Originally Posted by
HWooldridge
DB,
I also read all of the MM files and found some of the same nuggets - Bill Knight was certainly an authority on the subject.
I don't have ready access to any of the "magic woods" for charcoal but have been doing pretty well with red cedar fence pickets. Cedar seems to have some creosote and has that greasy feel if the temperature is maintained properly during the charring process.
I started using distilled water but also add a bit of nitrate to the water so it's more like the nitrate "liquor" that Bill Knight mentioned in the old commercial mills. I haven't shot enough of that batch over a chronograph to know whether it makes a difference. Bill wrote that anything over 76 parts starts to be detrimental so it's a fine line of what works the best.
With regard to the wheel method, I've mentioned a couple times in this thread that I believe a sand muller design as intended for foundry work would work to make BP but the effort to produce one may be difficult to justify when ball milling seems to work quite well. Drying the components does make a difference in clumping so maybe ball milling is simply the best method for an individual. I've been threatening to build a muller for about ten years but have never moved forward with actual construction.
HW