Originally Posted by
Brimstone
Terrible news gentlemen, there has been another incident involving pyrotechnics making this year. It would appear he was attempting to make gunpowder.
A resident of Macon County NC was critically injured on June 23 at about 1am according to news reports.
He has reportedly lost both hands and eyes in the blast.
FBI reportedly destroyed an assortment of containers of black powdery material.
He was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
My heart goes out to him and his family.
I don't know of any other community outside of the pyro community other than US Naval Aviators who critique each other's work so thoroughly as we but none the less I think maybe we might consider brushing up on this risky hobbies guidelines.
I'd like to remind everyone that use of threaded lids or caps is a safety violation. Threads such as PVC caps are regarded by everyone to be unsafe and a friction ignition point.
One should use clean rubber caps retained on the outside of the clean tube with a clean hose clamp.
Again. NO THREADED CAPS or PLUGS.
Remote dumping of the composition from the mill jar into a grounded bowl or wood box is very highly recommended by many as this ultra fine mill dust is the easiest to ignite with ESD and this has happened in the past.
Another safety guideline, DO NOT use marbles, glass aquarium bedding or hardened steel shot such as ball bearings.
Nothing that can shatter inside a mill. Shattering is often the result of stress within the material and this shattering produces heat that can ignite contents.
DO NOT STRIKE YOUR JAR. You shouldn't be that close to it to strike it. But striking the back to break clumped composition can cause media to impact with enough force to ignite composition. Many in the hobby regard it as two violations of guidelines, proximity and impact.
DO NOT use any form of enclosed metallic grinding implement for granulating or corning pucked composition. No meat grinder. No coffee grinder. These devices partially or completely enclose the composition and when the unfortunate day comes that it ignites, the components become shrapnel.
Quantity of material. The more you're manipulating, the greater the destructive effect. I've read that many pyros keep quantities to 100 gram batches.
There doesn't seem to be strong consensus on what is considered too much. I can only warn you that the more you create in one go, the greater the destructive effect of blast or fireball. You will not have time to react to accidental ignition.
Know your composition material! Potassium nitrate is the oxidizer. Sodium nitrate if you don't have the former.
For safety sake, there are no alternatives. I occasionally see the question asked about chlorates and perchlorates.
No. These only make shock sensitive priming compound. Very sensitive.
I mentioned that to lead into the next safety concern.
We're seeing an uptick in primer making. This almost always entails chlorate, meaning more and more hobbyists will have chlorate in their shop and may not have it labeled and stored separately from nitrates. It can be visually indistinguishable from nitrate.
For safety, if you're making primers too, store those components in a container clearly marked with appropriate warnings as to the toxic nature of the materials within and the danger of mixing them.
Everyone should periodically brush up on safety precautions and risk mitigation techniques.
Know that there is no 100% safe method of making pyrotechnic compositions and that you should never cut corners, never put off a risk mitigating method or practice merely because it is inconvenient or a component for your tool was not immediately available.
Personal Protective Equipment is recommended. A trifecta of distance, physical barriers and appropriate protective clothing between yourself and a fireball. Know that breathing in searing hot gasses will destroy lungs and is fatal. The first line of safety is distance.
It will be the difference between walking away from a startling flash or a tragedy.