Article Three
How To Make Black Powder That Really Works
I know you've probably seen the recipe for black powder in other pyrotechnic
articles. The problem with most of that is the procedure, or the amount of
chemicals to put into the mixture. Here's an example from the file
SHURMAN.TXT:
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Black Powder
-In any powerful explosive, there is required the explosive itself
such as nitroglycerine, TNT, and even Black Powder. In military
explosives, they tend to use more powerful explosives such as TNT
or dynamite but many urban terrorists would use the cheapest and
the most available such as black powder.
-Black powder is bought in most U.S. states but not in Canada, the
closest to getting it in Canada would be probably privately made.
However making it would be quite easy and also quite cheap.
Supplies Required
Potassium nitrate
Sulfur
barquiette Charcoal
1. Take each item individual and grind them up into the finest powders
as possible. Use a blend and grind each down until it is so fine.
2. Once you have blended them into a fine powder, mix them into a bowl
with this ratio:
6 parts potassium
2 parts Charcoal
1 part Sulfur
3. Once the three are mixed together in that ratio, mix it up as much
as possible until it is a fine gray powder. DO NOT! I repeat DON'T
use the blender once these have been all combined. This new formed
powder is shock and friction sensitive and could explode instantly
if put in a blender.
4. Once completed, store the powder in a plastic margarine container,
This will prevent it from getting water, and keep in a cool place.
-There are other ways to making black powder but this is the best
of them all. There are many other fast burning agents around that
could be used for building explosive devices. Especially the Gun
Powder used in shotgun shells.
-Gun powder can be bought by the pound in Windsor for under $20s
and its even better then this home made black powder. If you can
get ahold of gun powder, this would be the substitute that can be
used to replace Black Powder in any device.
-There are many other fast burning agents that are in the form of
flash powder, but the problem with flash powder is that making it
is extremely expensive or hard to obtain many of those supplies.
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Let's get one thing straight first, Black Powder IS NOT Gun Powder! Black
Powder used to be used as gun powder way back a long time ago in muskets and
cannons. Now, however, we use a different form of it in which Potassium
Chlorate is used instead of Potassium Nitrate because there is less smoke
given off when it burns, it burns faster and it's more easy to light.
Ok, now let's go through this step by step:
1. It is important to grind the Potassium Nitrate, the Sulfur and the
charcoal into fine powders. Do each one separately. I have yet to
see the Potassium Nitrate ignite when ground in a plastic or metal
bowl, so use whatever you got. Electric shock won't set the drug
store variety of Saltpeter off very easily. Make sure each is a fine
powder before continuing.
2. Use the following ratio when mixing: 5 parts Potassium Nitrate
2 parts Charcoal
1 part Sulfur
3. Once the ingredients are added, mix them up thoroughly. Some people say
to mix them dry, but I found that best results occur when you add a
little water, just enough to make it a fairly dry paste. Mix it up good!
You will then want to heat this paste somehow. Use your mom's pot, or
do it in a big metal can or something and put it on the stove. Heat it
while stirring it CONSTANTLY! You don't want any dry particles cooking:)
When there is just a little moisture left, take it off the stove.
4. When it is cooled off a little so that you can touch it, get some wire
mesh (window screen mesh is fine) and grade the powder through it with a
piece of paper below to catch the droppings. The droppings that fall
onto the paper below should look like small lumps of black/grey stuff.
5. That's it! Let the grey stuff on the paper dry thoroughly. When it
feels dry to the touch then it's ready to light! Take a small amount and
put it in a pile on a metal plate or something that won't burn and put a
match to it. It may take a while to get it going, since drug store
Potassium Nitrate isn't the most purest of substances :) But when it
does light, take your hand away so it doesn't get burnt and watch it
flare up!
That's about all there is to it. You may want to fool around with the amount
of ingredients you put in though. Just remember two things:
1) The Potassium Nitrate is the Oxidizer
2) The Charcoal and the Sulfur are the feuls
3) The Oxidizer "oxidizes" the feul (it reacts with the feul)
This means that if there is too much Potassium Nitrate, there won't be enough
feul to sustain the reaction. Also, if there is too much Charcoal, Sulfur,
or both, there won't be enough Potassium nitrate to react with it all. So,
if there is too much of any one of the chemicals, you will waste the excess
chemical, or you may even decrease the effifiency of the reaction meaning it
won't work as well as it could!
The most efficient ratio of ingredients can be calculated using
Stoichiometry! In other words, by using the chemical equation of the
burning of black powder, you can find out the exact percentage of each
chemical to add. I used to know the formula, but I lost it. I'll try to
get over to the Windsor Public Library and get it again. Once I have it,
I'll release an update to this file that will tell you what the formula is
aswell as all the calculations involved in finding the best percentages.
Oh, and of course I'll tell you what those percentages are :)
Until then, have fun with the instructions I have given. Just don't do
anything stupid like make a pipe bomb or something like that! Black Powder
is great for making mini-road flares, or those Fountain 'o' Fire type of
fireworks (the ones that spray sparks) or whatever. Just be careful! Don't
burn yourself, or others, and don't set anything on fire :)