My homemade black powder

[HamGunner]

Looks like it makes smoke.

"Don't squeeze the charcoal"

[Linstrum]

DoubleBuck, private message sent.

[DoubleBuck]

Guys, Linstrum checked my math on post 7558, like I had asked him to do; and after a couple of messages, and me re-reading my posts; I had to edit two of them. Posts 7558 and 7584, on the ash test; I put the ash as one grain, instead of the correct .1 grain. That mistake made the ash 6% instead of the correct .6%. Not copying my notes made a big mistake and I'm glad Linstrum caught it. I did copy my notes on post 7589 and got both of the ash numbers posted correctly, on the Charmin and the Cottonelle.
If anyone ever catches a mistake, please call me out on it. I'm not here to mislead anyone, and especially where safety or correct numbers can be critical. I would never have caught that mistake had it not been brought to my attention.
Thanks and carry on!

[Sandro_ventania]

Hey guys. Look at these two samples of black powder... the one with the larger stain doesn't dirty your fingers... the smaller stain makes your finger dirty when it touches the stain. The biggest stain is homemade. Why such a big stain if it is cleaner?

Why is the image not appearing?

[Linstrum]

Hey, guys, I have been following what has been going on with using toilet paper as the source of charcoal.

Pretty interesting from two standpoints:

Outside of something like refined white sugar that comes from a plant source, where sugar has as close to zero ash as a charcoal source can get, the ash content from toilet paper is the lowest I've seen reported. For what it is worth, charcoal from sugar doesn't work all that well for making black powder because it is very hard and won't mill to "air float" powder.

Second is that the paper pulp in toilet paper, as a starting point, is already a lot closer to "air float" before the charcoal is even made from it.

Those two things together will increase the chemical reaction efficiency when black powder burns. Chemical reaction efficiency is not quite the same as burn rate, where burn rate is also partially controlled by the black powder's grain size, such as fffg. Reaction efficiency means faster burn, but not necessarily a hotter burn, where overall temperature is controlled by the fuels, along with contaminants that tend to lower temperature. Ash is a special case contaminant because it is part of the plant cell walls, where its presence there has a more profound effect on lowering black powder efficiency than would be expected. That is why I keep recommending that charcoal should be assayed for its ash content, somewhere below 4% ash when charcoal is dead burned. Dead burned means when charcoal is heated above 900º F (480º C) for about an hour, which is dull red hot. When roasted for maximum creosote content, ash should be below 2%. Dead-burning charcoal is just a test method. I do a small dead-burned test sample in a soup can before making a big batch roasted at ~ 600º F (315º C).

When paper pulp is made, some of the lignin is lost, where some of the creosote comes from lignin. Lignin is brown, so to make white paper, some of the lignin is removed. But some of the creosote also comes from cellulose. Creosote isn't just one kind of molecule, hundreds of different molecules have been identified in creosote.

I have zero experience with roasting toilet paper, but I would think that the roasting time and temperature for maximizing creosote in toilet paper is going to be different from something like sassafras and willow.

I gotta go find something to roast some toilet paper in, I can't do a whole roll in a soup can!

[Sandro_ventania]

Has anyone here ever made Black powder pellets like those made from pyrodex? Does anyone know if it works or if there are any problems? I find pellets practical and skip the need for grinding and sieving. It would be great if it works. If anyone has already tested it and can say what they thought, it will save me from making a mold and throwing it in the failed projects box... lol

[LAGS]

I did make a little die for my press to make those small pellets.
I never really tested them much.
But if I had a Inline I might have.

[Sandro_ventania]

It doesn't need to be inline, it works on any capslock. What little you've tested, what did you think?

[LAGS]

In my sidelocks.
They didn't fire that well.
I thought it was because they were harder and didn't want to set off easy because of the design of the patent breech plug.
I had similar issues with the store bought pellets in my rifles.

[Nobade]

I used to press black powder into pellets to make rocket motors. Also once tried putting as much into a 9mm as I could and ended up making solid pellets, they behaved just like little rockets and not like a regular shot. Pretty funny and a good way to start a fire.

[Sandro_ventania]

The pellets must have a central hole, so that the burning is proportional. from the outside it decreases the area and from the inside it increases the area while burning.

[DoubleBuck]

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you were all surrounded by family, friends and loved ones and the day full of blessings, and cheer!

[Linstrum]

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you were all surrounded by family, friends and loved ones and the day full of blessings, and cheer!

Merry Christmas! Thanks, DoubleBuck!

[DoubleBuck]

Linstrum;
Cook up some TP, and test it out, and let us know what you observe from it. The more we have checking it out, the better we can predict it. It may turn out to not be that great; but for me, it has some great advantages to it. I'll be interested to see how it turns out, for you.
By the way, I have a wood/charcoal/ash question, that I can't wrap my head around.
Using TP as a charcoal, or any wood, let's say you take an even ten grams of wood and cook it down to ash and it makes one gram. 10% ash, right? Now, if you charcoal that 10 grams of raw wood, I think that about 50% loss of weight is somewhere near normal, so say it loses 50%, or 5 grams of weight in the charring process. Now, if you assay the charcoal, you have 5 grams of charcoal and it makes 1 gram of the same ash it would have made, from cooking the wood, correct? But, the charcoal would be 5 grams of charcoal cooked to 1 gram of ash and does that not mean that the charcoal is 20% ash, in this case? For some reason, I can't seem to understand if I'm in left field, or am leaving something simple out. Thanks. Buck

[dtknowles]

Linstrum;
Cook up some TP, and test it out, and let us know what you observe from it. The more we have checking it out, the better we can predict it. It may turn out to not be that great; but for me, it has some great advantages to it. I'll be interested to see how it turns out, for you.
By the way, I have a wood/charcoal/ash question, that I can't wrap my head around.
Using TP as a charcoal, or any wood, let's say you take an even ten grams of wood and cook it down to ash and it makes one gram. 10% ash, right? Now, if you charcoal that 10 grams of raw wood, I think that about 50% loss of weight is somewhere near normal, so say it loses 50%, or 5 grams of weight in the charring process. Now, if you assay the charcoal, you have 5 grams of charcoal and it makes 1 gram of the same ash it would have made, from cooking the wood, correct? But, the charcoal would be 5 grams of charcoal cooked to 1 gram of ash and does that not mean that the charcoal is 20% ash, in this case? For some reason, I can't seem to understand if I'm in left field, or am leaving something simple out. Thanks. Buck

Yes, you are mixing your apples with your oranges. Nothing you said was wrong it is all in they way you think about it.

When making the holy black it does not matter what percentage of a piece of wood is ash because you don't put wood in your powder. In some ways it does not even matter what percentage of ash is in your charcoal, well until you get your charcoal cooked right. High ash content might mean you over cooked your charcoal. Vis a versa low ash content might mean you did not cook your charcoal long enough. Moisture and volatiles, terpenes etc. are the issue. The best charcoal is not pure carbon.

[indian joe]

Yes, you are mixing your apples with your oranges. Nothing you said was wrong it is all in they way you think about it.

When making the holy black it does not matter what percentage of a piece of wood is ash because you don't put wood in your powder. In some ways it does not even matter what percentage of ash is in your charcoal, well until you get your charcoal cooked right. High ash content might mean you over cooked your charcoal. Vis a versa low ash content might mean you did not cook your charcoal long enough. Moisture and volatiles, terpenes etc. are the issue. The best charcoal is not pure carbon.

similar answer here - forget the wood part
charcoal is what we use to make powder so how much of the charcoal remains as gunk is the real issue - I'm not even convinced that an open air burn test means much - conditions in the barrel under a projectile is what matters - how to measure that ??? durned if I know - its a feel thing - we know from how the gun loads on successive shots or how long it takes to loose the edge with a cartridge gun - there are so many variables on the scientific side of this - i put it in the to hard basket
I know that Wano is dirtier than last century's Goex - I know my willow is cleaner than the Goex
I have had Chinese fireworks powder that was energetically good but dirty to shoot also had some chinese that was the cleanest commercial stuff I ever saw - but was a tad slow
An observation - the cleaner burning powders I have had have been lighter colour (more grey than black) and the darker black it got the dirtier it seemed to be ---could be absolutely a coincidence but is what I saw.

[indian joe]

I used to press black powder into pellets to make rocket motors. Also once tried putting as much into a 9mm as I could and ended up making solid pellets, they behaved just like little rockets and not like a regular shot. Pretty funny and a good way to start a fire.

drop a half inch chunk of puck on the workshop floor - set it alight a week later by accident with some welder sparks - it will startle you as it scoots around on the floor but you can see it burn from outside in (pretty quick but can see it) crush the same size chunk into powder - its near instantaneous just "poof" and its gone . ...FFFg is quicker than FFg is quicker than FG is quicker than cannon is quicker than the 3/8" chunks I use on my post hole gun - so a solid pellet even with a hole up it ?????? slow methinks

[HWooldridge]

FWIW, an episode of Mike Rowe’s “How America Works” was on last night about the pulp business, specifically in regard to toilet paper plus hand towels (Charmin and Bounty brands).

They use the whole tree and don’t waste anything. The grinders turn everything into a brown pulpy soup that can be piped through the mill to where it needs to go, then is pressed and dried. The brown pulp becomes brown hand towels, while the TP pulp is bleached and washed until it’s snow white, then goes through a similar drying and rolling process. It would appear that not much is left over that anyone would recognize as a tree, much less any of the volatile compounds.

Of course, this show wasn’t about Cottonelle products, so don’t know if they use a different feedstock.

[HWooldridge]

drop a half inch chunk of puck on the workshop floor - set it alight a week later by accident with some welder sparks - it will startle you as it scoots around on the floor but you can see it burn from outside in (pretty quick but can see it) crush the same size chunk into powder - its near instantaneous just "poof" and its gone . ...FFFg is quicker than FFg is quicker than FG is quicker than cannon is quicker than the 3/8" chunks I use on my post hole gun - so a solid pellet even with a hole up it ?????? slow methinks

Pretty funny you mention welding shop. I also make my BP in my welding shop (mostly because nothing can catch fire there), and occasionally have a bit of dust laying around from previous projects. One day, I was using the chop saw and noticed much more smoke than normal, then noticed a little sparkly dance on one of my trays. Looked like an ant-sized 4th of July party that didn’t last very long. The sparks can fly much further than one might expect so it’s good not to leave any large amounts unsecured. It’s also no surprise how powder mills might blow up on occasion. Poof and you’re done.

[DoubleBuck]

Checking the toilet paper, there was almost no ash. I didn't check the ash of the toilet paper charcoal. Now I wish I had.
I completely understand both your points that no, we don't use wood, we use charcoal.
Before I try a test on something new, I burn a weighed piece to ash and check it. If it has low ash there, I know it should be low ash charcoal, if I cook it right. The toilet paper made lower ash than any product I have tested. Sassafras made less ash than anything I've tested until now. And, it made <2% ash charcoal. But, I don't know what the ash content of the toilet paper was, and that was a mistake, on my part.
I completely disagree that open air burning has little to do with a charge in a gun barrel. You can see the residue, the speed and the power of the powder by doing a burn rate test as well as how well it is incorporated. No slow burn rate powder I have tested has made good powder in my guns, to date. And I have burn rated probably 20 different woods and different products. Conversely, every fast burn rate powder I have tested has made good powder in my guns, the only difference being the amount and type of fouling.
Someone char some toilet paper and report their ash assays, please!