing, see Making & Testing High-Powered Black Powder.

Probably older large caliber big game cartridges .456 win, 375 H&H .405 Jefferies, .45-70, Lyman black powder manual might have recopies for others. I expect crtridges based on the 7mm Mauser could also be reloaded with black powder, which would include .30-06, .308, .270 and others but the would be under powered compare to smokeless loads.

Jun 10, 2008· One is to mix the dry ingredients in a ball mill (like a rock tumbler) with lead balls (not steel! they can spark), run the ball mill about 2 hours, then filter the resulting black powder through a strainer so that the lead balls are retained in the strainer and the black powder is collected onto newspaper or cloth.

Black powder, the original gunpowder, can be made from sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. Even if you never make your own gunpowder, these items are worth having on the homestead, anyway. In fact, they all have a place on the homestead for one use or another.

Dec 30, 2016· I made black powder when I was a kid. 14 or 15 years old. We used to shoot marbles out of 1/2 inch water pipe held in a vice, outside of course. They would go right thru a 55 gal. drum full of wet ash into the hill side. Used the recipe from an old encyclopedia. 75-15-10. Worked very well.

Sep 29, 2017· While BP has been made without a ball mill for years, professionally a wheel mill is used, early history was the use of a manual stamp mill, there is now no justification for failing to buy the basic minimum rock tumbler, which is usually available for below £100. A charge of suitable lead or ceramic media completes a very satisfactory process.

Homemade Black Powder Many of us, as kids, played with mixing potassium nitrate (KNO3), charcoal, and sulfur, in the traditional proportions of 75/15/10. Putting the hand-stirred mixture in a pile, we were often disappointed with the results: a smoldering, slow-burning pile which left a yellow molten pool of debris behind after it finished burning.

Black Powder Pucks, Pressed and Crumbled Third Step I take 16 ounces of the dry pine charcoal mill-dust, add 0.8 ounce of dextrin (+5%) to it, screen it to thoroughly incorporate it, and coat that BP onto 2.4 ounces of rice hulls in the star roller (7/1 ratio of BP to rice hulls). I put the coated hulls on screens and into the dryer.Although puffed rice cereal can be used in this process, rice ...

To mix the black powder ingredients together, open your ball mill (rock tumbler) and add the three ingredients and the lead balls. As the tumbler rotates, the balls will crush the chemicals together and grind them into a powder. The longer you let the tumbler run, the more finely ground the black powder …

Mar 24, 2020· Black powder revolvers were made for a specific caliber of ball or conical projectile, with the cylinder length usually determining the maximum powder charge. Common calibers were .31, .36 and .44, though the projectiles were more like .323, .375 and .454 inches in diameter.

Ball Mills are one of the most important tools in the world of pyrotechnics and you will be lost without one. This is a very low cost way of building a ball mill that is a very effective way grind almost any chemicals into a very fine mesh, also includes plans to make lead grinding media from parts easily available to …

Powerful black powder can be made with mill runs of between 2 and 4 hours. Use long drop cords. Unplug the cords at the electrical source, not at the ball mill, when you want to stop the mill.

Mar 29, 2019· Make the base. The wooden base will serve as the support for the ball mill. It can be made by resting the wooden platform on top of the two 1”x10”x4” (2.54cm x 25.4 cm x …

Wiki says "A ball mill is a type of grinder used to grind materials into extremely fine powder for use in paints, pyrotechnics, and ceramics." Many instructables refer to United Nuclear Ball Mills. Their small ball mill cost between $70 and $80 dollars. For no more than $30 and in 5 minute you can build a ball mill of appreciable performance.

A ball mill is a type of grinder used to grind, blend and sometimes for mixing of materials for use in mineral dressing processes, paints, pyrotechnics, ceramics, and selective laser sintering.It works on the principle of impact and attrition: size reduction is done by impact as the balls drop from near the top of the shell. A ball mill consists of a hollow cylindrical shell rotati

Apr 26, 2011· Page 1 of 2 - How do you know when your ball-milled black powder is "done"? - posted in Pyrotechnics: So my first ball mill is nearing completion, and with everything that I have read, there is a huge variance among fireworks enthusiasts as to how long they mill their powder. I know that this depends on a variety of factors, but how do you tell when your black powder has reached its …

Even the professionals had a hard time making black powder safely. According to the Wikipedia article for DuPont's first mill: "Between 1802 and 1921 there were 288 explosions leading to the deaths of 228 people. The three most deadly and remembered explosions occurred in 1818, 1890 and 1915.