Howdy, Ben. I have a toaster over that I use for artificially drying my wood before I char it. I’ve never checked the moisture content but it definitely chars faster.
i may have a sacrificial toaster oven on a safe ish welding area table and I may have finished product inside to "re" finish at a temp just above the 240f melting point of one ingredient while driving off milling or production moisture and mechanically consolidating ingredients? YES! Do Not! use your Wifes' oven? Low and Slow is fast! or the steam trapped in a pucked product gets Very angry when no longer trapped. "Pucken A" keeps my "Grains!" closer to my Grain?
Your video gave me an interesting thought: I found among my lead for balls for shooting, a clump of lead that is REALLY HARD ! Its propably has to do something with animone or whatever, but I am gonna make some balls from this hard lead to use it as a media for milling. Thanks !
I cast lead balls as you did for my mill, but found I could just use culls from cast 45-cal bullets. It has bothered me thinking about the lead coming off of both and being deposited in the black powder. Then, I had a brilliant idea that I suggested to another well-known BP TH-camr. He never responded, so I put it to you. If a person powder coats the lead balls/bullet culls, I think it would eliminate the lead dispersed and still keep the weight to mix and compact the black powder. What do you think?
Yes Sir, it would work. You would need to make sure whatever you coated them with does not come off. I just tried brass & stainless steel ball bearings, worked great with no mess of the lead.
@@HoffmanReproductions I got the idea after watching someone coat bullets with HighTech bullet coating, then smash the bullet with a hammer on an anvil. The coating didn't come off or crack. It stayed intact with the shape of the bullet.
I dunno, Ben, the moisture steams off in the retort just fine. The wood itself won't get much above the boiling point of water until all the moisture is gone, then the temperature starts to rise and the wood chars (phase plateau). What makes good gunpowder charcoal is what happens after the water is gone, i.e. what fractions of volatiles are evaporated and what fractions are left behind based on the temperature at which the retort is maintained. Some portion of fouling can be made worse from a "dirty" powder burn due to too little fuel in the mix when the charcoal has been heated too much for too long. Black powder combustion is a whole series of chemical reactions, some occurring simultaneously, not just one simple reaction, and the byproducts and downstream reactions are variable based on a number of factors such as charcoal chemistry, peak pressure level, and water content of the BP itself. Controlling those reactions are difficult and predicting them is impossible. I think the best we can do is use good, pure chemicals, proven good wood, keep our retort temperature between 550 and 600F, mill only very dry ingredients, mill the green meal thoroughly, press it well and consistently, and utter incantations under a gibbous moon.
"True" but? the steam inside of your materials is at a Hi Pressure (wood popping) until this pressure overcomes the environment at this point the materials basically become a cracker unit? we Maybe? I am doing this backwards? "I'm going" to try to Wood Gasify my materials for their gasses, then test that char byproduct? Europe used lots of coal or wood gasses back in the day. our ancestors wasted nothing. the Coal Char I tested was slow, dirty, but could be good, Ok, or cheap for mining?
@@HoffmanReproductions Roger that, we appreciate your work. I'm still fine-tuning other things like puck density (1.7-1.8g/cc isn't always best), retort temp, and mill time. Those things affect ball speed and fouling significantly.
Hello, I'm new to this but wanting to learn and was under the impression you couldn't use stainless steel or glass because of sparks. What is the safest media to use? like your channel
Lead can be used, but makes dirty powder. The use of other media is safe in my ballmill as it only turns at 75 rpm or so .At that speed, it would be really hard to generate a spark. At the end of the day, just be sure to always keep the batches small so if you would have a batch blow. no harm no foul. Thanks for watching!
Green wood produces excess creosote when burned in a wood stove so I think its a reasonable deduction that it would do the same in a charcoal pot. Interesting.
Ever considered casting zinc balls?....... A bit harder than lead,.... pretty heavy, and if they rub off Abit, the residue reacts violently with sulfur..........
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
I like this video! It will be interesting to see the video on cleaner black power.Can learn more on this.David Back.
Howdy, Ben. I have a toaster over that I use for artificially drying my wood before I char it. I’ve never checked the moisture content but it definitely chars faster.
Nice! Thanks for sharing Jake!
i may have a sacrificial toaster oven on a safe ish welding area table and I may have finished product inside to "re" finish at a temp just above the 240f melting point of one ingredient while driving off milling or production moisture and mechanically consolidating ingredients? YES! Do Not! use your Wifes' oven? Low and Slow is fast! or the steam trapped in a pucked product gets Very angry when no longer trapped. "Pucken A" keeps my "Grains!" closer to my Grain?
Thanks Dave!
Fascinating, look forward to more results thanks for the video
Welcome!
If you can find tungsten spheres, they would be heavy enough for a very good milling medium in a ball mill.
Hi Ben, thanks for the update.
Welcome!
This will be interesting. Looking forward to seeing this
Thanks Brian!
Your video gave me an interesting thought: I found among my lead for balls for shooting, a clump of lead that is REALLY HARD !
Its propably has to do something with animone or whatever, but I am gonna make some balls from this hard lead to use it as a media for milling.
Thanks !
Nice! Let us know how it works.
Nice video.
Thanks!
I cast lead balls as you did for my mill, but found I could just use culls from cast 45-cal bullets. It has bothered me thinking about the lead coming off of both and being deposited in the black powder. Then, I had a brilliant idea that I suggested to another well-known BP TH-camr. He never responded, so I put it to you. If a person powder coats the lead balls/bullet culls, I think it would eliminate the lead dispersed and still keep the weight to mix and compact the black powder. What do you think?
Yes Sir, it would work. You would need to make sure whatever you coated them with does not come off. I just tried brass & stainless steel ball bearings, worked great with no mess of the lead.
@@HoffmanReproductions I got the idea after watching someone coat bullets with HighTech bullet coating, then smash the bullet with a hammer on an anvil. The coating didn't come off or crack. It stayed intact with the shape of the bullet.
I dunno, Ben, the moisture steams off in the retort just fine. The wood itself won't get much above the boiling point of water until all the moisture is gone, then the temperature starts to rise and the wood chars (phase plateau). What makes good gunpowder charcoal is what happens after the water is gone, i.e. what fractions of volatiles are evaporated and what fractions are left behind based on the temperature at which the retort is maintained. Some portion of fouling can be made worse from a "dirty" powder burn due to too little fuel in the mix when the charcoal has been heated too much for too long. Black powder combustion is a whole series of chemical reactions, some occurring simultaneously, not just one simple reaction, and the byproducts and downstream reactions are variable based on a number of factors such as charcoal chemistry, peak pressure level, and water content of the BP itself. Controlling those reactions are difficult and predicting them is impossible. I think the best we can do is use good, pure chemicals, proven good wood, keep our retort temperature between 550 and 600F, mill only very dry ingredients, mill the green meal thoroughly, press it well and consistently, and utter incantations under a gibbous moon.
"True" but? the steam inside of your materials is at a Hi Pressure (wood popping) until this pressure overcomes the environment at this point the materials basically become a cracker unit? we Maybe? I am doing this backwards? "I'm going" to try to Wood Gasify my materials for their gasses, then test that char byproduct? Europe used lots of coal or wood gasses back in the day. our ancestors wasted nothing. the Coal Char I tested was slow, dirty, but could be good, Ok, or cheap for mining?
It may not do anything, just want to "leave no stone unturned" so to speak.
@@HoffmanReproductions Roger that, we appreciate your work. I'm still fine-tuning other things like puck density (1.7-1.8g/cc isn't always best), retort temp, and mill time. Those things affect ball speed and fouling significantly.
@@geargnasher9822 For sure. Your most welcome and thank you for watching!
Hello, I'm new to this but wanting to learn and was under the impression you couldn't use stainless steel or glass because of sparks. What is the safest media to use? like your channel
Lead can be used, but makes dirty powder. The use of other media is safe in my ballmill as it only turns at 75 rpm or so .At that speed, it would be really hard to generate a spark. At the end of the day, just be sure to always keep the batches small so if you would have a batch blow. no harm no foul. Thanks for watching!
Green wood produces excess creosote when burned in a wood stove so I think its a reasonable deduction that it would do the same in a charcoal pot. Interesting.
We'll see! Thank you!
Ever considered casting zinc balls?....... A bit harder than lead,.... pretty heavy, and if they rub off Abit, the residue reacts violently with sulfur..........
Good idea! Have never tried them.
I'm going around asking for help for the duelist 1954 he has another great show and needs help he can explain it better on his show thank you
Yes indeed, I have been made aware of what is happening to Mike. Planning to address it here. Hope all works out for him!