Milling Hardood Charcoal

[xBangergoosEx]

Is there a faster way to make hardwood charcoal into a powder? I am using a ball mill right now but it takes a long time to make a good amount of charcoal powder. Any suggestions?

[ryanlg95]

I use a blender that gets most of the charcoal into air float form, there's just the little bit of charcoal that you wont be able to get the sits underneath the blades. I have also heard of using an electric coffee grinder, but I imagine that you would have to use smaller quantities.

-Ryan

[layedbackkustomz]

Yes to come over and use my mill. it wont take to long to get the job done.

[dan999ification]

a large tub, some lead balls, crush the charcoal partially, put it in the tub with the balls, i just cover the bottom and cover the balls with charcoal, lid on, move the tub in a round movement fast, the balls will climb the walls and mill it faster than my mill will, downside is it takes energy and you get some pieces back, i screen it then return the large bits, top it up and repeat, sounds like a lot of work but i can make 2 pounds af in an afternoon, the other tip i have if you use hardwoods is cut it very small before you cook it the mill should deal easier with smaller feed, like i said it sounds like a lot of effort but it gets the job done quicker than my mill and pestle/screen.

 

Dan.

[Arthur]

My limited experience is that hard charcoal makes poor slow compounds. Good pyro charcoal usually comes as soft fragile lumps that break easily by hand, and powder in a mill almost instantly.. Slow compounds don't bang (BP) and burn slowly (stars) running the risk of shells not achievenig a good height and stars burning slowly maybe reaching the ground whilst stil allight

[dan999ification]

seconded on the softwoods, my balsa turned airfloat ish after 2 minutes in the hand mill, i imagine its for the sparks, he knows what hes doing, anyway what does a hardood tree look like?

 

Dan.

[PyroAce]

I put the cooked charcoal in a bucket, I then put a post in the bucket and keep ramming down until it crushes the charcoal into smaller framents. This then goes into the mill. A big factor in milling the lump charcoal is the size and weight of your milling media, I use large lead fishing sinkers, these mill the charcoal to airfloat a lot quicker than smaller lead media or ceramic media.

Always wear a mask when dealing with charcoal.

[AirCowPeacock]

And lead!

[xBangergoosEx]

This isnt my first time at the rodeo, so to speak. Im aware that i need to wear a mask and im more than aware that hardwood charcoal makes slow BP. Im using it for stars, anyway. All i was wondering is how other people get hardwood charcoals into a powdered form.

[dagabu]

This isnt my first time at the rodeo, so to speak. Im aware that i need to wear a mask and im more than aware that hardwood charcoal makes slow BP. Im using it for stars, anyway. All i was wondering is how other people get hardwood charcoals into a powdered form.

 

Sorry but there is really no faster way to grind charcoal but to use a ballmill or hammer mill. These are used in industry as well for grinding and we have yet to find a non static inducing method of high-speed granular crushing for flammable materials.

 

With any of the above methods, there are LOTS of larger particles left to regrind, with a ballmill, you have nearly 100% airfloat charcoal when done. A couple helps are: Use a larger ball mill jar with a properly loaded media level. You should be able to reduce charcoal flakes to airfloat in 30 minutes. Use hard media, lead is just too soft to do a good job reducing charcoal to airfloat, it is good however at breaking down chunks to 80 mesh.

 

Industry shows us that smaller but harder media reduces materials to airfloat quicker and with less heat then larger media so 1/4" to 3/8" will be the best bet for you to do fast grinding of bulk charcoal.

 

I suggest that you follow this method for charcoal since it is tried and true for making mass quantities by the guys that make copious amounts of BP for shells etc....

 

1. Make charcoal (duh).

2. Run the charcoal through a garbage disposal and into a large but tightly woven cloth bag.

3. Fill and run an optimized ballmill with the charcoal and run until finished (the sound becomes very bright and noise increases when you reach airfloat).

4. Make lots of BP!!!

 

-dag

[nater]

seconded on the softwoods, my balsa turned airfloat ish after 2 minutes in the hand mill, i imagine its for the sparks, he knows what hes doing, anyway what does a hardood tree look like?

 

Dan.

 

Indiana's state tree, Tulip Poplar. One of the tallest hardwood trees native to the Eastern United States. It looks nicer when it blooms, but is a great shade tree.

 

[dan999ification]

i feel guilty for being sarcastic now you went to the effort of uploading pics ( spelling, hardood ) but thanks im almost sure we have poplar here too never thought outside the willow balsa pine box long enough to look, my hand mill ( for inert material) works for me as i dont have to buy or make tools for crushing charcoal once a year, spin it a while, into the colander it goes balls and all, whatever stays there...reload, to me the most effective method with my means, oh how i would love og's mill for that day though.

 

Dan.

[nater]

I read your post several times looking for sarcasm, and I didn't notice the misspelling until you pointed it out. I'm a terrible editor, for some reason I read things how they ought to be instead of how they are.

 

Anyways,

 

I have been intending on making some charcoal out of tulip tree. We had one get blown over in a bad storm, and the wood should be dry soon. I also have some grapevine and an apple tree that was damaged in the same storm.

[dan999ification]

apple as im sure you know is good for bp as is plum and a few other fruit trees, exiting when you have a selection of wood drying.

Apologies for sidetracking the thread.

 

Dan.

[Mumbles]

There is hardwood and there is hard wood. The space is actually very important. Hardwood refers to the reproductive method, while hard wood would be more of a physical characteristic. IIRC hardwoods have covered seeds where as softwood has bare seeds (such as pine cones). It pretty much is an identical classification to deciduous.

 

Hardwoods generally make the fastest charcoals. Willow, poplar, plum, aspen, alder, balsa, etc. are all hardwoods. The best charcoals seem to come from hardwoods which are low density or soft physically.

 

One comment about Dagabu's recommendation for small media. Yes, a jar charged with smaller media will mill finer and faster. There is a caveat that with increased grinding efficiency comes a decrease in crushing efficiency. You need to start with fairly small material to begin with to really reap the benefits. You can't just toss in lump and expect airfloat to come out.

[dan999ification]

hard soft wood and soft hardwood took me a while to get my head around, i cant stress enough that its worth the effort in reducing its size before you cook it, i typically cut willow as 1 inch or under branches after skinning and splitting each piece is 3 or 4 inches long and less than half inch dia, the advantage is that it will crush against it self, this time round i wrapped a few pounds in a bed sheet ( ask her first) put it in a box and tread on it a few times, the biggest pieces i have after this are 1 inch long by less than half dia, in a ten inch bucket with a kilo of lead it wont take long to get where you're going.

I found poplar trees here but black poplar is endangered and you will be paid to plant them if you have the space, and thanks mumbles i didn't know the definitive factor in identifying hard and softwood was the reproductive cycle.

 

Dan.

[dagabu]

One comment about Dagabu's recommendation for small media. Yes, a jar charged with smaller media will mill finer and faster. There is a caveat that with increased grinding efficiency comes a decrease in crushing efficiency. You need to start with fairly small material to begin with to really reap the benefits. You can't just toss in lump and expect airfloat to come out.

 

Good catch Mum.

 

-dag

[spitfire]

Use a cheap blender. It comes in hand when you want to grind down kitty litter for clay, and charcoal. This method is the cleanest and fastest for ''do it at home'' pyro's. Blend for one minute while turning and shaking the blender. Sieve through an ordinary kitchen sieve, and throw it in a mill. You''ll have airfloat in 2 hrs or less. The sound of the mill tells you when it's done, but roughly 2 hrs is a rule of thumb.

[layedbackkustomz]

Then thing about ball milling charcoal after you have crushed it down is. if your using a rock tumbler it will take forever on a hardwood to make it into airfloat and its not going to get every thing milled down. i have wasted hours with this. but when i use my big mill with the 1 gallon drum and 30lbs of media then it will do it fast and i will be left with nothing but airfloat. so if your using a rock tumbler the best thing to do is get it crushed as much as you can with a bucket and 2x4. also crush in smaller amounts as you will do it faster then trying to crush alot at once. just my 2 cents. LBK

[Richtee]

Is there a faster way to make hardwood charcoal into a powder? I am using a ball mill right now but it takes a long time to make a good amount of charcoal powder. Any suggestions?

 

Don't you wanna cook with hardwood charcoal and mill the soft wood stuff?

 

Well, I mean the less dense stuff. The higher density makes great grilling/BBQ fuel :{)

Edited October 6, 2012 by Richtee

[Col]

Its worth screening out some of the 40 and 80 mesh to put to one side before you reduce it all to airfloat. You can`t mill it bigger if you need a coarser mesh charcoal for something

[eb11]

I am looking at making my own charcoal I live in maine and work on construction sites I have access to all the pine I need. is pine a good wood for softwood or should I go toward oak

[Seymour]

Pine is not just one tree, but in general pines make ok BP and excellent stars.

 

I'd say Oak is on average less good than Pine for both uses.

 

Of course compared to Willow, Paulownia ect, Pine makes really quite mediocre BP, but it's certainly usable.

 

Ideally you will use a soft wooded hardwood for BP (like willow, but Oak is really a hard wooded hardwood) and a Soft wooded Softwood (read pine) for sparky things, like stars and fountains.