BlackMesa

I made my first batch of charcoal today, from old pine planks that i chopped up with n axe. I filled a celebrations tin full of the cuttings and popped it in my homade wood burning furnace and it worked perfectly no ash and perfect soft shiney charcoal.

I thank the info in ths post for my success i cant wait to make some BP with this (have only used barbeque stuff previously) It should give me a much nicer lift for rockets n shells:)

I mill the charcoal and sulphur just not the charcoal and sulphur milled product with my milled KNO3

it says in that book black powder manufacturing testing and optimising that the pores in the charcoal are too small to be impregnated by the potassium nitrate

note that i did not say that milling is not important or that i use unmilled reagents

have you got ball mill?what method did you use to make Black powder?

Yes it was ball milled, then granulated. I dont 3 component mill as from the book i have it says that milling all 3 does not actualy impregnate the charcoal with KNO3 but is just a very effective way to mix them..I mill my components individualy with milling media then mill them just in the jar together to mix it.

The jar was not overloaded, it was only 100g milling, its quite slow though im searching for a faster one.

This granulated??very slow..maybe you overload the jar..how many grams are totaly in the jar?
Also as they said that willow charcoal is the faster charcoal...but yours BP is slow for lift..

overloaded what jar?

Yep it does still look slow for lift but it should be fine for rockets. It will be interesting to see what difference the the new charcoal and sulphur makes.

I'll post a video of the new powder when i make it, my rock tumbler ball mills getting a bit worn out i think i shall try to make one when it goes, considering converting a desktop fan for the eae of being able to plug it in and choose mill speed

The powder feels dry in my hand, but it has only been dryig 3 hours since i granulated it, could still be a bit moist inside the grains.

I have a good cardboard tube, nice and thick. Its quite short though, 5cm long with a diameter of 1.2 cm, if i pack this nice and tight with my BP with a bentonite end plug nd nozzle it should be ok? The tube weighs 6 grammes.

Any suggestion of what size hole i should make in the nozzle to ensure take-off and stick length/weight?



- Bit of a mouthful but ideas will help greatly.