Alright, so I've been milling BP compositions, smoke compositions and other stuff for a while (relatively speaking), and it appears as though some chemicals are inefficient.
Prime example: Charcoal. I do crush it up into smaller rocks, then mill, but only about half goes into powder, teh rest becomes just smooth, hard, rounded charcoal rocks. Is there any way I can mill all the charcoal, so less is wasted? I don't use briquets, obviously, I use mexican wood charcoal. Mexican because the package sais its mexican, even though I'm in canada, and we have a lot of trees here... But I'm trailing off.
And the second thing, how would I mill metals such as aluminium to fine powder? Assuming my prime source is the foil. If not, what better sources of it are there to look for?
My ball mill is basically a rock tumbler with chromed steel ball bearings in them. Yes, I realize the hazard of sparking, so using some kind of fluid in it may be an option.
Ok, thanks.

Chrome steel is more for metals than compositions due to the sparking. Size also matters. around 3/4" OD is generally the recommended. Lead musket balls are an option for milling BP. Or brass. Some people have bought 3/4" OD brass rod and cut it into sections to make cylindrical media. I'll probably do this sometime. Brass is getting quite expensive though...

I know what you mean with the charcoal. That will happen if your media isn't dense enough, there isn't enough media present, their is too much charcoal present, or the charcoal is in chunks that are just too big for the media to crush... Its a pain, but you can sit around and crush the lumps into much smaller fragments to somewhat prevent it... An easier way to "pre-crush" lump charcoal is to take an old metal meat grinder and force it through it. Don't put too many lumps in too quickly or it will get temporarily jammed and you'll have to rotate the handle a bit in both ways to try to get the chunk(s) that are jamming it crushed. Either way your going to want to wear a respirator. I'd recommend the meat grinder. Just pre-crush as much charcoal as you can, then ball mill that as needed so you don't have to do it again too soon. Its obviously really messy.

http://www.sausage-stuffer.com/images/61110_cast_iron_meat_grinder.jpg

Edit:
If you can alloy 50/50 magnesium and aluminum, it creates a very fragile glass like alloy that mills very well. There are tutorials on this around the net IIRC. Its also generally more reactive than aluminum.

If you can find aluminum scrap you can grind it down with a grinding wheel or something and then mill that, or you can find some other source of already small aluminum particles. Perhaps find a shop that does lathe work and ask to take the curls and chips off their hands. Might have other metals in that too though. Never know.

Say I can melt aluminium foil to a chunk of aluminium. would that work, or is Al2O3 produced?
The melting method would include making a thick, thick bowl out of it and putting smoke mix inside. It works, and I have obseved it melt in such a fashion. I don't imagine it would oxidize though, no?

Foil has too much surface area and will oxidize greatly. Some lawn chairs are aluminum tubing, melting it down is an option. Theres videos around.

In my experience milling aluminum foil works just fine. Tear it up or run it through a blender to get the starting particle size as small as you can, then chuck it in the mill and forget about it for about a week.

I've made perfectly functional perchlorate and permanganate based aluminum flashes this way.

Make sure it doesn't become pyrophoric.

Make sure it doesn't become pyrophoric.

Correct me I'm wrong, but wouldn't milling Al foil for 10-14 days generate the biggest WTF of your life when you opened the milling drum?

That's why people ''burp'' their mills periodically after turning the mill off for an hour.

Those in the know do ...

machine shops are great for all sorts of metal turnings tell them your doing some sort of project be creative.. ask them what kind of metals they work with ... Aluminium lathe turnings are very ubundant ... thou i would use a degreaser as generally cuttings are cooled with a lubricant titanium can also usally be found some times magnesium or magnalium

auto body shops are great for lead as they use them for balancing wheels and can be picked up for next to nothing or nothing at all
all i did was punch a hole in the bottom of a bean can tied it from a truss in my garage about 3 feet up and put a bucket of water below and used a blow torch to melt down the weights it would drip into the bucket and make little tear drop shapes this removes generally any crap like dirt and you loose the metal clips that are cast in them and are easyer to store for later casting

if you know any pipe fitters or welders you will always find a abundance of metal dusts or scrap

i deal with alot of STD A333-b carbon steel and XS-A106 steel lots of cast iron coppers and all sorts of crazy metals that are used in the "oil industry"

just call around you can find platnium in spent electrodes

Platium, Palladium and Rhodium can be found in a car junk yard in catalytic converters

Zinc from electrodes and corrosiun barriers usally used on boats also can be found in hurricane barriers

ect.. use your imagination or name a metal and we can tell you how to get it or were (in most cases)

as for milling use cation and research and ask questions i strongly reccomend using lead or non sparking milling media i like lead due to the weight but dislike because it deteriates over time and actual contaminates your mix ... so just choose the right media for the mixture pretty much as for aluminum i reccomend large iron balls if your in canada a great source for them *shhsh * is you know those grey metal mail boxes the mail man picks up his mail from generally they have gray plastic base ... yeah inside of that base is about a bunch of 1 inch or so iron balls (counter weight)


needless to say do not go on a drunken rampage and try and ride one down the road in the country (behind a truck) *word of wisdom*

anyways thats all for tonight fols maybe i shall contiune my ramblings tomorrow

Correct me I'm wrong, but wouldn't milling Al foil for 10-14 days generate the biggest WTF of your life when you opened the milling drum?

Dunno about you, but my mill is far from airtight. A little bit of the powdered product actually works its way out from under the cap and dribbles on the floor when it gets fine enough.

that seems a bit unsafe .... mine are sealed rubber never leak at all

Doesn't bother me much.

My rubber drum is airtight and will hold liquid forever. But my custom hard plastic drum that I built to grind aluminum isn't. I consider it a safety feature in and of itself. There isn't enough oxygen in the milling chamber to support an explosion even if the tiny dribble of stuff coming out did manage to ignite. But conversely, air is obviously free to get in there to pre-oxidize the product and keep it from autoigniting on opening the chamber.

I could muck around with seals and seats and fixing up my cap threads and such to get the thing totally sealed. But since I lose less than a gram of product out of a batch (which can be up to a half a pound) I consider it a fair tradeoff.

Are there dangers to milling Al granules?

Talking of milling AL, obviously its pretty dangerous but has anyone ever considered using an inert atmosphere or CO2 to mill the AL in.

Well most of the bases have already been covered but if Al powder is what your looking for theres two very good ways to get it pretty easy. The first and easiest and cheapest way is to take soda cans crush em nice and flat and then take a grinder to them, catching the dust in a bucket. For the most part it will be somewhat of a sand size Al but theres also a bit of it thats is damn fine mesh. This is easy and cost effective if you drink soda. The only problem with it is collecting it all and you have to sift it because there will be a few small peices that are about 1/8"-1/16" which is obviously to big to use. But for the most part you will get damn good Al. Granted you want to clean the grinder part every few cans because it clogs it up some and IIRC that can cause it to shatter which is no bueno.


The second way that most people won't remeber is old Andyboys blender methoud. This is a little more messy but works pretty good. Basically take a blender throw some Al foil in it and hit the button. Its best to use something like water or IIRC Andy would use alcohol to help reduce oxidizing the Al. The liquid is to help prevent overheating and fucking your blender. This methoud works pretty good and takes about 15 miniutes of grinding to get a decent ammount of Al in a decent mesh. Obviously the best way is to tear the Al foil up into smaller peices by hand or scissors since it will save time runnging the blender which saves the blender. Also don't use your moms blender she won't be happy if you messed it up.

Sorry for getting off topic

I always used a M&P, you lazy bastards.

Talking of milling AL, obviously its pretty dangerous but has anyone ever considered using an inert atmosphere or CO2 to mill the AL in.

I know from safety courses that CO2 would NOT work for magnesium, so I'd still be on my toes.