Cotton charcoal

[austar]

I havent found any reference to this si i will ask a probably stupid question, can one make good fast charcoal from cotton, whete i work we use a spill clesn up product called kleen sweep. Its basicly just a fluffed up cotton. Is it worth my time trying???

[DavidF]

http://www.creagan.net/fireworks/charcoal_tests.html

 

Cotton is a fair ways down the list. Seems like it makes 'pretty good' BP, but I can't see you getting much of it! Many woods would be better and yield more.

[50AE]

It might work, but it sounds to be a very inefficient way. I've had luck in the past making great charcoal from French newspapers. They did a very fast black powder. When I returned to Bulgaria and tried charring local wallpapers, the results was horrible.

 

I think you'll be tired quickly from charring cotton. For the best efficiency, wood is the way to go.

Edited October 20, 2016 by 50AE

[Arthur]

From an interest point of view, try it, it may work. From a more conventional POV the classic British description is Fresh growth of wood that grows quickly by water up to the size of a man'd forearm. So look for Willow, Alder etc Pawlonia is well regarded,Balsa and (grape)Vine produce fast charcoal. Slow growing woods like Oak produce useless charcoal.

 

Remember that, when you method is poor, anything makes poor powder, when your method is good the better materials are noticeable.

 

You get about 20% of the dry wood weight as charcoal, expecting a 20% yield from cotton means you need to start with a big batch.

[austar]

Just for shits and giggles I think I will give it a go, just to see how much i can get from my small char tin. As I work in an aluminum casting factory I have an abundance of gas burners. Last night I made my first attempt at making charcoal by useing a small paint like tin (we have plenty of clean brand new tins) with a couple of small holes in the lid to vent gases. This i filled with some pine timber that appeared to of been used for building material. The tin I placed on a gas burner that is used for pre heating the dyes used in casting. I ended up with what appears to be good looking charcoal that i broke up by hand then wizzed in my coffee grinder for a few seconds before throwing in my make shift ball mill, where it is at present. Unfortunately this pine was very fragrant and did leave its fair share of resin to my charring tin. Where I am i have difficulty finding good timber for this use. Hopefully this pine will be a huge improvement on the briquettes that i have tried to utilize previously.

On my next shift I will attempt to use the cotton fibre. It is a very light fluffy material that I had mistaken thought was a wood fibre at first. Since i have presses available yo me i intend to pack the tin and compress it the pack some more till full of compressed material.

This will be interesting to see how much char I get and how good it is. As it is i am chaffing st the bit to make some bp with this pine as it just has to be a huge improvement on what I have already.

[austar]

Oh I didnt mention that I am in Australia, so locating and identifying good timber is very difficult.

[Seymour]

Depends where in Australia you live. Willow has been subject to an enormous eradication system in many areas because it had spread far and wide and was considered a pest. Paulownia grows very well in much of Australia.

 

I am sure there are indeed parts of Australia where you literally have to drive for 12 hours to get to the nearest willow tree, but very few people live in these areas. Even if you don't have anything except Australian Native trees in your area (unlikely considering how widespread introduced trees are) you can still go with Arthurs advice. Fast growing timber by water, up to the thickness of your forearm. Apologies if you do indeed live in the desert and have literally no streams or ponds or swamps or rivers in your area.

[Blackthumb]

Try wine corks.....natural of course....

[Seymour]

www.paulowniatimber.com.au

 

Also Cedar should be locally available as timber. It is MUCH better than Radiata Pine.

[austar]

Thank you Seymour, one quick ph call and i have made arrangements to pick up all the off cuts/scraps and shavings from paulowniatimber for free. I have a gut feeling that my bp will be burning alot faster in the future.

[Twignberry]

Pine pallets also make some mighty fine BP . Free, abundant and from a 20L steel drum TLUD, you can make alot quickly

[Richtee]

It might work, but it sounds to be a very inefficient way. I've had luck in the past making great charcoal from French newspapers. They did a very fast black powder.

 

 

 

those sheets of “packing paper” you can get from moving supplies places... made some VERY fast BP for me.

 

[austar]

Well my pine charcoal has definitely sped up my black powder. I now cang wait to do a lift test, but that may need to wait till I am at work tomorrow night, the niebours get a little funny otherwise lol

[Sparx88]

Cotton balls make excellent bp. I will post a vid comparing eastern red cedar and cotton bp. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Cook in a retort only and you'll find no ash. Give me a day and I'll have the video done.

[Blackthumb]

Richtee...Finally someone else who uses paper for charcoal....less messy and you dont have to grind/mill it....

[Richtee]

Richtee...Finally someone else who uses paper for charcoal....less messy and you dont have to grind/mill it....

 

Yeah..it is more convenient. Open the can, mix around with a stick a bit to bust it up and straight into the mill with everything else

 

Well... after weighing of course - heh.

Edited October 24, 2016 by Richtee

[austar]

Well i cooked the "kleen sweep" last night, not sure if i cooked it long enough tho, it seems like charcoal, smells horrible, but didnt seem to reduce any. Eub it and it smears. When i get some more kno3 this week i will make a small batch of bp and see how it burns.

My lift test of my pine charcoal worked alright, i fused my shell a little short but did get a nice clean lift.

[Mumbles]

Keep us in the loop on the cotton charcoal. One thing that people knock it for is that it lacks much of the volatiles, resins, and oils that natural trees have.

 

Newspaper or paper in general has a pretty spotty history. Being so low density, I suspect it's not as easy to cook it optimally. Some people get great results, while a majority of people get subpar results. I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's stuff in the paper, maybe it's more or variable ash content, maybe it's easier to overcook or turn to ash. There are a lot of potential reasons the results are so varied and in some cases inconsistent.

 

Below is a quote from Black Powder Manufacturing, Testing, & Optimization from Ian von Maltitz. While it directly addresses cotton, I think the mention of the method of making the charcoal may also give a bit of insight into paper as well.

 

"Cotton fabric charcoal was tested by Wilson, and found to yield results on the lower end of the performance scale. Right near the bottom end was charcoal made from cotton balls. These tests conflict with the idea that cotton charcoal ranks among the best. The method of making the charcoal may have something to do with this disparity. Or, the stories about cotton charcoal being among the best may be yet another pyrotechnic urban legend."

[austar]

The product that i am testing may or not be cotton to say, its an absorbant material used to clean spills and waste including chemicals. It first came to my attention as it looked like wood pulp. Upon further investigation i found that its a natural cellulose fibre, somewhere it said that it was a cotton or derived from cotton. When i cooked it it smelt horrible and didnt reduce any. When rubbed between my fingers it indeed looked and felt like a charcol rather than ash.

In the last few days i have made paper charcoal from newspaper that i tightly rolled before cooking, pine charcoal from old pallets.

I will be doing test batches of black powder wuth all these so i can compare them.

All my bp will be riced as i cant form pucks atm.

[austar]

A little update, I have had my psper charcoal bp in my mill for approx 9-10 hrs.

Did a test on the green meal and we uite disappointed, it seems quite slow. I compared it next to my pine bp and it was a huge difference. Tomorrow I will attempt the cotton (kleen sweep ) bp and see how that goes. Then I will be trying old pine pallet bp.

[austar]

Another update, I have my cotton (kleen sweep)(whatever it is lol) in the mill. Will proberly give it 8-10hrs and tedt the meal.

A point of observation on my newspaper bp, is that it airfloated when i opened the mill. I wonder how much of a performance difference there will be sfter wetting down and riceing???

I will find out when I have the time to do so.

[austar]

Well after just one hour in my mill I tested a little of my cotton bp, well I be buggered. Its not bad at all, I will continue to mill and test it for a few more hrs. As after 3hrs it had improved again by a small margin. But its not as dast as my pine meal yet. I have been keeping a bit of meal from every batch I do to compare future batches. I will try to film the meal burn tests this evening so that i may gather everybody's opinion and feed back.

[Seymour]

If you are going to film meal burning, my advice is to burn some that has been rammed in to a small tube. That way you can measure the actual burn speed (at atmospheric pressure) in mm/sec. 8mm/sec and above is "ok", and 14mm/sec and above is "very good".

 

I'll freely admit that I've done this by making a tube with a bit of A4 by wrapping it around a pencil and taping it to stop it unraveling and then using the same pencil as the rammer. This is ghetto AF and does destroy the pencil pretty fast, but it works and many people have a box of old stationary somewhere.

 

Burning piles or lines of meal is ok, but this method is far less consistent, and difficult to actually get data. Things like wind speed and direction can have too much of an impact on the speed that a long line of loose meal powder will propagate. In my opinion the main data that burning loose meal can give you is cleanliness. Burn a gram or two on a clean piece of A4 paper. If the paper has holes in it and the holes are smoldering, it is not clean at all. Clean powder should leave only a smudge of brown on the paper.

 

For fireworks you do not need it to be all that clean, but usually very high quality BP is this clean. However it is important to remember that if your BP is fast enough to lift a shell and do all the things you want, then it is good. No one needs the best BP, which is why I said 8mm/sec is ok. 14mm/sec is great and many people thing 8mm/sec is pretty slow, but if it does what you need, then it is good.

 

Have fun

[austar]

So basicly make a smmall spoolete??

[Seymour]

Yes exactly!