MadMat Posted April 28 Share Posted April 28 (edited) I've noticed a couple posts where to me it seemed that some people were misinformed as to the different terms used for black powder. I feel it is to everyone's benefit if we are all on the same page when it comes to describing something as basic to firework making as BP. This will avoid confusion and will help with safety. These are the terms as I have known them and for over ten years they have served me well. Feel free to discuss or correct me as you see fit. OK... When the ingredients for black powder (75% KNO3, !5% charcoal and 10% sulfur) are ground finely and then simply sifted together, the resulting powder is called Polverone. It is mainly used as a flammable material to fill in the gaps between stars in a shell. If you run polverone or simply the ingredients through a ball mill for "X" number of hours the result is called "Mill Dust". When mill dust is either granulated or corned to specific sized grains it is now black powder/ gun powder. I know there are sites out there that describe granulating polverone with a "wet method" or "precipitation method", thereby eliminating the need for a ball mill. And I guess there are people out there that have made decent black powder with these methods, so, I guess there is some room for variations in the terms, but still knowing these terms and the differences will goo a long way in stopping miscommunication. Edited April 28 by MadMat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidF Posted April 29 Share Posted April 29 I've made screen-mixed powders that beat Goex in apples to apples comparisons, so I wouldn't necessarily call them polverone. The powders were pucked, corned, and sorted for grade. The key for me was to mill the charcoal component to an extremely fine state. It seems like you are defining polverone as 'weak black powder', where I think of it as a weaker different product that usually has a binder in it. The mixture you describe as polverone is also referred to as scratch mix sometimes. If it's made with commercial airfloat charcoal, it makes a great outer layer prime. Not looking to disagree here, maybe just saying not all "polverone" is too weak to be called black powder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMat Posted April 30 Author Share Posted April 30 I never meant to call polverone "weak". I made no distinctions about the burn speed of the different categories. I only wanted to point out the processes used to make them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidF Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 OK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMat Posted May 2 Author Share Posted May 2 David, I noticed something else. You mentioned that you corned your screen mixed powder. If you read the last paragraph I wrote, you will notice I mentioned that. Since you corned your powder, it would no longer be considered polverone, but rather black powder produced by a method other than ball milling the mixture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted May 15 Share Posted May 15 If you ask 10 people to define these terms, it's very likely you're going to get 10 variations of replies. I have a general idea of each, but it's more application dependent than an exact definition when I'm trying to describe something. For me, this is typically how I use the terms. Green meal/green mix/scratch mix - Screened together black powder components (~75/15/10 but exact ratios can vary slightly). Typically made with minimally processed ingredients, with no special effort to produce extremely fine components. Personally, due to the crystalline nature of my KNO3, I may still ball mill for 20-30 minutes just to break things up, but no effort to substantially grind. I also tend to use exclusively commercial airfloat for this. This is good for priming stars or fuses. Having some slightly coarser components is beneficial in this respect. Can also be used to refer to a pre-made mixture that can be added to a ball mill to produce meal powder. Polverone - Granulated green meal used as a flammable filler in shells. The fines also make a great prime. Meal powder - Powdered, sufficiently milled material. DavidF is more than capable of making BP without ever putting a completed mixture inside a ball mill. I'd still classify his material here due to the milling of the individual components. For me, this typically is made with a hotter charcoal and ultimately gets used to make black powder. I have very few uses for the finely milled powder itself. Can be coated onto a carrier for ball shells. If anything it is used as a base for stars, black match, insert compositions, or rockets. Using milled together BP components has some advantages for certain stars in terms of burn speed and fallout. Black powder - Granulated meal powder used for lifting and bursting shells. Some people will make a distinction of material which has been screen granulated vs. corned vs. corned and glazed. I personally don't make a distinction, but different processing methods can have some advantages. Often graded by granule size for various applications. The fines from this process also make a great prime, but I generally reserve them for priming spolettes and shell fuses. As I said, everyone has their own exact definitions which I've found can often lead to confusion. Polverone I've found to be the most divisive in my experience depending on who you're talking to and what style of building is being referenced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidF Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 On 5/2/2024 at 2:03 AM, MadMat said: David, I noticed something else. You mentioned that you corned your screen mixed powder. If you read the last paragraph I wrote, you will notice I mentioned that. Since you corned your powder, it would no longer be considered polverone, but rather black powder produced by a method other than ball milling the mixture. My screen mixed powder was never polverone at any point. I corned the screen-mixed powders for testing purposes, because gurus have said that homemade black powder cannot be compared to commercial powders unless it was pressed to the same density and graded to the same size as the commercial powder it was being compared to. So I did that to prove a point to them, since the prevailing wisdom was that black powder MUST be milled as a complete mixture to be useful as black powder, and used in the ways that commercial black powder is used. I disagreed with that position, believing that intimacy of incorporation could be achieved without 3 component milling. My opinion is that 3 component milling is done because it's the easiest way, and not because it's the only way. The very same powders that were pucked, corned and graded were also prepared as screen granulated powders, after proving that the pucked, corned and graded powders could match or exceed Goex performance in apples to apples comparisons. The granulated powders burned faster than pucked BP powders, and added at least a second to average baseball flight times when tested that way. This statement "When the ingredients for black powder (75% KNO3, !5% charcoal and 10% sulfur) are ground finely and then simply sifted together, the resulting powder is called Polverone." is not correct. As Mumbles mentioned, polverone is granulated. Nobody uses screened fine powder to pack in shells. It would be messy to use fine powder to pack between stars and comets, and the powder doesn't flow well. It's always granulated. I hope this clarifies my take on it and that no feathers are ruffled, as that is not my intent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richtee Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 Damn. Reminds me of the BBQ world. Glaze, sauce, no sauce, strip the membrane 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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