[BProckets] Re: BProckets Digest, Vol 2, Issue 8

[Ssduke2 at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/23/04 2:00:40 PM Central Daylight Time, 
bprockets-request at amateurrocketry.com writes:

Im always interested in things made of fire 

Heres what i want to know. I had asked earlyer about how hot BP needed to be 
to make good rockets and was told the hotter the better.

After speaking with SSduke the other day it turns out that going to all the 
trouble to percipatate the BP and mill it is not nessary.

So my question is why do it? Is there any benifit to makeing "high power" BP 
over just screening it and pressing the rockets?
If one uses the fastest burning black pwd. that can be made, the spindle 
sizes would be very short. I've made black pwd. rockets using 3fg black pwd. and 
the spindle was only about 2" long and I had to press this motor using around 
12,500 lbs. loading pressure. You can't achieve that much pressure when hand 
ramming motors. This is another factor involving the manufacture of black pwd. 
motors. What method are you going to use? When using a press to make motors, a 
higher grade of motor can be had. There is only so much quality that can be 
put into a hand rammed motor. A much higher quality, more powerful motor can be 
acheived pressing motors on a hydraulic press. For example, using what I call 
my universal spindle rocket spindle, I hand rammed a motor and fired it static 
and it blew up. Taking the same fuel and pressing the motor, it worked 
perfect. Using a faster burning fuel with this spindle, all the motors would cato. 
the fuel ratio was 65-25-10-2.5 blk. pwd. 65 nitrate, 25 airfloat charcoal, 10 
sulfur and 2.5 soluable glutinous rice starch. If you increase the the nitrate 
and reduce the charcoal, this motor will blow every time. Iv'e reached the 
maximun burn rate of the fuel for this spindle. Every spindle has it's own burn 
rate of fuel that can be used, no matter what size it may be. There is also a 
maximum burn rate for a hand rammed motor which is a slower burn rate than the 
hyd. rammed motor.
 All the spindles Iv'e made for black pwd. are shorter than the standard blk. 
pwd. spindle. All I do is increase the burn rate of the fuel to compensate 
for the shorter spindle. It also allowed me to cut the tubing that I was using 
into equal lenghts with no waste.
 All the fuel I make is wetted and screened, then dried. This eliminates dust 
and increases the burn rate of the fuel. I use about 10% alcohol with 
distilled water to do this. I always get my fuel as wet as I can get it before it 
goes to a mush, then add the final amount to the fuel that I kept out of the 
batch for that purpose. I rice all the fuels that I use to make any kind of 
motor-- whistle motors, strobe motors but I don't always use water to wet it.
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