FieryCreations Posted December 24, 2023 Share Posted December 24, 2023 After reading around it sounds like it's going to be pretty inferior to making my own out of toilet paper, ERC, or willow. How much worse is it, a complete waste of KNO3 and sulphur? I have a 5 pound bag of it. Should I just chuck it and make my own? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmjlab Posted December 24, 2023 Share Posted December 24, 2023 That will take some getting used to seeing (T.P. in the same list as Eastern Red Cedar, Willow, Paulownia, Balsa, etc)...... 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmjlab Posted December 24, 2023 Share Posted December 24, 2023 I haven't really tried Skylighter Charcoal or commercial mixed hardwood charcoal. However, if your mill is optimized, and you mill it long enough, id be willing to bet you'd get useable B.P. based on Dave F.'s experiments. I think I also read that you can mill the charcoal even further separately, then mill with Sulfur / KN03 and get a.serviceable to decent B.P. maybe Dave can weigh in here, or you can read up on Dave F.'s and "Just visiting"'s B.P. information / threads. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richtee Posted December 24, 2023 Share Posted December 24, 2023 I have used it (the Skylighter) Well milled pressed and corned. It works. That’s about it. my home made willow or newsprint powder is easily twice as fast, and even a bit ‘cleaner” I think. And there’s always charcoal stars, gerbs/fountains and rockets to make, among other applications for a tame powder. Prolly be good for a field cannon 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Posted December 24, 2023 Share Posted December 24, 2023 In 1665 Great Britain's Royal Gunpowder Mills discovered that willow and red alder made the best powders then available, but that other woods made OK or OKish powder. Since then Balsa and grape vine have been found to be even better but neither is native to the UK. The usual idea is that a hardwood that grows by water is best. ALSO for the best performance the sticks should be "the thickness of a mans thumb to the size of his upper arm". Big trunk wood usually performs less well than branch wood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aileron Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 (edited) Don't use TP for charcoal LMAO, pine is cheaper and better if you must make your own. Otherwise just buy some cedar charcoal from fireworks cookbook. And mixed hardwood charcoal works pretty well for C8, winokur 21 etc... anything that doesn't require a fast burn rate. Edited January 15 by Aileron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FieryCreations Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 14 hours ago, Aileron said: Don't use TP for charcoal LMAO, pine is cheaper and better if you must make your own. Otherwise just buy some cedar charcoal from fireworks cookbook. And mixed hardwood charcoal works pretty well for C8, winokur 21 etc... anything that doesn't require a fast burn rate. Better? The tests I've seen show TP was much hotter. Is that not the goal...? It was a massive improvement over the Skylighter mixed charcoal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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