Black powder or just black yuk?

[Cornbelt]

I've read in the other forums how some have made their owm black powder, but they always start with saltpeter. Anybody ever start with chicken poop? Any ideas on how to get the nitrate out of it in a workable, albeit disgusting, manner?

[Yankee1]

In the old days they used to have contracts with public toilets. They removed the urine and evaporated it in shallow vats. What was left after evaporation was potassium nitrate or saltpeter.
                                      Yankee1

[Cornbelt]

I think I might be getting somewhere. Drained some of the "soup" off the barrel of chicken nuggets, and when I dumped in a bucket of wood ashes, the ammonia rolled out of there so bad I couldn even stand to stir it. (I really had my heart set on stirring it.) That tells me the ammonia is being displaced by the (hopefully) potash in wood ashes. May do that a few more times till I get my fill of stirring. Then I'll have to figure out how to strain it. Anybody want to come and help?

[Yankee1]

Hi
  They used to use wood ash and water to make lye water.  Lye water was used with animal fat to make soap.  I can remember my grandmother making lye soap during the 1940's when soap was rationed.  She poured it in pans to harden and then cut it into bars and separated them with wax paper so they would not stick together. Everybody saved fat for collection to make munitions with.
Brings back memories.  World War two. Victory Gardens, "Praise The Lord and Pass the Ammunition".
                                      Yankee1

[mechanic]

If you can get in touch with someone who stables horses, and if the stables are wood, that crystalized stuff on the surface of the wood is salt peter.  All you need are a few thousand stabled horses......well, you get the idea.  A little charcoal and some sulfur and you're good.  Bear in mind the charcoal can't come in a bag, you'll have to make that too.

[Cornbelt]

I'm set for charcoal. This winter we kept a couple of gallon size paint cans rotating every time we stoked the fire in the stove. Most of it was oak, alder, walnut or whatever else fell off the trees in the yard, and will be put to use as brickettes for grilling come summer, but a couple cans I used willow and corn cobs. Tried them both with commercial saltpeter, and the willow worked much better. Still want to try cottonwood and rye straw. The willow was soft enough to light w/a match; no good for long lasting fires, but for a fire that only lasts a split-second, it was ok. Corncobs weren't quite so good, but still went bang. Present production levels should net about a quarter lb. by 2025 ... -if I don't get side-tracked.

[mechanic]

I'm set for charcoal. This winter we kept a couple of gallon size paint cans rotating every time we stoked the fire in the stove. Most of it was oak, alder, walnut or whatever else fell off the trees in the yard, and will be put to use as brickettes for grilling come summer, but a couple cans I used willow and corn cobs. Tried them both with commercial saltpeter, and the willow worked much better. Still want to try cottonwood and rye straw. The willow was soft enough to light w/a match; no good for long lasting fires, but for a fire that only lasts a split-second, it was ok. Corncobs weren't quite so good, but still went bang. Present production levels should net about a quarter lb. by 2025 ... -if I don't get side-tracked.

I'm thinkin' that back in the "good old days" it took a lot of outhouses to make a lot of powder......

[Cornbelt]

Maybe I need more people per privy.

[Chilachuck]

The best book on making BP is "Ball Milling Theory and Practice for the Amateur Pyrotechnician" by Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Good luck finding a copy. You might try the rec.pyrotechnics news group where he hangs out.

[Dweezil]

Green LIght Stump Remover at Home Depot.  About $5-6/lb.  Almost pure potassium nitrate. Read the label. Much easier than dealing with chickenshit.

[SHOOTALL]

Try the Foxfire books , There is a little display of a homstead on the blue ridge parkway in Va. . it has a wooden rifling machine and other gun related tools and guns . It also has a tub where they mixed ash and bat droppings and other "stuff" then filtered it thru leaves for powder making . The homestead is south of I-64 about a couple miles if anyone is close enough to see it .

[Yankee1]

That "Foxfire Book" said  that they built a cradle filled with straw that had a trough under it. They would walk in a cave and make footprints. If the footprints disappeared overnight they determined it was worthwhile to dig it up and place it on top of the hay in the cradle. They would then pour water over the bat droppings and leach out the potassium nitrate. It was further determined that the liquid was of sufficient strength when an egg would float with more than half the egg protruding out of the liquid.  At this point it would be ready to evaporate to render potassium nitrate crystals.
                  This is as I remember it.
                            Yankee1

[Cornbelt]

Thanks for all the input. Now I just need output. Got only a few crystals last summer, then dumped the residue on the lawn. This spring, the grass was a lot greener where the left-over liquid went in an arc where I slung it, so I don't think it was such an efficient system.   Going over Foxfire, seems a hopper might be the ticket for converting to potassium nitrate. That way a guy could continue drenching till all of it was out. Like the part about the egg; saves waiting for greener grass. Meanwhile, I do have some commercial KNO3 left over from a gun-bluing project (14-0-45 fertilizer) that I'm using to test different charcoals. Talked to the guy at the ag nitrate place and he said he could mix any combo I wanted, but I'd have to re-crystalize it to get it pure.  Used to go back and forth to NC every month or so, and stopped in at the Museum of Appalachia. Real interesting place.  Wish I could remember everything I "learned" there.  -I don't know about making footprints. They wouldn't be where I left 'em, but they'd be everywhere else! Wife liked to have skinned me for cooking "the recepie" in her microwave. (All's fair in love& & war.)    Maybe I can get that book on inter-library loan?

[don heath]

Found a very good little booklet by Foxfire which detailed how the american Pioneers made saltpeter along with all details on how to make the still in the traditional way etc. Was an interesting comparision for me. In Africa, dried urine from dassies (rock rabits) is the main source!

[Chilachuck]

The local farm and garden places are full of promises to get that fertilizer, but they never deliver. Looks like I'm going to need to pay about $8/# for the stump burner. That's the local price.