Post by twomoons on Apr 2, 2008 9:05:09 GMT -5
I was asked the other day if it was possible to make your own black powder so I thought I would post this for those interested.
Yes it is possible to make your own black powder, but it is not recommended and here is why...
The original black powder as produced by the early alchemists, and used till about 1500 was called serpentine powder. This was a mixture of Sulphur, Charcoal and either potassium Nitrate or sodium nitrate. The exact mixture varied from maker to maker but 75-15-10 was a pretty common ratio. The Charcoal and the sulphur are the fuel and the nitrates are the oxidizer.
Serpenting powder was simply mixed together and then lit off. It worked in fire works and cannons but was woefully inefficient in small guns. It was commonly carried to the scene of the battle as seperate componants and mixed behind the lines as needed for safety sake. So you had some poor schnook just behind the battle mixing powder up for the cannons.
Then it was discovered that if the powder was dampened and caked and then broken up and tumbled the powder burned cleaner and gave more oomph. This was our modern??? glazed powder. After being mixed the powder was wetted with various things including wine or even urine. The powder was pressed into cakes and after drying the cakes were broken up and then corned or tumbled in a wooden barrel to put a glaze on the powder. Here is the most dangerous part of powder making as when breaking or tumbliing if you get ONE LITTLE SPARK, blooeee!
Now in comercial operations the tumbling barn was made to be blown apart! The walls were hinged and the wheel was breakaway. You load the wheel and statrt and stop the tumbling from a remote location. You sill have to creep in to the tumbling barn in your felt booties and carefully scoop out the power for screening but usually the barn din't explode more than once a year or so and usually only one or two of the low grade employee's were lost. In an attempt to reduce the risk most modern powder is glazed with the addition of graphite. This reduces the tumbling time and since there is less powder dust the operation is some safer. If I remember right it has been almost 6 years since GOEX had their last PRODUCT LOSS. And I believe this is what happened to Elephant a few years ago. The problem with this is that graphite doesn't burn as clean and the best powders are those tumbled for the longest time to the best glaze. OSHA does not like black powder, ergo most of our powders come from places OSHA aint!
Now to home powder making...
Serpentine powder for fireworks or cannon is relativly simple, you mix the ingrediants and go to town. BUT if you want good shooting powder you need to corn the powder. You need to cake it wet, then break the cakes, tumble the powder and then screen it for grade with brass screens. Do you see a problem here? Do you want to be the one to sit in the back yard busting up cakes of powder with your rubber mallet? How about tumbling? You going to put a couple pounds in your THUMBLER? Yes you can build a wooden tumbling drum and you can make screens and you can break the caked powder with a rubber mallet, but your results will be inferior to commercial powder and your neighbors will not love you, especially after the first oops. In addition modern society seems to favor hair and eyebrows and the breaking and tumbling process, even in small batches it not conducive to keeping those appendadges intact.
So there it is, you too can make black powder at home.
Yes it is possible to make your own black powder, but it is not recommended and here is why...
The original black powder as produced by the early alchemists, and used till about 1500 was called serpentine powder. This was a mixture of Sulphur, Charcoal and either potassium Nitrate or sodium nitrate. The exact mixture varied from maker to maker but 75-15-10 was a pretty common ratio. The Charcoal and the sulphur are the fuel and the nitrates are the oxidizer.
Serpenting powder was simply mixed together and then lit off. It worked in fire works and cannons but was woefully inefficient in small guns. It was commonly carried to the scene of the battle as seperate componants and mixed behind the lines as needed for safety sake. So you had some poor schnook just behind the battle mixing powder up for the cannons.
Then it was discovered that if the powder was dampened and caked and then broken up and tumbled the powder burned cleaner and gave more oomph. This was our modern??? glazed powder. After being mixed the powder was wetted with various things including wine or even urine. The powder was pressed into cakes and after drying the cakes were broken up and then corned or tumbled in a wooden barrel to put a glaze on the powder. Here is the most dangerous part of powder making as when breaking or tumbliing if you get ONE LITTLE SPARK, blooeee!
Now in comercial operations the tumbling barn was made to be blown apart! The walls were hinged and the wheel was breakaway. You load the wheel and statrt and stop the tumbling from a remote location. You sill have to creep in to the tumbling barn in your felt booties and carefully scoop out the power for screening but usually the barn din't explode more than once a year or so and usually only one or two of the low grade employee's were lost. In an attempt to reduce the risk most modern powder is glazed with the addition of graphite. This reduces the tumbling time and since there is less powder dust the operation is some safer. If I remember right it has been almost 6 years since GOEX had their last PRODUCT LOSS. And I believe this is what happened to Elephant a few years ago. The problem with this is that graphite doesn't burn as clean and the best powders are those tumbled for the longest time to the best glaze. OSHA does not like black powder, ergo most of our powders come from places OSHA aint!
Now to home powder making...
Serpentine powder for fireworks or cannon is relativly simple, you mix the ingrediants and go to town. BUT if you want good shooting powder you need to corn the powder. You need to cake it wet, then break the cakes, tumble the powder and then screen it for grade with brass screens. Do you see a problem here? Do you want to be the one to sit in the back yard busting up cakes of powder with your rubber mallet? How about tumbling? You going to put a couple pounds in your THUMBLER? Yes you can build a wooden tumbling drum and you can make screens and you can break the caked powder with a rubber mallet, but your results will be inferior to commercial powder and your neighbors will not love you, especially after the first oops. In addition modern society seems to favor hair and eyebrows and the breaking and tumbling process, even in small batches it not conducive to keeping those appendadges intact.
So there it is, you too can make black powder at home.
and my wife wonders why i worry about our boys. i know what idle minds will do and she has no clue. but back onto this history lesson, i had no clue the effort that went into making gun powder back in it's day, and i'm sure there are more ways not mentioned. i was always under the impression that once powder got wet it was ruined forever, is that not true? i'm refering to black gunpowder.