DIY BP Gurus: use of small dehumidifier to dry homemade powder

[Texantothecore]

Does anyone use a dehumidifier to dry their bp after compression? I have seen several on Amazon that will remove six to eight oz of water every 24 hours. I would be using very thin pucks for that reason as well as ease of breaking the puck into coffee bean size chunks to run through a Hario Skerton coffee mill.

At this time I am drying the pucks in a plastic box using a shop fan but would like to speed the process up.

Any insight will be welcome.

[Nobade]

Don't see why it wouldn't work. For that matter some silica gel in a tight box with a little heat probably would too.

I tried putting the pucks in the toaster oven but my wife didn't think that was a very good idea.....
(just kidding!!...)

-Nobade

[OverMax]

I wouldn't do it but you can. I see little too no need in buying a special moisture remover unit for the purpose of drying home-made B/P.
I know of one fellow who positions his pucks in a cardboard handled carry container under a forced air furnaces heating vent located in his reloading area. Seems to work well for him.

Me I'm chicken. No fancy way have I found. I just let mine dry out in the open air on my back porch when weather & its humidity are accommodating. Trick is having enough pucks available. Frankly: I got to get me another compression piston & ring from you know who? one of these days. "One compressing ring just ain't enough."

[Texantothecore]

By compression ring do you mean the die?

I have thought seriously about running two dies, filling one while the other is being compressed.

I have another die somewhere in the garage but I cannot find it to save my life. It probably was thrown out as junk at some point as it looked a bit scruffy.

[Texantothecore]

Tip for you, Nobade:

I got shot down when I ventured the opinion that I would love to build my own fireworks. This happened when my wife's girlfriends were in attendance and they all gave their opinion in no uncertain terms, but a few months later I introduced my wife to the idea of making bp in the garage it was fine.

I sort of used the fireworks idea to establish the point at which projects were unacceptable and came in underneath that bar with bp making in the garage. It flew without any problems after a short discussion of the chemistry and physics involved.

Since I don't have any interest in fireworks no harm was done.

[Nobade]

Haha - yep, I know what you're talking about. My new $1500 motocross bike was OK, but a new $8000 one is right out. Gotta know your limitations...

Oh BTW, I do like Over Max - just make a bunch of pucks and cycle through them. By the time I use up the powder from a previous batch the other ones are a few months old and plenty dry. Kind of like you do with wine - keep the cycle going and there's always product ready to go.

-Nobade

[OverMax]

By compression ring do you mean the die?

Yup. they are one in the same.
After christmas when things settle down here. Gonna get a hold of that guy down South of me and ask to have another Turned. {handiest little ga-git for the purpose.}

P script: Coffee mill works great doesn't it.

[Texantothecore]

I am not yet at the point of producing pucks. I messed up when I reassembled the hydraulic jack and ended up with a small leak in the elbow of the fittings but that is going to be fixed tonight. I also put the jack cover on incorrectly and handle restricts the pressure gauge a bit. So probably an hour to refit the jack and I am going to be good to go.

So my first pucks will be coming out Saturday and hopefully will be sitting in front of the fan Saturday afternoon.

The fan should do the drying step well but I may build a small box with an infrared bulb in the bottom to speed drying along. Since I live close to the Gulf I am a bit concerned about the higher humidity levels but that may be a moot point because of the continuously moving air from the fan. So there will still a good deal of development work to do. I will probably be adjusting the coffe mill while the bp dries using rice or coffee beans to set the ground particle size.

So, I am just about to start making my own. It should be as good as commercial and I am looking forward to shooting it using my cast boolits.

[Boz330]

I just set them out in the sun. It is surprising how hot they get just from the sun.
If you have never used the bean grinder before I'm not sure using coffee beans will help much. The dried pucks are very brittle and they tend to shatter leaving you with a lot of fines which have to be reprocessed.
Something that I have thought about but not tried is breaking the pucks up while they still have a little moisture in them so that they aren't prone to shatter while grinding. Then dry the grains in the sun to finish up. This may reduce the amount of powder that needs to be reprocessed. I'm just not sure if this will keep the required density for good powder.

Bob

[Texantothecore]

I am going to try both wet and dry methods to see what works for me.

Iirc, you are using a vice to compress and the stucture of the powder may not break as cleanly as a more heavily compressed batch and several people have mentioned that they get very little in the way of fines. If I need to increase the compression to say 6k in order to get a more brittle powder I fully intend on doing it.

[Boz330]

I am going to try both wet and dry methods to see what works for me.

Iirc, you are using a vice to compress and the stucture of the powder may not break as cleanly as a more heavily compressed batch and several people have mentioned that they get very little in the way of fines. If I need to increase the compression to say 6k in order to get a more brittle powder I fully intend on doing it.

Let me know if that makes a difference.
I guess that not compressing it enough might make a difference in the fines but in my mind I fail to see how.

Bob