Cleaning your Media

[Miech]

When milling compositions using red gum, you can save a lot of time cleaning when first milling te reducing part, and then the oxidizing part. There is no need to clean in between, as the amount of combustibles left is minimal. It also works for most other compositions, as oxidizers usually are easy to get off your media and yar compared to organic substances.

[Mumbles]

I'm curious what sort of compositions containing redgum need to be milled? Colored stars burn cleanly and at a respectable speed with just screening.

[Miech]

My favorite prime composition needs milling. Compositions using both red gum and parlon seem to have less ash production when milled, for example ruby red and its green counterpart. My red gum isn't fine enough to be used in rolling stars, and milling it on its own gives a big chunk of red gum covered media. It smells really nice, but I don't try that again.

[tentacles]

Miech: Is the red gum being used as the binder in the comps in question? Because if it is, why not just bind with red gum solution? IE dissolve the red gum in the amount of alcohol you expect to use to wet the stars while rolling/cutting/pressing. Granted, this doesn't mean you won't necessarily mill the other components.

 

I understand you CAN mill red gum... if it's kept quite cold.. I bet we could do it this time of year, eh, Frank?

[bret]

How can an oxidizer have a fuel-air reaction? It doesn't work that way. To have a fuel-air reaction, you need a fuel.

 

 

Watch this Video of the PEPCON AP plant, listen at 4:28 and 5:09 of the video.

 

The ATFE considers AP to be an explosive unless it is over a certain mesh size.

 

 

One way to clean the lead media is to run hot water with detergent through the mill and then run a batch or two of kitty litter through and then wash it again.

 

I use dedicated ceramic media and a dedicated jar when ball milling AP.