Black Powder Thread #1

[_DB_]

I have never posted a video of my black powder burning on the internet, so I thought I would do so now. In this video I burned a 2 gram pile of meal and a 2 gram pile of lift to compare the burn speeds, and honestly I was bored at the moment. I use Black Willow charcoal in my BP and usually mill it for atleast 6 hours. The video quality got screwed when I uploaded it for some reason.

[psymon]

Willow is a SOFTWOOD. why all this confusion saying it is a hardwood? Many technical tests with willow wood show it has the best properties for making BP and should produce the best results.

 

Also they polish grains of BP to stop the BP taking on water. The graphite seals the BP making it last longer and work better in humid conditions.

[Canadian_Pyro]

Willow is a SOFTWOOD. why all this confusion saying it is a hardwood? Many technical tests with willow wood show it has the best properties for making BP and should produce the best results.

 

Also they polish grains of BP to stop the BP taking on water. The graphite seals the BP making it last longer and work better in humid conditions.

No, Willow is a Hardwood. Softwood means from a conifer. Everything else is automatically a hardwood. These classifications have no relation to the woods density or strength. The hardest softwood (I believe it is Sitka Spruce) is considerably harder and stronger than the softest hardwood. Sitka spruce is, weight for weight, many times stronger than steel.

 

Willow is far from the best wood for BP charcoal. Balsa, paulownia, cottonwood, alder, poplar, white pine, aspen, spruce, and maple charcoals all beat weeping willow in burn rate and lifting ability. Black willow is better, but still beat by Cottonwood, alder, balsa, and paulownia.

[psymon]

Willow is a SOFTWOOD. A simple search on google will show that.

Any book will tell you that. It has already been discussed on UKROCKETRY forum here:

 

http://www.ukrocketry.co.uk/forum/index.ph...inter&f=9&t=304

 

Ask these people...

(Softwood distributers including willow)

http://www.angliantimber.co.uk/

 

Also another reference to SOFTWOOD willow

 

http://www.forst.uni-freiburg.de/Waldwachs...ls/thursday.htm

 

 

Even your own post quotes the burn rate of pacific willow being faster than Alder. Weeping willow may not be the fastest but it beats many charcoals.

 

Red Adler (2) 410

Pacific Willow 420

[Canadian_Pyro]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow

 

Willow is deciduous, meaning it is a hardwood. Dont be stupid and try to oppose that information, you already sound rediculous.

 

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.pyrotec...60c00b0cde9e69b

 

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.pyrotec...189d282c2a4d8e6

 

If you want to oppose the opinions of Lloyd Sponenburgh and Harry Conover, then I laugh at your ignorance.

 

Oh, and that post states that pacific willow is faster than red alder. Black alder is much faster than both.

[TheSidewinder]

So Willow is a soft Hardwood, and Yellow Pine is a hard Softwood.

 

Splitting hairs, if you ask me.

 

"These classifications have no relation to the woods density or strength."

 

Well, since we pyros need SOME scale of relative density to predict the results from a particular charcoal, I'd say our use of the words Softwood and Hardwood, though technically incorrect, is a better indicator of performance than a Family- or Genus-related label which has no bearing on its combustion rate.

 

 

So, in GENERAL:

 

Use a soft wood (not necessarily a Softwood) for BP to speed it up.

Use a hard wood (not necessarily a Hardwood) for slower BP.

 

I have some Willow and coarse Pine charcoal on its way to me from Nebraska. I'll see for myself what difference it makes.

 

I'd love to get my hands on some of the more esoteric soft woods...

 

M

[Swany]

Balsa gives an incredibly fluffy and not-dense powder when its charcoal is powdered, in my experience. A bit of granulated BP made by this method was amazingly fast. Hardly practical, seeing how the density is very low for balsa, and following the accepted formula of CH2O for wood, it would only retain 40% of the original weight.

[Mumbles]

Not all other trees than conifers are hardwoods. The most well know example is probably Ginko. I am looking into a few others to be sure of their classification. Not all decidious trees are hardwoods either. There are a few decidious softwoods as well.

 

Softwood and hardwood namesakes are based upon overall density of the classes as a whole. Softwoods as a whole are softer and less dense than hardwood. The actual classifications are based upon reproductive structures. Angiosperms(covered seeds) are hardwoods, and gymnosperms (uncovered seeds)are softwoods.

 

Anyway, hardwood-softwood really has little bearing on quality of charcoal. So please, lets us get back to less pety topics.

[TheSidewinder]

Swany,

 

Good qualities nonwithstanding, have you seen the PRICES for Balsa lately? (gag, retch, etc)

Time was you could buy several square feet for just a couple bucks. Not these days....

 

And to keep on thread:

 

In the last batch of BP I milled, I used twice the amount of media (3/4" brass round stock, cut "square") as I normally do.

 

Why? Because the general formulas I've seen for milling call for that volume of milling media.

 

I thought it was too much when I tried it, and it appears I was right. The resulting meal powder is burning measurably more slowly than previous batches.

 

So, in general, does using too MUCH media reduce the effectiveness of the grinding action, as would using too LITTLE media?

 

M

 

P.S. Mumbles, do you know if the reproductive structures you mention are tied to a specific Order, Family, or Genus?

[Mumbles]

As far as I can tell, the reproduction goes back as far as phylum, though if you look it up it will be much more commonly called division. Stuff like Ginko is more closely related to pines and such, but split on the phylogenetic tree before true conifers were formed. They are sort of a middle ground. They reproduce in pseudo fruits, but are not technically considered a fruit, so I would say it is a softwood. They are produce pseudo cones. Cycads and the epheda plant are in a similar situation. Cycads are more closely related to conifers, while ephedra is more closely related to flowering plants(hardwoods).

[Swany]

Sidewinder: It was free from the school.

 

I have found that you can cook pretty much any damn wood you find around and make BP that is fast enough for all practical purposes. Even pine has been good to me.

[TheSidewinder]

Thanks, Mumbles. All the way back to Phylum, eh? Hmm...

 

Swany: lucky barstard

How much did you get your hands on, anyway. And will someone scream if they discover it's missing?

 

 

I'll be cutting down an apple tree in a few weeks. Is that wood any good for charcoal? If so, I'll split and dry it properly.

 

M

[Swany]

Ahh, nope. About 10 sticks that were about 1/2inx1/2 by 6in or so.

[Mr. Crackle]

The charcoal I use is "crack willow" named for how the twigs are very brittle. The book I used to identify it even says it was grown for black powder charcoal, plus it is pretty much a weed along the creeks were I live.

[d4j0n]

Do milling the c and sulfur seperately before adding kno3 really decrease mill time? How long should they be milled if it does?

[justanotherpyro]

Do milling the c and sulfur seperately before adding kno3 really decrease mill time? How long should they be milled if it does?

All I know is that I can throw in Carbon chunks the size of gravel, KNO3 the size of sugar granules, and lumpy sulfur and in 24 hours I have powder that can be pressed into great quality lift.

 

I think milling time mainly depends on the mill in use.

[d4j0n]

So I picked up a bag of alder chips...they seem to be different sizes. Does it matter that they differ in size when I cook em?

[_Po_]

If it mattered that much you'd have to use perfectly round spheres and a cooking method that heated the wood equally from every angle.

 

As long as there's not much oxygen in the cooking process it should be alright...Although I've never cooked wood any less than about half an inch in diameter...But it shouldn't be a problem, pack the wood tightly in the cooker so there isn't much room for air and have smallish vents.

[d4j0n]

How long do you guys normally cook the charcoal? I try to wait for the smoke to stop, but it never really seems to. There will always be a lick of smoke here and there that comes out.

[_DB_]

It really depends on how much I'm making, but I usually let it go for about 30 minutes. I use the set it and forget it method. I put all my wood in my tin, build a nice fire, throw it on top and come back after the fire dies. It hasn't failed me yet.

[Swany]

Like Dan Williams notes, there could be books about the art and science of cooking charcoal for various purposes. However, most of us just toss some wood in a pot over a fire and call it happy.

 

I chop my wood very thin, as otherwise cooking time increases and makes me unhappy.

 

When cooking pine, your vapors that come out tend to be ignitable, as pine sap and such are distilled to yeild aromatics and such. In theory, one could make charcoal via distillation and collect the distillate and it would be aromatics and water, with some detrius, I am guessing.

 

Just toss it in your cooker and throw it in a fire. Age old technique shouldn't fail you now.

[d4j0n]

Really random, but I'm kind of curious as to what the sulfur in black powder does? Is it just a sort of catalyst? I'm doing some serious work on my site, want some good, strong info.

[Mumbles]

It acts as a fuel, and produces more gas. It also has the effect of lowering the ignition temperature.

[lacrima97]

The sulfur lowers the ignition temperature, and results in some gas production.

 

"The sulfur is the life, for this inflammable element cathces the first fire, communicates it throughout the mass, makes the powder quick, and gives it vivacity."

 

-John Bate 1600's

[weknowpyro]

I was discussing about milling times to a friend and i was thinking is attually possible for BlackPowder to stop getting better.

What i mean is if you had your mill going for about a week, after a while would it attually stop mixing and would just burn the same if you had left it on for only five days.

I was only thinking this because i thought that after a while all of the pores in the charcoal would be full of kno3 so it could not absorb anymore.

 

Well thats me finished,Please say what you think.

Thanks