How to Make Gunpowder (Black Powder)

Summary

Join Ayden from "Ayden's Workshop" as he walks you through the fascinating process of making black powder at home. This engaging tutorial covers everything from legality issues according to ATF regulations to acquiring and preparing the three key ingredients: charcoal, potassium nitrate, and sulfur. Ayden demonstrates how to make pure charcoal using household items and explains the significance of grinding each component into a fine powder. With a fun blend of science and pyrotechnics, Ayden shows the pivotal milling process needed to achieve an explosively efficient black powder formulation, ideal for fireworks and pyrotechnic purposes.

Highlights

• Ayden teaches you how to legally make black powder for personal use, diving into ATF regulations. 🔍
• Discover how easily accessible materials can lead to making authentic black powder. 🧂
• Learn the underrated art of charcoal-making for the purest form needed in black powder. 🔥
• Milling is the game-changer; see how it refines ingredients into explosive efficiency. ⏳
• Watch the transformative effect: slow-burning powder turns into a poof of white flash! 💥

Key Takeaways

• Making black powder at home is perfectly legal for personal use if you follow the correct guidelines. ⚖️
• The process requires only three ingredients: charcoal, potassium nitrate, and sulfur. These are surprisingly easy to acquire! 🛒
• Charcoal must be pure; DIY charcoal from wood is necessary as store-bought is unsuitable. 🌲
• The magic of making good black powder lies in the milling process, which turns components into a fine, potent mix. 🌀
• Once milled correctly, the black powder burns very fast, making it excellent for pyrotechnics. 🎆

Overview

Welcome back to Ayden’s Workshop, where DIY meets science in the most electrifying of ways! Today, Ayden guides us through making black powder, commonly known as old-fashioned gunpowder. It's a journey that blends legal compliance with creative pyrotechnics. Who knew chemistry at home could be this thrilling?

Working with just three ingredients — charcoal, sulfate, and potassium nitrate, Ayden expertly crafts this historical powder. We learn how crucial each component is, especially the purity of charcoal, which can't be bought off the shelf. Instead, Ayden shows us how to make it from scratch using basic supplies like a paint can and some wood. The process is not only educational but surprisingly straightforward!

The pièce de résistance is the milling of the ingredients—a pivotal step to transform them from mundane powders into an explosive concoction. Once milled, Ayden's black powder ignites with remarkable speed and efficacy, proving its prowess for fireworks and more. So, whether you’re a curious mind or aspiring pyrotechnic, Ayden’s video offers a delightful mix of instruction and awe-inspiring visuals.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Black Powder In this chapter titled 'Introduction to Black Powder', Aiden welcomes the viewers to his workshop and introduces the topic of making black powder, also known as old-fashioned gunpowder. He explains that black powder is a low explosive used for various pyrotechnic purposes, including fireworks and cannons. Although the process of making black powder is time-consuming, Aiden assures that it is simple and intriguing.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Legal Considerations This chapter discusses the legal considerations of manufacturing black powder for personal use. It refers to guidelines provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). According to the ATF, individuals do not require a manufacturer's license if they produce black powder for personal, non-business use, and it does not qualify as a commercial product. However, there are specific storage regulations that must be adhered to. The chapter clarifies that following these guidelines would generally make personal manufacturing legal.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Ingredients and Their Roles The chapter discusses the ingredients used in black powder, which are charcoal, potassium nitrate, and sulfur. It explains how these ingredients correspond to the three elements needed for fire: fuel, oxygen, and heat. Charcoal serves as the fuel, while potassium nitrate provides the oxygen component as it releases oxygen when heated. The chapter also touches on the need for a heat source for ignition, although sulfur itself is not the ignition source.
• 02:00 - 04:00: Making Charcoal The chapter 'Making Charcoal' explains the process and importance of creating pure charcoal for specific applications. It highlights that while regular charcoal can be easily purchased from stores like Ace Hardware, it is not suitable for certain uses because it is not pure. The chapter emphasizes the necessity of purity in charcoal, possibly for chemical reactions or sensitive processes, where impurities in commercial charcoal could affect the results. Additionally, the chapter touches on the use of sulfur, which is highly flammable and helps the mixture ignite and burn rapidly due to its sensitivity to fire, thus aiding the burning process.
• 04:00 - 06:00: Processing Ingredients The chapter 'Processing Ingredients' discusses the preparation of charcoal for various uses, like grilling and making black powder. It highlights that commercial charcoal briquettes often contain clay to retain shape, which is unsuitable for black powder. Instead, lump charcoal made from hardwood is recommended. The chapter provides a method to make pure charcoal at home using a steel paint can and wood by carbonizing the wood in a low oxygen environment.
• 06:00 - 09:30: Milling Black Powder In this chapter titled 'Milling Black Powder', the process of preparing a paint can for milling black powder is described. The author begins by filling the can with branches, noting that the type of wood is not critically important. The can's lid is securely hammered on, with a special note on the necessity of having a hole in the center to allow gases to escape. The hole can be easily made using a screwdriver or hammer. Once the can is prepared, it is placed into a fire to continue the process.
• 09:30 - 11:00: Demonstrating Results In this chapter, the process of demonstrating the results of heating a can is detailed. The can is placed on logs with additional logs placed on top to maximize heat exposure. Upon heating, the can emits gas, initially mostly steam. As the heating continues, this gas, known as wood gas, ignites, creating a jet of fire.
• 11:00 - 12:00: Conclusion The chapter discusses the process of capturing flammable gases released during the making of black powder. These gases, including methane, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, are combustible enough to power generators. The author expresses enthusiasm about this part of the black powder making process, especially noting the visual and auditory effects of the jet of fire. Once the wood is completely carbonized, the fire jet ceases, revealing a hot glowing can, which may become flaky and even develop holes.

How to Make Gunpowder (Black Powder) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 welcome back to Aiden's Workshop today I'm showing you how to make black powder what is black powder well it's pretty much old-fashioned gunpowder but when I say old-fashioned I mean really old-fashioned black powder is a low explosive that can be used for many pyrotechnic purposes like fireworks cannons and other things the process to make black powder is a bit time intensive but it's super simple and quite interesting you can
• 00:30 - 01:00 also get all the materials to make it very easily so without further Ado let's get into the [Music] video your first question is probably is this legal well let's see what the ATF says individuals do not need a manufacturer his license if they manufacture black powder for their own personal non- business use and the black powder produced is not a commercial product within the contemplation of the exemption and must be stored in compliance with the appropriate regulations well that's good enough for me
• 01:00 - 01:30 black powder is made from three ingredients charcoal potassium nitrate and sulfur this conveniently lines up with the three things needed for fire which are fuel oxygen and heat charcoal is essentially pure carbon and it serves as the fuel for combustion for potassium nitrate if we look at the chemical formula we can see where the oxygen comes from and potassium nitrate releases that oxygen when heated which is perfect now to get this heat we need an ignition Source now sulfur itself is not the source source of ignition but it
• 01:30 - 02:00 does help everything get going the other ingredients are not very flammable on their own but sulfur is you can see it has a nice blue flame so by adding sulfur the mixture becomes much more sensitive to a fire source and it allows it all to burn very quickly the first ingredient mentioned is charcoal and it is the only one you can't buy now you're saying Aiden I can buy charcoal it's at Ace Hardware yes that is true that is charcoal but it's not pure and you can't use it for this
• 02:00 - 02:30 charcoal briquettes used for grills have Clay added to them to keep their shape and that would mess up the black powder you could maybe try getting lump charcoal which is pure but it's actually made from hardwood and I've heard that it isn't the best for black powder so the first thing I'm going to show you is how to make your own charcoal all you will need is a steel paint can and some wood what I'm going to do is carbonize the wood this means I'm going to heat the wood in a low oxygen environment so it Alters to pure carbon AKA charcoal
• 02:30 - 03:00 what I'm doing first is filling the paint can with branches I don't know exactly what type of wood the branches are but I don't think it matters a great deal next I'm hammering the lid on the can as you can see there's a hole in the center of the lid this is very important you need to punch a hole in the lid to let the gases escape the can you can easily make this hole with a screwdriver or a hammer now that the can is prepared I'm going to start a fire and put the can in the fire you can you can see that
• 03:00 - 03:30 I'm placing the can on the logs and then putting more logs over the can I want to get the can as hot as possible after the can heats up you're going to see something very interesting the can starts hissing and shooting gas out of the hole initially this gas is mostly Steam and not much happens but after a little longer the gas starts igniting and making a jet of fire this is called wood gas and it's a
• 03:30 - 04:00 mix of several gases like methane hydrogen carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide it's actually flammable enough to power generators if you can capture the gas this is one of my favorite parts of making black powder since the jet of fire looks and sounds very cool once all the wood has been carbonized the jet stops and you can see that the inside of the can is glowing hot after bringing the can out of the fire you can see that it's flaking a lot and there's now even a hole in the back
• 04:00 - 04:30 which means that this paint can cannot be used anymore on the inside you can see that all the wood is completely black the charcoal sticks are very brittle and a lot lighter than they were when I put them in but before I process this charcoal let me briefly tell you where you can get the other ingredients potassium nitrate is very easy to get since it is sold as a stump remover you can find this at a hardware store or online and I previously bought several bottles of the brand Spectra side which works great sulfur is also easy to get
• 04:30 - 05:00 since it is also sold at hardware stores it is used to lower the pH of soil and you can find it as bags of pellets the bag of sufur I bought many years ago had beads of sulfur and Beads of clay so I washed the clay beads out to just get the sulfur beads left the main step in processing the ingredients is turning them all into a powder before you mix them together for the charcoal I took a few pieces out at a time and crushed them with a mortar and pestal then I put all of the crushed pieces in a jar next I use a coffee
• 05:00 - 05:30 grinder to turn the pieces into a fine powder you can easily find an old coffee grinder at a thrift store and they're not expensive after grinding I put all of the charcoal powder in a cup and this part is really dusty so you will need to wear a dust mask for this now some pieces in the grinder don't actually grind down so you have to filter the powder through a screen I use a sifter cup to separate the large pieces and I put them aside after sifting all the powder I actually put the larger pieces
• 05:30 - 06:00 back in the grinder to try to get a little bit more powder out of them once I was done I had this nice container of fine charcoal powder and if there are a few large bits it's not a big deal since those will get miled down later next I powderized the pottassium nitrate in the same coffee grinder this process is a lot simpler since the pottassium nitrate already comes as a powder if you needed to you would also grind down your sulfur but mine was already a fine powder from when I grounded many years ago so I did not need to do it this
• 06:00 - 06:30 time the secret recipe to making black powder is 75% potassium nitrate 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur by weight for my first batch I made 100 G and I put all of the powders inside a ball mill Barrel since Milling it is the next step for those of you that don't know a ball mill is a device that rotates a barrel with balls and a powder inside as
• 06:30 - 07:00 the barrel spins the balls slam together and crush your powder into an ultra fine mixture Milling is a non-negotiable step in making good black powder I've tried to make black powder just by mixing the ingredients or grinding them with a mortar and pestle but it does not work and let me show you this is a pile of all the ingredients mixed together without being mil
• 07:00 - 07:30 you can see that it does burn but it's not very fast and I will show you later what black powder is supposed to look like when it burns so to Mill the black powder I first put lead balls inside the barrel this is really important you have to use lead balls and a rubber Barrel to mail the black powder if you use anything steel it could spark and there could be an explosion since black powder contains an oxidizer potassium nitrate it can burn even if it does not have access to air so so after I put the lead
• 07:30 - 08:00 balls in I put the lid on and put the barrel on the ball mill I milled the black powder for 24 hours and every few hours I shook the barrel to prevent the powder from clumping the fact that it was clumping means that my materials had absorbed some water and the only way to prevent this would be to dry the individual ingredients in an oven before mixing them I added 50 more G to the first batch so in the end I miled this much black powder then I put it in a jar with some desicant to try to keep it dry after one more batch I ended up with
• 08:00 - 08:30 around 300 G of black powder now let me show you the results this is the exact same black powder composition but now the mixture has been milled let's see what happens as you can see this black powder flashes which is exactly what we want now let's look at both the videos of before and after Milling the powder you can see that the chain is
• 08:30 - 09:00 drastic the mil powder poofs instead of burning slowly in this slow-mo you can see that the mil powder turns the entire screen white in two frames which is incredible now let's look at some other shots of the black powder burning you can see that this black powder also leaves very little residue which is great great this means that the
• 09:00 - 09:30 black powder is great for fireworks cannons and other things anyway that's it for this video if you have any questions leave a comment if you like this video and you want to see more please subscribe and I'll see you in the next video [Music]