My homemade black powder

[DoubleBuck]

I have to either press my pucks out of the die, as well. Or, use a dead blow hammer on the piston, which seems to be quicker. I don't have blow-by, but as Ham said, the side pressure is just very high and makes for tight fit.

[Somebody]

What sort of protection is everyone using during the tumbling process? None of my neighbors are close, but to protect my house and theirs, I plan to tumble inside a U shaped sandbag wall, open end facing the woods, and tall enough to have no line of sight to any building.

[DoubleBuck]

Somebody;
That sounds to me like you should be good to go. If you make sure your media is non sparking and your powder has no contaminates that can cause sparking and if you mill small quantities, it should not be a problem. Your 'bunker' should work fine. Good luck!

[indian joe]

Personally, I don’t use dividers - just make one puck at a time since it just doesn’t take that much time. But if I did, I would not want sheet metal or thin plastic, at least .060” thick and a slide fit inside the outer sleeve.

been using divider since the get go - five or
six x 75 - 100gram pucks at the time - thin plastic dividers - milk jug but have made a few out of ice creame can (40thou plastic) which was why I responded to Lags? comment about the plastic maybe compressing - thin aluminium sheet would proly be ideal

heavy metal dividers that dont deform under pressure would then need really strict attention to packing the layers in the die - and would negate the substantial gain in time pressing pucks and also tempt us back to making thicker pucks - the whole aim of this excercise for me is to make the process of granulating from pucks to powder easier and simpler - I only do it once or twice a year but its work when its on and dont need it to be harder than necessary.
I enjoy shooting homemade powder, but making it for the sake of fun? nope! its work to be done so we can go shoot some more.

[indian joe]

I have had to use a PVC spacer under my die to press the pucks out of my die.
My spacer was just made out of a piece of the right interior sized PVC pipe , glued into a PVC collar or coupler to make the spacer thicker .
I then cut it to about 1” long so I didn’t have to major adjust my press when I pressed out the pucks after I did the compression .
I use this with my two “Fly” dies

same here pretty much
have a fibre board spacer (masonite the stuff they use under floor tiles) that goes on top of the puck stack (one underneath also) cut neat to the die body then my plunger proper is a chunk of Aluminium round thats about a 1/4 inch smaller than the die
when the pressing is done I set the whole thing up on a pvc (like Lags') collar and push the column on through

[Graysmoke]

DB, I tried something just for giggles, took my dry fines and pressed with a slip fit lexan plug. Now the puck didn't bind but no water made it fall apart, this test was to see if lexan 1/8” plate was strong enough to survive the 20 ton jack…it did. No stick could be result of no water to squeeze by and hardening on the wall of the die to bind the piston. Next test will be to wet the fines and press with the lexan plate in position hydraulic pressure will try to move damp powder around the piston but maybe the plastic shim will help me

[Graysmoke]

Update, today I took all my fines and wetted the powder. A bit to much water had some seepage on the second pressure soak period but the piston had much less leak by and tapping the piston pushed the puck out easily. Might the water lubed it a small amount? At any rate the lexan plug took most of the leak so not as much went to piston sidewall to bind it in place. I make only 8 oz per batch, so 3 1/4” pucks is what happens in 2 batches so fines are not that much of a bother. And removal is much easier than to dry of a batch to press, damp is better.

[DoubleBuck]

Graysmoke;
I'm glad it's looking better for you. Hopefully, you've got a grip on it now and can solve your problem. Carry on!

[DoubleBuck]

indian joe;
I may have misunderstood what you said but; you are pressing as many as six 100 gram pucks in each die load? What size is your die? Heck, you're the guy that's eligible for the first extruder!

[Brimstone]

Multi puck column die with separation discs is the way to go.
I use a 3" PVC pipe 8" long with discs separating each charge of wet mix. I end up with a bunch of 1/4" thick pucks in one column and only have a press once.
I use a 3" steel round as my ram.

I don't have to worry about doing one puck at a time nor having the wet mix dry out before I'm done.

I get between 6 and 10 pucks depending on the volume the charcoal takes up, lighter charcoal takes up more volume.

[dtknowles]

Multi puck column die with separation discs is the way to go.
I use a 3" PVC pipe 8" long with discs separating each charge of wet mix. I end up with a bunch of 1/4" thick pucks in one column and only have a press once.
I use a 3" steel round as my ram.

I don't have to worry about doing one puck at a time nor having the wet mix dry out before I'm done.

I get between 6 and 10 pucks depending on the volume the charcoal takes up, lighter charcoal takes up more volume.

Sounds great, questions, are you using a 20 ton jack? Does it have plenty of stroke, I think you would need at least 6" of stroke? last question, how do you get those disks out of your pipe?

Tim

[DoubleBuck]

dt;
That's what they were talking about, above. You have to put something to catch the pucks with under the die. I guess LAGS and indian joe are using pvc pipe couplings, that will catch the edge of the die and not interfere with pressing the pucks out of it. Then, you press them out of the die. I do it different, but their system sounds great, to me.

[dtknowles]

I was just making a new 2" die and ram and now I am totally rethinking it to make it much taller. I need to go measure how much stroke my jack has.

Tim

[henryinpanama]

I tried my screened Cottonell TP BP today. Standard 75/15/10 with 1gm of Viet Namese rice powder, and was pleased with the result. 80gr measured weighs 65gr, so density is 81.25%, and grains are hard enough I needed a mortar and pestle to break them up. I screened to roughly FFg.

To make the charcoal, I cooked one roll in a gallon paint can for about an hour. It yielded just over 15 gm. I have a BBQ thermometer in the lid and temperature ran between 500 and 525 F. I stopped when the smoke nearly disappeared. I milled the charcoal for a couple of hours, and then the powder for 24 hours.

I thought this might help some newcomers to the art, or some of the folks like me, who just want to keep it simple. You guys who are striving for perfection have my admiration.

[indian joe]

indian joe;
I may have misunderstood what you said but; you are pressing as many as six 100 gram pucks in each die load? What size is your die? Heck, you're the guy that's eligible for the first extruder!

not 6 x 100 ----trying to keep em thin so busting them up is less hassle, 5 or 6 at the time depends - usually get about 450 grams per press maybe a tad more.

die is 3 inch diameter PVC pressure pipe -
the middle size one (schedule 40?) when its done I just push the entire stack through into a piece of same size thinner wall (schedule 20?) might have those numbers wrong? - it just slides right in there with a couple whiskers of clearance

then I found a junk piece off an old cultivator, a steel bottom plate with a collar welded to it, the PVC die is a neat slip fit inside the steel collar, die goes about half depth in the collar, when it takes the pressure it expands just a tiny bit to the steel - let the presure off, the die body rebounds just enough to remove it
You would for sure bust these PVC dies without something to contain them

I made two dies and two sets of dividers - my jack is old and dont always hold perfect so while I am loading the second die I keep touch up pumping the jack so the stack gets a few minutes under pressure

My whole setup is stuff I had or found around the place, spent about 4 hours of heavy duty cutting and welding with scrap steel to make my press - the rest of it just stuff laying around or saved for other work

[indian joe]

dt;
That's what they were talking about, above. You have to put something to catch the pucks with under the die. I guess LAGS and indian joe are using pvc pipe couplings, that will catch the edge of the die and not interfere with pressing the pucks out of it. Then, you press them out of the die. I do it different, but their system sounds great, to me.

you got it !

[indian joe]

Multi puck column die with separation discs is the way to go.
I use a 3" PVC pipe 8" long with discs separating each charge of wet mix. I end up with a bunch of 1/4" thick pucks in one column and only have a press once.
I use a 3" steel round as my ram.

I don't have to worry about doing one puck at a time nor having the wet mix dry out before I'm done.

I get between 6 and 10 pucks depending on the volume the charcoal takes up, lighter charcoal takes up more volume.

thats twice what I am doing !!

[indian joe]

I was just making a new 2" die and ram and now I am totally rethinking it to make it much taller. I need to go measure how much stroke my jack has.

Tim

If you gonna use the full stroke of a jack, plus a long plunger, plus a tall die, thats a tall skinny arrangement ---needs to be neat and well set up (alignment) to be stable and safe. be careful you dont break something !

I might press 6 pucks at 3/8" finished, even with spacers its under 3 inches high and over 3 inches wide, main plunger is 2.5 inches high, die body guessing between 4 and 5 inches high -- its an easy stable setup to use . gotta have a decent jack to get enough pressure though -- mine was already there