My homemade black powder

[Vettepilot]

I live in North Idaho and, so far as i know, there is no paulownia anywhere near. We do have willow here and there but ive yet to source any for charcoal. Right now though, i do have a source for western red cedar and also white pine. I plan to experiment with them. Has anyone here any experience with either species as raw material for BP charcoal?

Both have been reported as working well; however the pine is consistently reported to be dirty burning. Not a factor for pyro, but certainly a factor for shooting.

Vettepilot

[HighUintas]

I picked up my second 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights today.. this one was free. So that's awesome! If a guy is pulling out the zinc weights to cast into the milling media, are there any that are labeled with AZN that are some type of iron zinc alloy that will not melt down at reasonable temperatures? I read some of VPs adventures in trying to melt down zinc wheel weights only to melt out the bottom of his pot due to there being some iron ones in there. even though I'd be sorting out my bucket very well before doing that, I don't want to end up trying to melt a bunch of iron zinc alloy weights that won't melt.or is my knowledge on those wrong, and they are actually all and iron zinc alloy and they will melt just fine?

I ask because some of them are labeled FZn

[mooman76]

Interred in error

[henryinpanama]

Speaking of electrical ignition, I remember an article from years ago about a BP handgun with a glow plug igniter. It was in one of those Popular Science/Mechanics magazines. I don't remember the details, but I believe the glow plug was energized with a higher than normal voltage from a charged capacitor, and ignition was said to be comparable to percussion caps. It obviously wasn't a commercial success.

[3leggedturtle]

Gun Digest had an article on a .22 cal pistol and .30 call rifle that the guy used a model airplane sparkplug for ignition, 1974 comes to mind but cant remember exactly.

[Vettepilot]

Hmmm.... that's getting into one of my areas of expertise. Model airplanes and engines. Yeah, there's a spark plug for them, (not a glow plug; an actual spark plug), with 1/4" threads.

Oh god, no! I Can't afford the time, energy, nor money to get interested in yet another project!!

It sure is interesting though, especially with the primer disaster right now.

Oh boy....

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

Regarding the wheel weights. Grab a good strong magnet from Harbor Freight to sort out the steel ones. They have several flavors.

Here's a little one that I use for sorting out the steel pins from cleaning brass. Very handy, but they have bigger ones too.

https://www.harborfreight.com/30-lb-...&cid=go_social

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

"I don't know about you guys, but I don't make black powder. I make black fertilizer for my garden. If anyone from the government should ask."

Do you get "Freedom Seeds" to sprout with that "fertilizer"?

;~)

Vettepilot

[HighUintas]

Regarding the wheel weights. Grab a good strong magnet from Harbor Freight to sort out the steel ones. They have several flavors.

Here's a little one that I use for sorting out the steel pins from cleaning brass. Very handy, but they have bigger ones too.

https://www.harborfreight.com/30-lb-...&cid=go_social

Vettepilot

Yes! I finally realized I wasn't using my brain and pulled out my magnet to verify the zinc ones are non-ferrous! Duh!

Have you gotten around to testing out your cast iron Dutch oven charcoal retort yet? I'm having trouble finding metal paint cans in my neighborhood, and I like your idea of using a cast iron Dutch oven to create more even heat inside! I haven't been able to locate those at any thrift stores, so I found a nice one on Amazon for sale for $30. I'm worried though that it won't seal around the edges of the lid well enough to prevent it from continuing to burn after turning the heat off.

[LAGS]

A magnet stickers to every COWW.
The clip is Steel.
I check all my WW's with side cutters.
Lead ones dent easily or actually cut.
But the Steel or Zinc ones barely scratch if you try to cut them.
I am not one of those that just dumps them in the pot and pull out the ones that don't melt in a minute.

[HighUintas]

Yes I was questioning differentiating the since from steel so I could melt the since ones for milling media. I checked with a magnet from the side away from the clip.

[Vettepilot]

Unfortunately I haven't been able to try out my Dutch Oven retort yet. But I figure if it wants to leak air, I'll vise grip the lid on. If that doesn't work, I'll pick up some wood stove gasket material and seal it. I don't give up easily.

I've heard of others using Dutch Ovens, so it should work ok. I think Harbor Freight still carries them, and/or Walmart, or as you say, Amazon. I've learned too, not to grab things off Amazon without having a quick gander at E-bay. Some guys offer better deals than Amazon on there, with free shipping too.

Vettepilot

[HighUintas]

Ah wood stove gasket is a good idea. I'd thought of applying aluminum tape after turning the heat off, but that may not stick so well with that high temperature.

I'm not a huge fan of Amazon, and I found a Lowe's finally that has paint cans (1 of 10 in my area!), So maybe I'll just keep looking around for an old Dutch oven.

I'd like to retrofit my propane cabinet smoker to be a controlled charcoal maker. Insulate the outside with ceramic fiber insulation, put some gasket material on the door, stick a temp probe on a pid in there and connect it to a gas solenoid valve. Bam 600F stable cabinet. But then how would you know when the charcoal is done?

Surely there's some sort of metric that can be looked at in the exhaust that changes dramatically at the point your flame would go out if you had the exhaust stream burning.

I visited a small malt house 10 years ago and their setup for kilning malt was fantastic. They had humidity and temperature sensors on the stack outlet that would be monitored by their system and automatically adjust the heat and fan speed and damper on the exhaust to regulate their process exactly. Hmmmm

[HighUintas]

Also, I'm wondering if Swiss harvests their wood early spring when the sap would be flowing through the sapwood in full force. One would think that extra carbohydrate source being in the wood might act as extra fuel in the charcoal, but maybe it would turn into something not so useful during the charring process.

After I've got a somewhat controlled charcoal making setup and a consistent procedure for making the BP, I'll have to test varying harvest times.

Of course, the dang aspect of the tree you pull the wood from is going to affect the composition of it too. A high end barrel cooper I used to know, who owned his own small distillery, would pull his staves from certain aspects of the tree for the specific properties it would have.

[ButchC]

That makes a lot of sense to me. Heartwood having different chemical composition than sapwood and the visual differences indicating as much. Given their ratio is somewhat dependent on resources available to the tree and the conditions it experiences over its life, I think that provides charcoal variation between lots independent of our techniques. This may not be distinguishable between two different sites in the same forest but between states I think it might be. Also, I think for many of us, we're unlikely to go ripping one or the other off a log with all the other complicating factors to consistent powder making.

I do like the thought of harvesting during sap run. That seems like a positive.

[Eddie2002]

Though I'd post a picture of my home made tumbler for laughs. It's something a bit different when it comes to design but has worked well for center fire brass and tumbling BP ingredients.
The red bucket is attached to a geared down DC motor pulled from some medical equipment with a final speed of 20 RPM's while running on 12 volts. The motor is rated up to 24 volts but 12 volts seems to be about right and I had an extra 12 volt power supply handy so I used it. The chair casters carry the weight of the medium and anything else in the main chamber, I've run it with about 250 30-06 cases along with the polishing medium with no problems and with the design it could take a lot more weight.
The inner white bucket is there as the main tumbler container for bulky stuff like brass, that way I can remove the inner bucket and dump it instead of fishing around in the outer red container. For BP milling I use a smaller plastic jar that sits in the white bucket and gets rolled as it turns.
Actually it works a whole lot better than I expected when I first built it. Sorry about the poor picture but it's all I've got handy. The best part about it was that I assembled it from stuff that was already laying around in my shop and it was free.

[maillemaker]

Looks good! Way cheaper than the Diamond Pacific commercial tumbler I bought years ago!

[Vettepilot]

Innovation is a wonderful thing!! I've saved myself a small fortune over the years by making/creating my own tools, plus there's great satisfaction in doing so.

Nice work!!

Vettepilot

[HighUintas]

Genius!

After seeing your tumbler, I was in a thrift store this afternoon looking at an old $7 ice cream machine. I'm pretty sure it would be similar to your setup if I knocked it over on it's side

[ButchC]

Genius!

After seeing your tumbler, I was in a thrift store this afternoon looking at an old $7 ice cream machine. I'm pretty sure it would be similar to your setup if I knocked it over on it's side

Could be a good deal though if I recall correctly, ice cream machines have a slower rpm but a bit more torque in the drive. It's probably close enough though and $7 makes it worth experimenting I'd say.