Well, that could be tough to figure. The weight will vary hugely depending on the moisture content of the wood.
Even live trees have varying moisture content. The forest service here in the western US measure it to monitor drought conditions and forest volatility as regards fire danger.
I swear, the southwestern US here abouts is going to soon become like the Sahara desert!!
:~(
Vettepilot
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
Wow, what a thread! Been reading a few pages every night, only up to page 51 now; wearing me out reading it. I got a question. I can certainly buy a ball mill from HF, but, how would a vibrator tumbler work? Looks to me like just take a vibrator tumbler, throw in 75 or 100 .45 ACP cases and that would work just as good as the HF rotary tumbler from HF for grinding charcoal into powder. Is there something I'm missing here? Like I say, I'm just up to page 51 so far. I've known this thread was here for years and didn't pay much attention to it; BUT, now I'm having to drive 80 miles to get $25 a lb powder as local stocks are out. I've got a good HyPres. A coffee grinder is 40 from Amazon and the screens are less than 5 bux a pice from McMaster Car and the riverbanks are full of willow. The beavers even strip the bark off and nibble it into small enough chunks for me to carry off. So, what about a vibrator tumbler? Zack
Last edited by zack; 03-04-2021 at 01:47 AM.
Hi Zack,
Rotary tumblers are probably the way you want to go. There is more of a crushing and grinding action, and the rotation of the drum makes sure that the media and meal are constantly jumbled up.
A vibratory tumbler with items of different density in it will result in the most dense things settling to the bottom of the basin, while the lighter material "floats" on top of it. I'd expect your tumbling media to settle to the bottom and the meal to float on top. Except for what powder filled in the gaps between your media, I would not expect a lot of interaction between the media and the meal.
You could try it, but I am very doubtful that it will work.
Steve
Well, I'm just starting out, but I would have to say "no way." Not enough "impact" with a vibratory tumbler for one thing. Visualize the lead media falling over and over again in a tumbler, smashing into one another and the powder and pulverizing and thoroughly mixing it. Not gonna happen with a vibratory unit. Effective ball milling is one of the very most important things to good black powder from what I've learned.
There's a reason why they call the powder "pulverone".
Vettepilot
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
Ya got me Steve. I was typing while you were posting!
;~)
Vettepilot
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
Yeah OK. That makes sense. Well, guess I'll be checking out rotary tumblers then. Instead of re-melting wrinkled balls I'll keep them back to use in the rotary tumbler. A scrap dealer in town has some production ends of 4" round aluminum that I can make a puk die out of. I like to come up with reasons to use my lathe anyway. Looks to me like I can get into business for less than 100 bucks or so, (or the price of 3 pounds of powder and the gas to go get it).
A little example of how a Vibrating tumbler won't do the job correctly.
Your Polishing Media that you use to polish your Brass Casings Doesn't Grind Down.
Like it was said by others , It just doesn't provide the Impact needed to break down your BP material even if you use Heavier lead balls or lead filled copper pipe sections.
I have used my vibrating tumbler to Powder Coat Boolits.
And the powder coat powder didn't grind down any finer .
Don't know where you're located, but Duda Diesel, even though they're clear across the country from me, had the best prices for the chemicals once shipping was figured in. Some other suppliers had somewhat better prices, but wanted to rape ya on the shipping...
Vettepilot
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
So far on powder coating bullets Lags, I've had amazingly good luck doing "shake n bake" in Cool Whip containers or the like, with some black plastic BB's thrown in. I'm using powder from the guy that sells it through the forums here. Works really well.
Vettepilot
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
Here is a YouTube video of Crazy Kitchen Chemistry making his Black Powder with such a tumbler.Originally Posted by Zack
The video is quite interesting and has a surprising burn test at the end.
It may take somewhat more time than the Rotary Tumbler but surely seems to get the job done.
Why does willow make the best charcoal? Cell structure?
What wood comes in 2nd place behind willow?
What other commonly available things have people tried? Do you have to use raw wood? Has anyone tried different papers? Cardboard?
Last edited by CTI1USNRET; 03-04-2021 at 10:43 AM.
I use willow and tree of heaven. Both readily available and work well.
swamp
There is no problem so great, that it cannot be solved by the proper application of high explosives.
If you dig into pyrotechnic articles and pdfs on the subject, they have tried cloth and paper without luck. My suspicion is those products are too heavily processed to retain the "magic" beyond the carbon. The presence of volatile compounds like creosote is said to be helpful and the cell structure is indicated by wood density in a roundabout way. But again I think the partial combustion byproducts are part of the secret and aren't solely determined by the physical properties of the wood but by the other compounds produced by the plant's biological processes.
The idea of trying the all natural smoker pellets has come to mind as alder is often times the base wood. I think there were some comments on that idea a while back in the thread though I don't recall clearly.
Added:
To me it would be a logical assumption that any powder made by the same individual with otherwise equal components and process only varying the source of the same species of wood, would produce variations in powder performance, though we may or may not be able to tell. A tree of heaven growing up in CT will have slightly different composition than a tree in SC simply based on the climate effects varying growth and most visibly the rings and chemicals making the rings visible. Not being a botanist I can only assume that there will be other chemical variations due to the lifecycle variations of the plant.
Other woods beyond willow: Alder, Cedars (Red cedar is technically a juniper so I'd assume other junipers would work well too), Goex is supposed to use some percentage silver maple, I have had good luck with basswood AKA linden, tree of heaven as mentioned is popular especially since it's invasive, cotton wood comes up occasionally, some folks use pine but that becomes species specific and the other woods perform better on some if not all attributes (fouling, burn rate, etc).
Last edited by ButchC; 03-04-2021 at 10:14 AM.
CTI1USNRET, from what I understand willow comes in behind balsa but there is a tie amongst several woods for what comes in second behind willow.
From what sites do you order your willow or tree of heaven sticks? Can you order charcoal powder made from them? What sites?
Please people, include links to sources. Copying and pasting links, no matter how repetitious, is not a strenuous effort.
There are thousands of posts to search through for the answers and even a search using the right words results in countless off-search posts.
indian joe, thank you for the information. The tree is coming down as it is blocking sunlight to my maple. I was hoping to make powder from it but that now looks like it will be a bust. I live in a desert and just about every tree except for cottonwood and Russian olive is imported. I don't care for cottonwood powder as I consider it pretty dirty. If I feel the need to cure the Big C with Australian willow I'll get one from the nursery. Again, thank you for your excellent post.
Most of us are making our own charcoal from what I can tell, hence the variation of wood types, either scrap from the shop or trees that come down nearby. Fireworks Cookbook is running a sale on red cedar charcoal. Ordering charcoal does eat into the overall costs though, if saving some dough is a concern with powder manufacture in the long run (after tooling costs) you come out a lot further ahead making your own.
While thinking about the construction of a 'device' which requires compressing the 'material' with ENORMOUS pressure to reach critical mass, I thought to myself, "Steve, what about compressing my BP pucks the same way, with an explosion ... hmmm?"
Just funnin' ya'all.
Last edited by CTI1USNRET; 03-04-2021 at 11:47 AM.
Does anyone use desiccant packs in their powder canisters? If you do, how do you know whether they are drawing moisture from the powder?
I have a friend who does some tree maintenance and brings me willow and tree of heaven when I need it. At the moment I have a very good supply of willow.
swamp
There is no problem so great, that it cannot be solved by the proper application of high explosives.
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