16 replies to this topic

[pyrotechnist]

Hi I am wondering were you lot get your PVC piping from or tubs for your home made ballmills? Also, where do you buy the caps from to cap the ends of your tubes? I am so stuck on this and can not find any of the tubs you lot have used. I live in UK and am looking for sites within UK. Thanks.

Regards Michael

Edited by Richard H, 31 August 2004 - 11:34 AM.

[The_Djinn]

B&Q.. Focus.. Homebase for starters............

[pyrotechnist]

Hi i went to B&Q but they had no caps that would fit the PVC tube so what do i do? Were do you lot get your from you PVC piping? And your caps to close one end of and one for lid? I did not get any caps at B&Q they did not have any that fit tubes properly. So were i get them? Thanks.

[thewildething]

Hi, You may just want to buy your barrels and design your machines to suit, go here for barrels Manchester minerals (go to search and put in "barrels"). Theyre basically 4 inch pvc pipes with endcaps, cant seem to find endcaps by themselves though.

Hope this helps.

Marcus.

[Phoenix]

Last time I looked Screwfix had 4" end caps (and pipe). If you buy the pipe from a DIY store, you will probably have to get about 3m or something, and you probably only need about 15 or 20cm for a mill jar. I got mine out of a skip at a building site, as they throw away short off cuts.

[pyrotechnist]

Hi thanks but how many grams does all your ballmills take?

[pyrotechnist]

Hi ho is Kyle Keply? Also what is the best drum to buy from manchester minerals? Thanks.

[Patrick]

My mill does 3kg of BP max. It depends on what charcoal I use but for willow charcoal it does 3kg. I have just finished milling 3kg for 5.5 hours. Now the boring part...corning  I wish I had anothe motor so I could build a corning machine, I have some 14" PVC pipe with 1" walls  So I think I will just granulate it through a screen for lift powder. It should last me while. I should really only do 1kg of lift because I use meal more than lift.

My mill can do 1.5kg of tiger tail with pine charcoal. I think it would struggle to get cascading with 2kg, I mean over 800g of charcoal is a lot in a mill! It is very messy to sift out the media but I will get over it.

Forgot to mention my mill uses a 9" PVC drum and is made the same as Kyle Keply's design utilizing 2x4's to make the table and a gravity tensioned belt. Best investment I ever made.

What HP motor did you use for your Ball Mill. I just finished mine and my 1/2 hp motor can't run under its own weight. I have to prop it up. I'm having doubts that I'll be able to run two barrels at the same time, but it can run one. I could just replace the motor, but then I'll need to change my pulleys.

Construction on my corning machine has started .. all this time to build everything is so nice .. but waiting for Chemicals


Oh, the amount of BP that can be milled will depend on the design of the Ball Mill, the motor used, and size of your milling drum. I've seen some 7 ft x 8 ft ball mill drums, I'm sure they could handle a few thousand pounds!

[thewildething]

From the range at Manchester Minerals I have the equivilant of 2x1.5lb drums and a 3lb drum. They do enough for me, which is some aluminium and iron oxide for thermite. All depends on what motor etc you have, you could just get a rock tumbler as well, saves a lot of hassle if you want smallish quantities.

Daniel, where did you get the 14" PVC pipe with 1" walls? sounds great, if you can seal it!

Marcus.

EDIT: add lifting vanes to the barrels, makes them way more efficient.

Edited by thewildething, 31 August 2004 - 10:12 PM.

[Patrick]

Couldn't some type of a pale be used. A one gallon ice cream pa eseems to be a pretty decent size.

I'm going to use 3 gallon ice cream pales with hexagonal candy storage containers on the inside. The OD is around 9".

I think I can get some some .. about 16" HDPE pipe from a construction site. I just see too many problems with sealing the ends.

[Phoenix]

The way I went about preparing and sealing the ends of my pipe was to quickly turn two bits of wood to roughly fit into the ends, so that I could mount the roughly sawn length of pipe between the centres of my lathe. I then used the a parting chisel to cut most of the way through the pipe at two points, giving a short section of pipe with nice square ends. I took this off the lathe and used a utility knife to cut through the thin layer of plastic that had held the pipe intact whilst it was on the lathe. I then scraped around the inside of the pipe to remove the less tidy part where I had cut with a knife, leaving the clean, square part that I had cut with the lathe as the outermost surface. I then turned two 15cm circles of plywood, and bored a 5mm deep depression into the middle of each, wide enough for the pipe to fit into snugly. I then drilled three holes around the outside of these discs, at 120* intervals. I fixed a disc of rubber (cut from a car inner tube) into the bottom of each depression, and fixed one disc in place on and end of the pipe (the bottom of the jar). The remaining disc is placed on top of the jar, three bolts are located through the holes, and the disc is clamped tightly down onto the end of the pipe. Wing nuts would be ideal, but since I didn't have any handy when I made the jar, I just used ordinary nuts, which are easily loosened and tightened with pliers without too much trouble. The rubber completely seals the ends of the jar, and as there is no "bottleneck" at the end, emptying and cleaning the jar are very easy. The downside is that the ends cannot blow out, but rather the sides would have to give out, possibly increasing the force of any explosion. However, I seem to remember reading (on Passfire, I think) that during a destructive test of a PVC pipe mill jar with ends designed to blow out, the pipe shattered anyway, so perhaps this is not such an issue.

[robfir]

What speed do I want my ball mill's drum to run at? I reckon if its too fast the grinding will be slow because centrifugal force will pin the media and chemical to the wall, and too low rpm is obviously going to be slow.

[Pretty green flames]

60 RPM is the best option for grinding stuff