blackpowder-msg - 2/5/96

Making and using gunpowder and variants in the SCA and period.

NOTE: See also the files: siege-engines-msg, firearms-msg, slings-msg, p-handgonnes-lnks, crossbows-msg, axes-msg, archery-msg, weapons-msg, pottery-wepns-msg.

************************************************************************
NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).

Thank you,
    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
************************************************************************

From: tip at lead.tmc.edu (Tom Perigrin)
Date: 5 Dec 91 00:56:26 GMT
Organization: A.I. Chem Lab, University of Arizona

Unto the dearest and most adventurous Winifred de Schyppewallebotham,
doth Thomas Ignatius Perigrinus send his amused greetings;

I humbly salute thy adventerousness in attempting to dye with indigo and 
urine!  Thy peradventures should'st stand as a beacon to light our way,
although mayhaps the nose shall lead rather than our eyes?

I am minded of the time I made saltpeter at the Northern California
Rennaisance Faire.  If thou wouldst permit,  may I relate my
tale, which I promise thee, has good humour therein.

I followed the scrip of Birringucchio, 1540.

I took a large barrel, and did bore therein a hole near unto the bottom.
Into this small hole did I affix a bung, so as to draw off the liquors
when they were ripe.  Then I did find me some goodly horse manure which
had dried but not been rained upon.  I specifically searched for that
which was rimed with white.

Of this manure I took and cast a full four fingers depth into my pot,
and then two fingers of ash, and a final finger of lime.  This I did
repeat until the earthly matter did come nye unto the top of my barrell.
Then I did invite twenty men all stout and true to add their waters
into my barrel,  which, they being full of goodly ale,  they proceeded
to accomplish with alacrity. 

I then stirred this goodly brew with a stout stick.  But, as I did stir it,
I did see that many of the larger turds did not dissolve,  so casting
aside my shirt,  I did plunge my arms into the vile soup and did break up
the clumps with my hands.  It was at this time that one of the Blue Boys,
Her Majesties own guard, did come unto me , and knowing that I was a man
of martial disposition as to himself, he did ask at what was I adventuring?

So I took out a goodly turd, which being covered by wet ashes and lime, did
seem more like unto a rock than the outfall of a horse,  and I did press
it into his hand and say thusly unto him;  "Ifaith,  I am assaying to
make saltpeter...  but as you can see, my turds have not broken!"    Stout
fellow he was,  he did blanch for but a moment, and then proceeded to
answer me in like manner, discussing how the dissolution was proceeding.
But mind you,  under his breath he swore to me that I would die afore the day
was through!

Then,  once I had accomplisht my goal, and the whole been reduced to the
consistancy of some diabolical gruel,  I left it to stand in the hot sun
for four and twenty hours.

Upon the next day,  the mass had acheived an excellence of odor which was
surpassing ripe!   And so,  preparing to follow the dictates of learned
Birringucchio,  I prepared myself to draw forth the waters.  I once again
cast off my shirt,  and plunged my hands into the mass to affix a wad
of straw over the hole to act as a filter.  And as I stood near this 
vile vat,  two comely but cupshotten women come up unto me,  and 
insensate to the evidence of their noses, enquired of me as to the contents
of this evil cauldron.   

Now,  I must admit that these fair women must have been deep into their
cups many times and more that day,  for not only did they fail to smell the
effluvience of this morass,  they also gave evidence of finding me attractive
unto them (remember,  I am lame, bald, and exceedingly ugly!)   So before
I could answer them,  one began to run her fingers up and down my arm
in what could have been a most seductive fashion, had not the arm in question
been lubricated with the combined and fermented waste of horse, man, and fire.

It was but my duty to inform her what she was rubbing her comely fingers
through,  whereupon her collegue did let forth a most amazed laugh, and did 
call sport upon the unfortunate one.   This was, mayhaps, unwise,  for the
offended party did turn and assay to clean her fingers upon the shirt of
she who did laugh.

This succeeded in quelling the laughter,  but transmutated mirth to umbrage,
and quickly into a missle of mire which caught the flirtatious one square
upon her shirt.   And thus by degrees did they proceed from shirt to hair, and
unto a rolling catfight interrupted only by the need to refresh their
armamentaria with new handfuls of deadly dung.

Needless to say,  this sight amused me greatly, and caused such mirth amoung
my fellows that we all lay helpless upon the ground, clutching our sides
and rolling with laughter.

Eventually the two by now slime encrusted combatants left,  and I proceeded
to drain my broth, and rinsed it twice with water,  and boiled it down to
receive 1 handful of pale brown crystals of saltpeter.   But I must swear,
the making was more rewarding than the salt.

I hope that my tale may have given thee some amusement,  and I
remain,   thy dutious and obedient (but, alas, not blue) servant

Thomas Ignatius Perigrinus


From: tip at lead.aichem.arizona.edu (Tom Perigrin)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: CANNON
Date: 20 Apr 1994 18:07:32 GMT
Organization: Department of Chemistry

v081lu33 at ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (TRISTAN CLAIR DE LUNE/KEN MONDSCHEIN) wrote:
> 
> 	I forgot to mention my Brilliant Idea for a cannon.
> 
> 	Put an M-80 with a REALLY LONG fuse into a steel trash can. Thread the
> wick out through a hole in the can. Put a soft foam cannonball in. Light the
> fuse. Stand back. BOOM! Don't fire at anyone closer than 20 feet.
> 	Or, better yet (since an M-80 can blow your frickin' hand off), 
> use an elastic launching system. The "trigger" will be a burnable fuse linked
> to something that will go off with a bang, but the thing will be propelled 
> out by the elastic.
> 	Or, we have real cannon. The trick is to find a cannonball that won't
> kill the recipient... mayhap a half-charge, with a soft-foam ball?

Agggg....

An M-80 contains flash-cracker powder, made of either chlorate or
perchlorate and aluminum.   The products of such a device are Al2O3, KCl,
and a few other things...   note, at STP these products are solids.   This
means that a M-80 would produce a sudden cloud of high temperature
material, which would quickly cool below it's BP by expansive cooling. This
produces a shock wave, which is a sharp report.  An M-80 would not produce
a large amount of expanding gas.

Black powder consists of KNO3, C, S and a binder.   The products are N2,
CO2, SO2, K2O, and many other products...  note that most of these
compounds are gases at STP.

Blackpowder deflagrates (burns really fast), and has a slightly positive
burn/pressure rate factor.   Black powder, even tightly contained, produces
a rapid burn, and a cloud of gases which remain gaseous even as they
expansively cool.   This produces a push, but not nearly such a sharp
report.

Flash cracker powder doesn't deflagrate, it explodes or detonates depending
on containment, amount, pressure of packing, etc..   Flash cracker powder
has a very high burn/press rate factor, and easily transitions from
explosion to detonation at moderate pressures. This means it produces shock
waves, not pushes...  The shock wave would produce a very high stress on
any container, which is likely to exceed the strain limit, causing
explosive failure. 

The interior ballistics of any gun is complex, and is a play off of factors
such as the initial packing density, the dead space, the cross section, the
mass of the projectile, the initial rate of burning of the propellant, the
burn/pressure ratio, etc...   The burning of black powder proceeds slowly
enough that a projectile in a barrel has time to begin moving as the
pressure builds up.   This means that the expanding gases fill an expanding
space, and so the projectile gets a long PUSH rather than a sharp kick.  
This reduces the maximal pressure, and no shock wave is generated to hammer
at the walls of the gun.

This is why a very small amount of flash powder, with an overall lower
energetic  content than a much larger weight of black powder, can blow up a
black powder gun.   The metal can be strained beyonds it's elastic limits
by the shock wave.
Interestingly enough, detonations do not need to be tamped to develop a
shock wave, and a shock wave does not need to be confined on all sides to
propogate as a shock wave, and so a load of flash cracker powder can
destroy a metal barrel even without a bullet loaded on top of the charge. 
This can be seen in the pyrotechnics industry - a misfiring mortar shell
with flash-cracker reports (Thunder Shells) can destroy a buried mortar
tube while a misfiring Chrysantymum or Flower shell will often leave the
tube intact.

I own a number of cannons, muskets, and pistoles; from a .780 DeGhyn reprod
musket, to a golf-ball shooting 1450's German Cannon reproduction to a
half-tonne falconette with a 6' barrel and an overall carriage and barrel
length of 11' that shoots 3 pound lead balls over 800 yards.   I also have
mortars capable of shooting tennis balls and concrete filled cans.  

You wonder if we could use a real cannon with a soft projectile and reduced
powder charges.  Well, yes, but I am worried.  These things are not toys! 
I could easily take off somebodies hand WITHOUT a projectile just from the
forces of the expanding gases.   I demonstrate this to my cannon crews by
hanging a chicken carcass a foot away from the muzzle of the thing and
setting it off with an unwadded charge.  The chicken is ripped to shreds,
and parts of it fly more than 50 feet away.  This is what would happen to
the hand of a person loading powder into an improperly swabbed bore that
harbored a spark.  Safety is a MUST for these things.   I learned my black
powder drill from the Sealed Knot in England.

I know that a lot of people in the SCA are safety conscious.   But if we
were to ever allow cannon on the feild we would have to have very strict
regulations.  With all due respect, I am afraid that someday, somebody
would get the brilliant idea to use flash-cracker powder instead of
gunpowder, and the resulting shrapnel would kill or wound several people.  
What about the ever present danger of forgotten ramrods?   I have heard of
people who have been injured by flying ramrods that were not withdrawn
prior to firing.   And what about loading weights?   We all know the kind
of person who thinks "lets add a bit more powder".   I had to fire one of
my helpers at Arizona Renn Fest who was overcharging his piece without
understanding the safety factors involved.

Overall,  I think it is a Very Bad Idea to place M-80's in steel trash cans
and then place projectiles on top it them.   While black powder can be used
safely, (I have literally fired off thousands of shots without mishap) I am
concerned about large numbers of people using real cannons and black powder
in melee situations.

Besides...   do you really want guys running around with TRASH CANS and
large nerf balls on the field?    I really have a difficult time imagining
that this would look right. Somehow the idea evokes images of Circus Clowns
in my mind...

It is also inappropriate, since cannons were mostly used as seige weapons
until after our period, and very seldom were used in field engagements.

I am an ardent black powder enthusiast.  Most of my weaponry dates from
1450 to 1650.   But even though it is period in the SCA, I personally think
of it as something I do seperately from the SCA...

Thomas Ignatius Perigrinus


From: tip at lead.aichem.arizona.edu (Tom Perigrin)
Newsgroups: alt.engr.explosives,rec.pyrotechnics,rec.org.sca
Subject: Potassium Nitrate... no problem
Date: 2 Nov 1994 18:44:18 GMT
Organization: AI in Chem Lab

A lot of people seem to have problem getting KNO3 to make home-made black
powder.   Well, if you are really desperate, it's not that hard to make... 
This recipie is from Birringucchio, Pyrotechnia, 1540.  It was used
"commercially" as recently as the US Civil War when the Union blockade of
the South prevented shipments of Chilean Saltpeter from getting into port. 
  I've done this for a historical recreation event... it's "fun", but a bit
messy and some people find it to be a tad distasteful.

Find old horse manure, the kind that has sat under shelter, and has little
white threads on the surface.   If you can't find horse manure, just take
your own manure and let it ferment under cover for a few months.   Also,
take urine and let it set out until it is good and fermented.  Get some
hardwood ashes and lime.

Get a 50 gallon drum or barrel, and punch a hole in the bottom.  Put a cork
in the hole. Now line the bottom with cloth.  Then add 2" of manure, 1.5"
of ashes, and 1" of lime.  Repeat until you are near the top.  Now pour in
the fermented urine.  Let it all stand for a few days.  At this point it
has a particular amusing odor.  Then drain off and collect the liquid from
the bottom hole.   Pour in some more fermented urine, and repeat.  Now wash
it with clean water until the water coming out isn't brown or yellow
anymore and doesn't taste bitter to the tounge.

Boil the collected liquids down until they just start to throw crystals
while hot, and then add a enough hot water to double the volume and let
cool.  You might want to stand UPWIND while boiling this down.   You will
get almost 10 pounds of crystals of KNO3, with a bit of NaNO3 and NaCl
admixed, various brown and yellow contaminants, and some detritus too. 
Recrystalize once or twice from clean water to get fairly pure pale yellow
KNO3.

From 100 pounds of horse or people manure and 75 gallons of fermented urine
you can get from 2 to 5 pounds of KNO3, depending on a number of factors.

You might want to do some of this outdoors.

-------.sig--------
I don't know where the return address  tip at lead.tmc.edu   comes from...
Something messes up the right address which is  tip at lead.aichem.arizona.edu
Sorry


From: tip at lead.tmc.edu (Tom Perigrin)
Newsgroups: alt.engr.explosives,rec.pyrotechnics,rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Potassium Nitrate... no problem
Date: 6 Nov 1994 06:00:58 GMT
Organization: A.I. Chem Lab, University of Arizona

jmccarty at spd.dsccc.com (Mike McCarty) writes:
>
>Oh, I think he just mis-posted. It was actually destined for
>rec.humor.funny, but got here instead. Particularly interesting was the
>instruction to continue to wash the boiled rotten piss and shit until
>the liquid coming off was no longer bitter to the taste.

Actually, it's all true.  Birringuchio's book, Pyrotechnia, is available
in reprint from Dover books, and is a good book to buy for historical
pespectives...  Actually, I left out the most interesting part...  in 
Birringuchio, the recipie says to leach until it no longer tastes bitter
to YOUR APPRENTICE.  [caps mine].


From: bame at sde.hp.com (Paul Bame)
Newsgroups: rec.pyrotechnics,rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Potassium Nitrate... no problem
Date: 7 Nov 1994 06:55:16 GMT
Organization: HP SESD, Fort Collins, CO

Tom Perigrin (tip at lead.aichem.arizona.edu) wrote:

: A lot of people seem to have problem getting KNO3 to make home-made black
: powder.   Well, if you are really desperate, it's not that hard to make... 
: [...]

: Find old horse manure, the kind that has sat under shelter, and has little
: white threads on the surface.   [etc...]

The "Foxfire" series of books are full of stories like making saltpeter,
rifles, and as they say on the cover, "other affairs of plain living".
Much of the information is gleaned from interviewing people who remember
how it "used to be".  Here are two quotes from "Foxfire 5", edited by
Eliot Wiggington, ISBN: 0-385-14308-7.  All typos are mine.  Check the
book for the original attributions and the gunpowder making story
which is nearby [storyteller makes his own for flintlock
hunting - flints too].

[p. 247]
    Saltpeter, the chemical that produces the oxygen for the other
    ingrediants when lit off, can be made by putting urine and manure of
    any kind in a big cement tank mixed with water until you have about
    three hundred gallons mixed up.  Then you put on a tight lid and let
    it sit for about ten months.  You have to have a drain pipe and
    valve at the bottom, and a stainless steel filter screen installed
    beforehand or you'll have one big mess on your hands.  At the end of
    that time, you run the liquid that drains off through ashes into
    shallow wooden trays lined with plastic sheeting and let them stand
    for evaporation in the sun.  When the water evaporates, potassium
    nitrate crystals (saltpeter) will form in the bottom of the trays.

    In the old days in cities, most outhouses were fitted with trays or
    drawers under the seats that could be pulled out from behind the
    building..  They had night-soil collectors who were paid so much
    every month by the outhouse owners to keep those drawers emptied,
    and they'd come around with a special wagon into which they dumped
    the contents.  When the wagon was full, it was hauled out to where
    another fellow bought the contents and dumped it into concrete tanks
    where the bacteria works it just like yeast works wine or bread
    dough.  Then the liquid was run through ashes into shallow tiled or
    plain concrete evaporating trays or basins to recover the saltpeter.

[p. 253-256]
    [...]  And there's saltpeter - you know you hear about saltpeter
    caves.  [...]  where they leached that out from bat guano.  

    [This leads into a re-creation of saltpeter-making and includes photos]
    [...] caves were the primary source of nitrate used in the manufacture of
    gunpowder.  [...]  Buckets of water were then poured over the
    saltpeter dirt to leach it of its nitrate or 'mother liquor.'  [...]
    This same liquor was poured again and again over the saltpeter dirt
    because releaching caused more nitrates to be dissolved.  According
    to the old reports, releaching went on until the solution was of
    sufficient density to float an egg.

    The next step was to combine the mother liquor rich in calcium
    nitrate with woodashes that contain high amounts of potassium
    hydroxide.

    -Paul Bame


From: David Razler (1/1/95)
To: uunet!TREK.SPS.MOT.COM!MARKH
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 1995 16:45:00 -0500
Organization: Compu-Data BBS -=- Turnersville, NJ -=- 609-232-1245
Subject: fire drug

>and period manufacture, etc. If I can get a spot in the middle of nowhe
>work with pig excretia, I may even make some real period "fire-drug."

MH>What pray tell, is "fire-drug"?

MH>Stefan li Rous
MH>Ansteorra

  The Chinese term for gunpowder in literal translation, or so I've been 
told and read: any active group of chemicals is [blank-drug]. A pigsty 
provides the necessary ingrediants for the manufacture of sodium nitrate. It 
is a long process that I am told smells worse than making woad dye, but, in 
the end, you end up with beautiful clear crystals of the stuff. Simply add 
carbon from the fire you used to dry them out carefully and native sulfur, 
and you can start all sorts of fireworks.

  It was, btw, the European mind that first thought of using the stuff to 
propel shot at their enemies. The Chinese used military rockets, both 
developments coming I THINK (sure on Europe) during the 100 Years' War. 
Initially the stuff was used for scaring the horses, then it was put into 
short cast brass tubes or open-ended brass "barrels" (literally- made out of 
metal staves and rings by coopers), loaded with powder and projectile and 
set off via touchhole, the gunner usually hiding behind a wall in case the 
weapon did not fire as planned.
  Bigger cannons were built to fire stone, then metal projectiles. Again, 
the early failure rate was not very comfortable and their use was rare until 
the 1400s.

  With more ME trivia to come, Aleksandr the Traveller, Barren sands, East
                                 [david.razler at compudata.com]

<the end>
Edited by Mark S. Harris	blackpowder-msg