My homemade black powder

[LAGS]

There are woods that I have cooked , ( and probably overcooked ) that left ash in the retort or on the thin edges of the charcoal.
But those woods too were only cooked to about 600 degrees.
I also noticed that the smoke coming out of the vent would lite and stay burning.
But the Polo Verde smoke did not ignite at all.
And when the batch reached 600 degrees , 80% of the sticks were charged all the way thru.
The Mesquite Charcoal that I make for the barbeque is cooked until the smoke will not stay lit not by temperature.

[LAGS]

Today I made a half pound of powder using the Palo Verde Charcoal.
I did test some of the milled powder before pressing the rest.
It didn't seem too bad.
But let's wait and see how it does once it is ground and screened to size.
The green powder didn't seem all that fast.
But the powder made with Willow gets faster once pressed too

[DoubleBuck]

A few days ago I took a cut from a Mimosa branch which was budding. I dried it out and burned it, to see if I could get an ash assay from it.
It weighed 14.7 grains before cooking and 1 grain even, after cooking. That translates to 6.8% ash. The wood burned hot and long, but mostly looked like charcoal when finished. I could hold it over a gas flame and it would make a coal that would stay glowing. Then when it quit glowing, it still looked mainly like charcoal, ringed with ash.
I don't quite know what to think. 6.8% ash is too much, but why did it act like charcoal after burning? I may take a sample and actually make charcoal from it, and test a sample of it. One thing for sure, the wood has a LOT of gas in it. I was very impressed with how hot it burned.

Lags;
I'm interested how your Palo Verde tests out. I hope it is very good for you!

[LAGS]

I will keep you posted this week on how the P V Charcoal worked.
But since the wood I have is free .
I might try cooking another batch of the P V and see if I might improve the charcoal.
One thing I am noticing is , Not all wood turns to charcoal the same.
Like the PV not burning the smoke.
I may try cooking it with a larger fire to get it up to 600 degrees quicker.
Or cook it longer once it gets to 600 degrees or higher.

[HWooldridge]

A few days ago I took a cut from a Mimosa branch which was budding. I dried it out and burned it, to see if I could get an ash assay from it.
It weighed 14.7 grains before cooking and 1 grain even, after cooking. That translates to 6.8% ash. The wood burned hot and long, but mostly looked like charcoal when finished. I could hold it over a gas flame and it would make a coal that would stay glowing. Then when it quit glowing, it still looked mainly like charcoal, ringed with ash.
I don't quite know what to think. 6.8% ash is too much, but why did it act like charcoal after burning? I may take a sample and actually make charcoal from it, and test a sample of it. One thing for sure, the wood has a LOT of gas in it. I was very impressed with how hot it burned.

Lags;
I'm interested how your Palo Verde tests out. I hope it is very good for you!

I wonder if the mimosa was truly dry or if you were still driving moisture from it?

[DoubleBuck]

HWooldridge;
You may be right. I thought it was dry. We had a little cold snap, and I left it on top of my hot wood stove, for more than 24 hours. When I put it over a gas flame, it caught fire quickly and burned with jets of flame coming from around the buds. But, the 'charcoal' type leftovers had some dry ash and the rest was more like cold charcoal. I don't think I've ever experienced that.

[LAGS]

I did some burn tests on the Palo Verde Charcoal powder this morning
Well it lights and burns faster than with mesquite Charcoal.
But no where as fast as with the willow charcoal.
It kind of the same as the powder I made before with Cedar charcoal.
As far as soot.
The Palo Verde stuff did leave minimal amount of black stain on the paper.
So it is not burning as clean as the willow powder.
So my recommendation is not to use the Palo Verde unless you like to swab the bore between shots.
And I don't think it will work too well in BP revolvers.
But hay, at least you have a report on Another wood for making charcoal.
But if you live in Az.
And can't find Willow , and the two most abundant trees are Mesquite and Palo Verde , I would go with the Palo Verde.
Has anyone tried making charcoal from citrus trees like Orange Trees ?
We have a bunch of them around here too.

[DoubleBuck]

Lags;
Sorry about the disappointment. Thank you for the test and report, good or bad.
I have not heard anything about citrus woods, but Plum wood is supposed to be really good; although I have not tried it.

[LAGS]

I think I might be able to make better powder with the Palo Verde if I make better charcoal out of it first.
The wood I use was fairly fresh and could have been dried a little better.
Plus I think if I let the pressed pucks dry out a little longer , the powder might have been better.
In other words.
My processing and powder making needs to stay with in certain parameters like I do for powder made with the willow.

[ChrisPer]

I tried doing a poof test on white paper.
A few sparks started a burning front that joined into a black-edged hole. I stepped on it to put it out.
My artist wife saw it on my desk and LOVED the black trails of burning grains through the sepia tone - she glued my poof tests into her artists diary. I have to give her all the burnt patches from the patch ball rifle too.

[LAGS]

If those burnt papers and patches thrill your wife , then take up Lichtenberg Fractural Burning.
I have done it on several of my Muzzleloader stocks.

[Hossfly]

Has anyone tried (River Birch) I’ve got 3 around my house and they are about to be trimmed, as in cut down. Well at least one is, they are extremely fast growing, and drop limbs like crazy. That is if my pole chain saw will start.

[LAGS]

Years ago I did make charcoal out of some Birch lumber that I had.
That was way back when I was first starting doing BP mostly for fireworks.
But the birch might be a good option.

[DoubleBuck]

Hossfly;
The only tests I know of are of 'yellow' birch and 'white' birch. Burn rate tests only, no lift tests. In the tests, they did about 80 different woods. Here's a link: http://www.wichitabuggywhip.com/fire...oal_tests.html

[Hossfly]

Thanks DoubleBuck, I got my saw going this morning but started to rain. Will start trimming the river Birch this week maybe starting Thursday looks clear. SWMBO wants it gone so being its putting on leaves might be ideal time to cut and stack for later putting it thru my retort to test. It is one of the most self delimbing tree I’ve ever dealt with. Hope the bark peals as easy as willow.

[Linstrum]

I used to live in a large citrus and avocado farming area in Southern California, and had access to all kinds of citrus trees. In about 1987, I made a small batch of black powder using Meyer variety lemon tree wood for my charcoal. Before starting, I already knew the charcoal I was going to use assayed at 11% ash. Like I figured, it burned slow and was very dirty, with a lot of barrel residue.

When I was doing farming, I worked with Valencia and Navel orange trees; Lisbon, Meyer, and Eureka lemon trees, and Marsh grapefruit trees. All of those citrus varieties have tough stringy wood that I found to make charcoal with high ash content. But no harm in making some charcoal from one particular orange tree, since ash content often depends on where a tree grows.

If you have some kind of wood you want to try, by all means go ahead! That's exactly how we find what kinds of wood not to use, and on the other hand, what kinds of wood are darned good ones. How else would we know that woods like Royal Paulownia and sassafras are keepers?

The last time I bought some Goex fffg it was something like $20 for one pound, same with Pyrodex RS and Pyrodex P. The days of buying 99.98% pure potassium nitrate for 50¢ a pound are long gone, so maximizing what I have left is important to me. What I mean by maximizing is putting it to good use, such as using it for researching different kinds of wood and plant material for making charcoal.

I haven't needed to find any new kind of charcoal wood since before the turn of the last century because I still have a supply of avocado wood, but here's how I used to go about checking-out a new kind of wood or plant material, which was pretty straight-forward and simple. Keep in mind that trees aren't the only source of charcoal, a few kinds of grasses and vines are possibilities, although most of those are excellent sources of ash instead. One kind of ice plant is such a good source of high purity silica ash that it is used for making special optical glass and semiconductor silicon. For ash from some kinds of trees, just melting it is all that is needed to make good quality glass.

The first thing I did was assay the charcoal for its ash content. If it was below 4%, then I would make a small batch of test powder. I didn't bother using wood that made charcoal with more than 4% ash, because from previous experience I found out that those sources of charcoal made black powder more often than not that lacked power and burned dirty. As such, using charcoal with more than 4% ash was a waste of potassium nitrate. Even then when a test charcoal was below 4% ash, that was still no guarantee that black powder made using it would work well. Because of that, when I made a test batch, I only made 100 or 200 grains the first time so I wouldn't use any more potassium nitrate than was necessary. I tested my powder in a .44 caliber cap and ball revolver, or a single shot pistol with a 7/16" (0.4375") bore and an 8" barrel. I didn't press my test batches into pucks, either. I used a ball roller mill I made that used six 1-inch diameter balls that fit in an 8-inch diameter ball-race built like a huge ball thrust bearing. I ran it in a large drill press at low speed in back-gear with the powder just damp enough to stick together, and I wasn't near it when it was operating because there was a good chance of it igniting, although it never did. The down-pressure on the drill press quill was probably around 200 pounds. It had to be stopped every few minutes to check it to make sure all the powder was getting into the ball race. The rotating part turned by the drill press had a wooden scraper that pushed the powder back under the balls because the balls shoved the powder out of the raceway as they rolled over the powder. The amount of powder rolled under the balls was far less than the thickness of a piece of paper, but with about 200 pounds down pressure on the six balls, the powder was getting pressed pretty hard under each ball. After about half an hour the powder would be pretty dried-out, and in little hard dark gray flakes. That is the form I used it in after screening and thoroughly drying. Some of the test powder made with avocado wood charcoal burned like Du Pont, but as far as testing it for duplicating Du Pont fffg velocity, affordable sky screen chronometers weren't around yet.

Before running powder in the ball press mill, the potassium nitrate and charcoal were powdered separately, and then the potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur were all mixed together, dampened, and then ball press milled.

I wouldn't mill more than 200 grains of powder using that setup in case it ignites. The flash from that much powder would burn anyone standing next to it, that is why I used an extension cord and plugged it in from a distance to turn the motor on and off. It wasn't confined, but cleaning the corrosive burnt powder residue off the drill press would be quite a nuisance.

Lags, thanks for checking out palo verde.

DoubleBuck, give the mimosa another go. From what you said, it sounds like it wasn't quite dry yet when you gave it the "burnt tooth pick" test.

[LAGS]

Why I asked about the Citrus Trees was ,
Back in the 70's the company I worked for took out an 80 acre orchard in Walnut California.
We hauled the main trunks from the trees back to the yard and split it into firewood and sold it.
I remember that wood burning with pretty colors in fireplaces , but never paid attention to how much heat the wood produced or type of ash generated.therevwere also Walnut trees on the property.
That wood got bucked up into walnut Blanks for making gunstocks out of.
That plan fell thru because the wood had to dry for two years before it could be milled into proper sized blanks and there aren't too many mills in California that would do hardwoods.
So those blanks got sold for firewood too.

[Brimstone]

Lags;
Sorry about the disappointment. Thank you for the test and report, good or bad.
I have not heard anything about citrus woods, but Plum wood is supposed to be really good; although I have not tried it.

Plum burns hot and dirty as a musket blend, any leaner blend like a sporting blend would cut the surplus carbon but leave hard carbonate deposition in the bore as temperature would spike.
I made one test batch musket blend ratio, fired over chrono and found velocity to be average. The fouling was excessive but even mitigated with excess grease one has to contend with the heat. The flame is hot enough that repeat firing will prematurely burn out steel nipples and touch hole liners.

I'm glad it wasn't viable as it was costly to procure. That was an expensive test.

[LAGS]

I will have to look around for someone that has some plumb trees.
In the mean time , I picked up some Balsa Wood to try.

[ChrisPer]

My testing has been bulk density.
I have been reporting that my powder had 1.79 (grams/cm3) or so density in the puck.
I sieve 15 # (mesh) to 20 # as 2F and 20# to 40# as 3F. My powder was giving about 88 grains weight in a measure set to 100 grains.
I felt that three contributors might raise bulk density:
1) Rounding - sharp angular grains sit slightly further apart and may increase % of pore space.
2) Grain size range. Commercial 2F goes from about 18 # to 30 #. Having smaller grains mixed in would let small grains sit between big ones, reducing pore space.
3) Graphite. If the grains were slippery on each other, they would pour and settle more freely, reducing pore space.
Also of course, compaction; tap the measure to settle the grains, same as i hoped the graphite would help settle.

So I tried
no rounding
2 hrs tumbling
4 hrs tumbling.

I tried adding graphite.

The graded powder with graphite and rounding looks clean and black like commercial powder. My first good powder looked quite dusty, though well sieved.

I measured out 100 grams of 2F powder 15# to 20#, and successively added 3F 20# to 40# making it up to 1%, 2%, 5%, 7%, 10% and 20% 3F powder.
Each mix I blended by tumbling in a rectangular bottle. I then weighed three measures of loose powder, and three measures tapping it to settle. No compression, just sideways taps on the measure with my scoop.

Through it all, I still averaged 88gns loose, and 102gns settled in a 100gn measure. No difference!