Originally Posted by
HamGunner
I tried LAGS method of grinding-screening, grinding-screening, at least three times with each grinder setting before tightening up the grinder and it certainly did seem to reduce the fines by at least half of what I used to get. It is a good bit of grinding and screening, but if you end up with more usable sizes, then it sure is worth the effort.
I just finished up a 4 1/2 lb. batch of Black Willow BP today. Had two 2 lb. batches plus 1/2 lb. of leftover fines that I tossed into those batches as well. Got it all screened and most of the dust separated out ending up with 1/4 lb. of FFFFG, 3 lbs. of FFFG, 1 lb. of FFG, and only about another 1/4 lb. of fines/dust. I usually would end up with at least 25% of my batch as fines and this time I ended up with only around 12-13% of the batch as fines.
With this batch, since I did not have enough sun to dry stuff outside, I placed the finely ground up Potassium Nitrate on my heavy duty cookie trays and placed it in the oven at the lowest setting for about 1 1/2 hours before tossing it in the mill with the sulfur and charcoal. I did not dry the sulfur any further, but the charcoal was freshly charred and I had sealed it immediately after getting it ground up to almost airfloat. I milled the batches for over 12 hours each and it did well. Not enough clumping to worry about and I did take the tub off about every two hours to shake the dickens out of it before tossing back on the rollers.
What I ended up with this time was a bit heavier than my last batch of Black Willow, as I think I failed to get the last batch of charcoal completely done. It had a slight bit of under cooked wood in the middle of some of the pieces plus this batch got probably an extra 1/3 the mill time as the last batch as well. I saw no under cooked wood, although it was mostly a dark brownish color rather than black. It took me a lot longer to char this time since it was much cooler outside and seemed to keep the charring temperature down a bit, which actually made it easier to control once it reached the jump off point when the wood temp seems to want to climb faster once it gets closer to 500-550 degrees.
Anyway, I weighed the FFFG at 23 gr. using the 25 gr. volume setting of my BP revolver measure, as that is the volume that I have always found to be the most accurate in my Navy .36 Cal. I guess that about puts it right around 92% density of store bought. I think I had a batch or two of Sassafras that was just a bit heavier, but not by much. It does seem to want to burn well and is easy to ignite. Did not do a paper burn test, but just from a few small ignition tests that I did do, it seemed to be jumping up and down ready to go. Should be some good BP.