8 replies to this topic

[nocker1]

Hi i was wondering how well pine charcoal would perform in black powder rockets. as I'm thinking about making some.

cheers

Gav

[Mumbles]

Probably just fine. It of course depends more on if it's a core or end burner, and what ratio you're using than anything else really. Type of pine will also play a large role.

Edited by Mumbles, 10 September 2007 - 09:18 PM.

[seymour]

I almost always use pine in my rockets (typicaly 25mm ID coreburners) and they work fine. But as Mumbles says, there are many different types of pine. As much or more depends on the dimensions of your rocket, and how it and the fuel are made than the type of charcoal used. I can see no difference between Hardwood and pine in my rockets. Gav, what size and type of Black powder rockets are you planning on making? Good luck.

[nocker1]

I'm quite new and i have little experience, i find it hard to get willow charcoal so i decided to try and make some from pine as i use this a bit at work. the only tooling i have at the moment is 1lb stinger missile which i have made so far using BBQ charcoal and they fly but lazy, so I'm just trying to in prove my black powder. I'm making my powder in a ball mill i got from procreations.com thinking about having a go making some 1" aerial shells in a few weeks, don't want to try anything too big just yet.

cheers for the replies

Gav

[hst45]

In my experience it has more to do with the quality and size of the charcoal than with the wood species. I made a bunch of rockets with newsprint charcoal, and they were very inconsistant. Now I'm using hardwood, mostly maple, charcoal and it seems much better. It gives nice sparky trails, and good, consistant impulse. I guess the answer is that if you take willow, balsa or any other "superior" wood, but process it improperly it would probably be inferior to pine or hardwood that is cooked better. Only experimentation will tell.

By the way, I use a good bit of white pine charcoal (the wood scavenged from wood trim at jobsites) and it works quite well, so pine should be fine to use. Good luck!

[MDH]

Your old christmas tree behind the garage will do pretty well.

[hst45]

The one from last year? Or from the year before that, or the year before that........... I REALLY should tend to the brush pile.

[MDH]

Around a year old is good.

I have found that almost any kind of pine works well. To me it's more about optimizing the composition based upon the charcoal type than the speed the charcoal creates.

Edited by MDH, 11 September 2007 - 07:35 PM.

[Andrew]

As pine has a higher resin content, smaller rocket motors made with it are not capable evolving the full gaseous products available; you tend to get orange sparks flying out the nozzle.

For better efficiency/thrust you want as much of the exhaust products to be in a gaseous state as possible.

The larger the motor is the less pine/willow/other is an issue. I've tried making very small BP rockets with pine before and they are really naff. But larger ones perform very well. The difference between pine and willow is not really noticeable unless your making a motor with less than, say about 5 grams of BP in.

As with all things like this, the bigger the furnace, the more stubborn the fuel can be.

With a 1lb motor, you will not be able to notice a significant difference; unless you test it using sensitive instruments.

Probably the most important thing on the comp side is to mill well.