Today I made a little fixture to secure my coffee grinder platform. Man, this is the bees knees! I used to work with an old engineer who used to say, "If you don't hold your work your work will work you!" and he sure is right. By locking down the grinder it now makes what was the most arduous part of the process into the easiest. Right now the hardest part of the process is busting up the pucks into chunks for the coffee grinder.
https://i.imgur.com/SF3AIjel.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/bIbxTzXl.jpg
With this simple fixture I can clamp the grinder to the side of my Harbor Freigh hydraulic press. I installed lockable casters on the press frame so I can roll it out of the garage into the driveway to do powder work outdoors.
As you can see from this picture below, it is simply impossible to work with black powder without creating dust and crumbs. In no time you will have a fine black haze covering all work surfaces around you. Your clothes will reek of it, too. If you carry out any kind of production quantity at all (like 1 pound of finished powder) you are going to end up with an unsafe amount of dust settling around your work area. I have only produced about 3/4 of a pound of 2F and about 3/4 of a pound of 3F and about 3/4 of a pound of fines, having only done this for a few weeks now, and I'm already convinced that this must be an outdoors-only activity.
https://i.imgur.com/2tfz4NYl.jpg
Also, this weekend I got around to grinding up some willow charcoal a user here sent me. I can already tell that the charcoal has a "greasier" feel to it than my poplar charcoal. I don't know what this will mean in the end but I can physically tell a difference in the charcoal.
Steve