This discovery has opened up Pandora's box.... All brands and types of TP, all brands and types of paper towels, nose tissues, napkins, all types of paper and cardboard... Before, we were(or thought we were) confined to woods. Now it's literally anything derived from wood. That is a massive list of things to test. I look forward to going down the rabbit hole with you Sir!
Suggestion from someone who understands how paper is made: Do a comparison between: Pulped and non pulped within the same brand . To explain further: Pulping, put the bog paper in a bucket, add water, stir. TP, a stick will be fine, just leave it a bit. For other types of paper, you will need mechanical stiring like a paint stirer on a drill. Strain water, and press the results to remove the water creating a "paper brick" This method should maximise the collected ammount for any single burn by reducing the volume, and compressing the particles. Further note Paper types for soft papers TAD - Through Air Dryed - mostly hand towels, but some manufacturers are now making toilet paper. Thick, abosrbent, lots of air, light per square cm. Virgin - obvious, don't kill the trees. Recycled - scratches the bum, leaves flakes of paper on the floor when tearing a bit off after tearing one out. Mixed - Virgin and recycled meet in a head on collision of style, grace and .. bwahahaa, nearly kept a straight face. CTMP - Chemi Thermal Mechanical Paper - Hand towel paper, yellow, hard, scratchy, but super absorbent. Heavy per Square cm (or inch or whaterver non binary measurement you prefer. hell use points of an AU for all I care) righto, that's enough, google's a thing. peace out ppl.
I would guess the source of the yellow is very likely added lotion. We have a line that does that at work. All of our paper is from the same pulp source. I mainly suggested single ply cause you tore off the tail seal glue in case it mattered. But the entire length of the product is glued together. One ply paper doesn't have the extra glue and should certainly not have any lotion. Sure it sucks to use but I can certainly see it being the superior choice as a fairly pure source for carbon. Heck I just spent the last 12 hours running laminated product.
Aloe vera tissue leaves a yellow residue...... years ago i got to burn a about half a pallet load of boxes of tissue that got crushed in transit and noted that the soot inside of the in the incinerator turned yellow
You'll probably get the fastest results from the material where the fibers are most fluffed up prior to carbonizing, so cheap soft toilet paper or cotton balls. You want the spongiest fluffiest charcoal to maximize surface area and reactivity. Here in Europe we have hemp fibre (not medicinal) as a heat insulation material. If you carbonize those you pretty much have hemp charcoal. Its super fast. Hemp fibre is a construction material so nothing fishy about it.
I read in an old book of the 17th century that hemp could be used to produce black powder. They only noted: "if you have enough hemp". I collected dry stalks of wild hemp that grow here. But I never tried to make black powder. Here is very little hemp and I started making powder from mouldering willow.
@@kirahund6711 Good point, you'd want to try to source an unadulterated kind. While we're on the subject of hemp, we need to consider the recreational/medicinal kind just for fun. Would one try to burn out the THC oils while charring it, possibly getting woozy as you're working nearby, or would you try to leave a lot intact to see how it would gradually affect your marksmanship, shot for shot?
Couple of things: 1. I enjoy these "presentations." 2. I'm kind of curious how well shredded paper would work as a carbon source (as in "make sure you haven't run any credit cards through it and just make charcoal out of whatever's in your shredder"). 3. Tell Johnny to fix his diet and to stop straining when he poops (rock back and forth instead, sounds weird, but it works).
I can say with a fair degree of certainty that nearly all paper products manufactured in the US are primarily made from a fast growing, genetically engineered variety of poplar often called hybrid poplar. They add a certain percentage of some type of pine or spruce which in the industry they call the soft wood, the poplar is referred to as the hardwood.
Old Dixie Gun Works catalogs would be a neat test if you have them. Guessing in todays age, the ink is at least organic but probably still adds to fowling. I nitrate pages from old ones to make my sharps paper cartridges because they look "antique/period". Haven't noticed fowling going up using them nitrated, so might be worthwhile if you have old ones around.
Press on!, Back when I was in school we called this science. The potential variations just in TP alone are endless, and I'm interested in progressing the science. Please keep it going, it's worthwhile research. We'll hold off on bulk TP purchases until you've solved the mysteries and "gotten to the bottom of it". Keep up the science and thank you. Sam
Things to watch for that will hurt your powder; -writing/printing paper will have polymers and clay content. -cardboard and vellum may contain this too, much more binder content, and LOTS of adhesive for corrugated. -fancy TP will contain various unguents and binders, plus adhesives to hold the ply together (if that's their method, some are mechanical... punched through) -grassy leaves/blades stand a good chance of containing enough silica to become problematic over time. Potential for abrasive ash, or even a hard brittle fouling. I don't think I've seen this one come up; a big old stack of cheap coffee filters. I can't say what the fiber assay would look like, but additives would be minimal since they'd end up in the drink. Another off the shelf source to explore might be aquarium filter activated charcoal.
Really...I thought printer paper would be acid/chemical free...hmmm activated charcoal boiled in distilled water, then dried in an oven...hmmmm (the activation of the carbon uses phosphoric acids and other things to make the carbon "puffy" so it absorbs impurities)
I make charcloth fire starters all the time. I wonder how cotton, as in batts and balls would work as a charcoal source? Organic cotton has to be about the purest form of cellulose, with no chemical processing or added chemicals, and it's readily available.
One can get the "offensive" t shirts from goodwill and salvation army for damn near free. They can't sell them. They usually bag them and sell in bulk out the rear of the store, you just have to ask for them.
Picked a Goodwill white T-shirt and charred it. clothing cotton contains a fire retardant according to my daughter. It doesn't look like it charred very well, I'll try it come spring.@@derweibhai
I'm wondering if you can burn a pile of each powder and predict the residue left over. Maybe a vertical metal piece that the smoke will darken or pour it into an open tube and swab after each test burn. While going shooting is always fun, it's less fun fighting the fouling. I'm guessing that each paper is made from the fastest growing "tree" that they can find. Cut it down, plant behind the cutting, wait 15+ years to do the cycle again. Huge parts of the Adirondacks in NY are owned by paper companies.
Kirkland Brand TP from Costco would be worth a try. A quote from a site I found "Costco’s Kirkland toilet paper is made from wood pulp from 100% virgin forest fibers in Canada, specifically from boreal forests."
I wish I was still working as a Corrections Officer in our local jail, if I was I would send you a couple rolls of the TP we gave the inmates. That stuff was the cheapest I've ever seen and I would be curious how that stuff behaved because it looked like a softer version of adding machine paper. We referred to it as "Sh*t tickets."
Just wanted to say thanks for the work you do with these tests. In the spring I plan on trying out toilet paper and poplar. The only trees around me are hickory,oak,walnut,red cedar, and maple. Building a range out to 1,000 yards too so lots of experimenting with conicals.
Another very interesting video! Until your last one I had never considered anything other than a wood for BP. Now you've opened up a whole new world of experimentation, or pandora's box as another comentator said. I look forward to more of this. Hope you and your family had a good Christmas and a happy New Year!
Love the experiments. Neat to watch I'm always excited whats next. Here's a different idea to try after the toilet paper series is over. Optimizing the Pritchett cartridge with modern materials?
EBP brought up a good point. We don't know what the manufacturers used to make TP. Not knowing the starting ingredients makes reproducibility and explaining anything impossible.
Keep this up and I wouldn't be surprised to see your subscriber base skyrocket. You seem to have stumbled into a RU-vid goldmine. It could last a long time too with all the ideas people are giving you. I've noticed many of the woods that are considered some of the best for black power have pith in young stems. It may not be easy but I'd like to see charcoal made from just the pith tested.
I am in no way against any of this but I wonder why RU-vid allows this but Mike Beliveau's videos on putting sights on a 1851 Navy Colt is banned. Curious.
Wow, I'm working on making my first ever batch of black powder. On Christmas day, I fired up my woodstove, threw in the paint can filled with "old pallet" wood, which seems to be a softwood. The charcoal turned out nice. NOW, I must consider TP as a possible charcoal source, LOL.
Rayonier, a paper & pulp company, states that "The long, strong fibers of softwood trees like Southern yellow pines and Douglas-firs are used to make toilet paper strong. The shorter fibers of hardwood trees like oaks and maples give toilet paper its soft texture."
Your thoroughness is outstanding, I really enjoy the content, good no nonsense explanation of what you are doing, I love the segments like BP 303 British, and the myth busting, keep up the good work
DAYUM, Jake! I never would have thought TP would be such a controversial component of vintage muzzle loading propellant! I really would like to know if the cheapest (dollar store) variety will work well, as it may not have any additives at all! You probably don't need to research the "scented" products, as BP smells just fine untainted. LOL You are probably aware that the original outhouse paper was the Sears catalog, but the old originals are hard to find these days. And I don't think the newer glossy pages would do well. Anyway, thanks for the video, please keep 'em coming, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 👍
@@Everythingblackpowder And I just had a thought - what about that "Institutional Grade" paper towel that you're likely to find in gas station restrooms? You know, the tan colored stuff with some chunks in it, used to come on a big roll but now I think it's packaged in stacks of single sheets. Bet it's not bleached or treated with anything! Happy New Year!!
Most commercial paper these days is Chlorine bleached, with a brew very like your basic household bleach. I suspect the dwindling amount of "currency" paper used around the world is , like traditional, dazzling white paper, OXYGEN bleached, typically using Hydrogen peroxide. Chlorine bleached paper is cheaper and faster to make. However, if you look at your collection of clasic paperback cowboy novels, you may well find that many of them are c showing signs of pages "yellowing" or being outright brown and feeling "dusty". This is because there is still residual chlorine in th epper and it is "aging" the pages, quite quickly. Another thing to consider is the fibre "density" of toilet paper, compared with, say office "copy / bond" paper. Black-powder, being a "mixture, not a compound like smokeless, may be ubject to burn-rate variations caused by differences in the physical "urface contact in a "dry-mix' formulation. Just my busted Nickel's worth.
I really am enjoying this discussion. Would toilet paper for septic tanks and RV systems that breaks down in water work better. I am even more curious about high grade bamboo charcoal. It burns exceptionally clean and is extremely porous structurally, something you can turn into activated charcoal.
Regular tp works just fine in an rv system, that rv special stuff is a joke akin to snake oil. I’m full time in my rv for 3.5 years now with zero issues with regular tp, same with neighbors.
Excellent Jake! Keep up the good work. The yellow is excess Sulfur that did not burn. You might need to up your potassium nitrite a little bit. The requests for copy paper are not a real good idea. They have kaolin clay mixed in and maybe a little CaCO3 (limestone ground ver fine). The ash content is high.
I know that many papers use a type of clay additive to enhance certain properties. Maybe this is what's causing the chunky fouling and yellow color. I would be interested to see what cheap industrial toilet paper like you see in the bathrooms at service stations and Wal-Mart would do. One would think that this type of paper would have the least amount of additives simply from the cost of production standpoint.
There is an easy test to check for clay in paper/cardboard........burn some and look at the ash left over if its grey and holds its shape its got a high level of clay in the material, if it burns away to almost nothing and collapses its got little or no clay in it
Two things I will try if you do not get to them first are 1)amazon TP and 2)The Amazon box the TP came in. I want to try the cheapest toilet paper possible because its the cheapest, not because its better in any way. Just cheaper. I'm still researching the Polyvinyl Acetate that holds cardboard together. And for comparison - I'm doing this in a .45-70 CVA Scout, so I'm looking at this from the BP Cartridge perspective.
Most corrugated cardboard is glued together with sodium silicate (water glass), I predict it will be a royal mess for you. I'm considering trying brown Kraft packaging paper because I have access to an abundance of it.
I was told by someone that said he work in a TP factory that 2 ply was glued together. May be part of your yellow residue and even the dirty part. You may want to try one ply. I also posted your video links on a few BP sites so you are welcome for the subscribers. Keep it up I am loving this.
Re: yellow residues, i doubt its unburned sulfur. If its water soluble my guess would be potassium nitrite. Could be residues of emollients or moisturizers added to the TP. I prepped my own TP charcoal as i want to replicate your work, one thing i noticed is the density is quite low. I measured 52g of TP before carbureting, the total mass of finished charcoal was about 4 g.
During the Civil War soldirlers would keep a damp patch in their mouth. It helped to keep them hydrated and would be readily avaible to swab the barrel when residue built up.
Great video Jake, I would like to see a test done on the TP made from Bamboo. It would be made from a single source fiber and it's supposed to be of high quality. Thanks again for another great video!!!
Not sure if this helps at all, but I’m a reenactor and when we use the ‘reenactor’ black powder, that is the swept up junk from the floor at the factories, it’s all kinds of grain sizes. The inside of my barrel turns green/yellow after the barrel warms up after 6-7 shots. I never have that happen with higher quality power when actually firing live rounds when I’m at the range. In cartridges and muzzleloaders. I wonder what that yellow was.
Thanks for another great video! I would like to see something with Hemp. I thought about rope if it is a clean and pure source. Not sure what would be readily available to people other than rope. I think if you could find some sort of board it would be pressed with glue.
Great series! I have another dumb hypothesis regarding toilet paper charcoal. As very soft woods seem to make fast powder, I’m curious if it is because they carbonize more thoroughly? And TP being pulped soft wood it carbonizes even better. Have you tried using saw dust? Maybe balsa or alder buckthorn sawdust? It could also be impurities in the paper making process that is making it dirty, as you’ve already surmised, so maybe finely ground pure soft wood would make powder that is both powerful and clean
to get rid of the salts and sugars in the wood, black powder manufacturers in the past aged the wood chips outdoors for 2-3 years. I suggest soaking the toilet paper and rinsing it in distilled water, then drying the paper mass and making charcoal for black powder from it. maybe black powder would be cleaner to shoot
I truly appreciate all the videos you make. Very informative, indeed! Even though I have been involved with BP revolvers and rifles, for a good number of years, which lead to reloading for our other pistols and rifles, I have never made any BP and plan to give it a try as I am gathering all that is needed. I have a metal fab shop so I have a 50ton press to make the pucks. I do have a question, do you think you can over do the pressing of the pucks and accidently get ignition? Also I noticed that I ordered the wrong Cottonelle toilet paper, the "Ultra clean" after reviewing your video so I reordered and have the "Comfort care" coming. Anyway, your videos are the best and I do not plan to make any of my own damn videos! At least not yet!!
Jake, it appears that printer paper can contain a lot of clay if it is "coated" or otherwise known as glossy. I would love to see uncoated paper testing, and or maybe some other form like napkins or paper towels. Something that can be found in bulk either cheap or free.
Pretty much all commercial typing/printer paper nowadays is treated in several ways (different stuff added). If you want to try paper, I'd suggest something known to be untreated such as the old "Big Chief" tablets. Admittedly hard to find, now, but once used by every school kid.
Ok you got me hooked...as a (very amateur) scientist/chemist I want to try all the various strange ways of making the carbon base for the black powder. By strange I mean "cornstalk styrofoam", wasp nests, cattails....etc. Maybe even soaking some of the materials in Lye (wood ash) solution prior to carbonizing. I could probably look this up, but are there any easy ways to tell if it's worth anything just by looking at it? Don't want to go the whole nine yards on equipment just yet. Egg yolks might be fun...they already got sulfur in them. Just cruising around the internet looking for "strange" ingredients I ran across peat moss...hmmm Activating the charcoal also seems like a good idea (bind oxygen to the surface). You might even make a new BP convert here so I cant test my experiments on little piles of crude powder. My vote still goes to the Scott 1000/SimplyDone septic safe 1-ply TP. Trust me it's got no lotion in it....
I advocate for testing printing paper. Something that can be acquired quite easily, relatively cheap(per ounce) and is already quite dense. Also, due to its easily-measured capacity, wide variety of weights and brightness levels(something to consider is additional brightening agents many fancier papers might employ).
It's kind of ironic it was soooo dirty ! lol But all seriousness thanks for doing these videos very good and informative only bad thing is I can't be part of the experiments have a Happy New Years !!
Well, kind of weird that powder made from TP like that would leave little klingons on the cleaning wipes when you run it through the barrel. Almost seems like it came full circle.
Sure is cool to see all the different carbon sources you can use. Never knew there would be so many. Would love to see Taco Bell napkins used as the carbon source. Just for sh**s and giggles lol.
Most paper plants buy pulp from pulping mills. Paper plants make both name brand and generics. Mike Rowe did an episode on this. I would recommend trying cotton.
Interesting. Charmin will probably do the same I'm guessing, you guys may be right about the additives to make it soft on the back side. I for one appreciate all the effort you guys are putting in to this. T.P. just may be the easiest carbon source for most of us to find.
Another tp to try would be the boat/rv toilet paper, quick Google search says it has a diffrent binder/glue to allow it to break down quicker in the blackwater tanks
Brown paper bags would be interesting.. Not brown cardboard since that uses silica glue. Brown paper lacks kaolin paper sizing but generally has considerably more lignin than more refined papers. What effect does lignin have? Most papers are made of primarily spruce and fir with some pine. Hardwoods are added in very small amounts.
I think the region the paper is made is going to influence how the powder performs. Maybe look where each paper is made and see which trees are grown there to give an idea to what might have been used.
I have a suggestion for a paper source. I suggest you go with the original OG of papermakers And use a hornet's nest. It's basically wood pulp that's been broken down with their saliva no chemicals. That could be the clean source you're looking for
All those chemicals they put in tp that is unnecessary, thats why i use a bidet! Cant wait to see how the all cotton does b4 i buy any extra tp. Another great presentation! I totally look forward to watching your videos! Thanks guys (that includes Johnny)!
Looks like Cottonelle is in the lead so far. The yellow color is weird. Normally I would guess Sulphur, but in TP? Thanks for the specs on your gun. I'm looking at Elk legal .50 cal. Haven't picked the gun up yet, so there is that. Also, thanks for doing this research. Very helpful. 😎
Newsprint may be more of a pure cellulose similar to the "john Wayne" TP but of course, it has ink if it has been through the printing press. You could visit your local printing office, they may have trim or you might beg a few layers off the roll. It may also be available through an arts and crafts store. I have 35 years designing and installing pulp and paper handling machinery and though I don't know a lot about the paper making processes, I think there are a lot of products out there that would be as good or better than the "John Wayne" TP. but you gotta admit, a roll of TP fits comfortably into a paint can. One product that I suspect would be really great is the milk carton stock before it is waxed. I saw a lot of that at the International Paper Co. Texarkana Mill. Someone that works there is following your powder making experiments.
