more rcandy help

[Zippiot]

i need some help with this guys. i have dun much research and cant really find an answer.

my propellant (rcandy) lights great and such, but as it is burnin it spews this white goo that quickly hardens (definately not sugar). is this extra oxidizer or a bi-product of the reaction? does this happen to everyone is wut im asking, if not any advice to get rid of it will help.

i am now weighing it, 2 oz to 1 oz o/f is the ratio i am using, is that reasonable? 66.6%:33.3%

wut is the best method for cooking rcandy, using a double boiler or mixing water in with the propellant?

[Greg O'Bryant]

I read somewhere that if a powder has residue like that it can mean a few things. One it may have too much oxidizer, it could have too much water in it, or it may not be mixed well enough. Either way it means that it is not burning like it should and that you are loosing power. The fastest and cleanest burning sugar propellant that I use to make was recrystalized with water and contained about 68-69% KNO3 to 31-32% sugar by weight.

[Zippiot]

i was looking at elements from my old chemistry set. a few were noteworthy, iron for example seemed to burn bright white, and copper made a blu-green flame. a few i ahve not tried, and was wondering if anyone knew the possible outcome.

one item of interest is borax, it is Na2B4O7. any idea wut this will do?

also iron oxide is a common ingredient, does it speed up reaction or is it invaluable to make the reaction work?

are there any other things worth adding to the rcandy? anything, within reason, that i can find nearby? i hear orange zest (scrapes from the peel) adds a pyrotechnic effect, though i am not sure wut.

i finally got this thing down, and have casted wut will one day be put into my first engine casing assembly. it is 5 inches long and 3/4 inch wide.

i have everyhting i need for crimson powder cept iron oxide, but im sure i can make rust if i really need it, crimson powder seems very dangerous, as it is more potent than black powder (wow!!!) so extreme caution will be taken.

[Zippiot]

for crimson powder...my oven only goes down to 170 degrees, nakka recomends 150...is 170 too high?

[Zippiot]

ok, borax definately aided in sum way, the stuff lights so much faster now

[Zippiot]

im havin problems casting this stuff, any tips?

im using an eletric burner, once i get enough water out of it i send it into the oven to bake around 300-350 degrees. if i skip the oven aprt and keep it in the pan it carmalizes too quickly, but the oven make sit ball up and crumble if not taken out at exactly the right moment. lower ovne temp doesnt seem to evap any wate at all, i tried it at 250 degrees for 4 hrs with no chang ein consistancy (failed the snap test miserably by sticking to my finger and giving me burns)

any ideas?

i am using 2 different recipies. 1 is 50g kno3 25g sugar and 12g karo with 50 ml water
the other is 4 parts kno3 to 3 parts sugar.

both are refined each time until i get consistant ignition

[Greg O'Bryant]

Are you really cooking this stuff up in the kitchen? Please get an electric frying pan and take it out side!! I have seen rocket candy ignite by boiling over onto a hot element and also on an electrically charged plug, but it was outside and away from anything that it could hurt so no damage done. When you have a potential ignition source it is the most dangerous part of the process, and should never be done indoors. Once my little brother had a small piece of burning propellant bounce off of his shin. It didn't seem like it did anything but a few days later it turned into a big oozing burn that was as ugly as hell. I do admire your energy levles you have about this stuff but I'm worried you'll be working on bone # 18 or going to the burn ward. About your other questions I don't know I have never really mixed other chemicals with rocket candy. I really don't want to offend you, but I am sincerely concerned!

[Zippiot]

it is a portable eletric element, guess i shuda said that huh?

im crazy, not stupid. or was it stupid crazy,the line is so thin nowadays

[Zippiot]

ok i know this is really sketch but this was jsut a test, mostly cause i cant find my toaster oven (we recently got a regular toaster and nun of us can find the old one)

i made a long tube the thickness of a aa battery, filled it with the rcandy powder and set it int he oven at 350 degrees. after about 15 misn the stuff is dun perfectly, i have never seen such a good batch, but it does shrink. i was trying to cook the stuff int he same tube as it will be cased in to save time, and he shriinkage will not do, unless i just add more powder to it. now all i gotta do is make a fuse and im set

[Greg O'Bryant]

I'm Glad to hear that I gues I shouldn't have assumed. you know what they say! I have toyed with the idea of letting the rocket candy get cold and then using a ram to press it into a container. I don't know if it will work, but I saw on another post harbor frieght has them for pretty cheap.

[Zippiot]

there are mechanical presses, i see them in every shop. most are rated around 3k pounds, but the ones with engines strapped to them reach well over 10k i believe

also i hear if you heat it to 200 degrees irt becomes like modeling clay...

[Greg O'Bryant]

Does anybody know the history of how RCANDY got popular I remeber in the 80's nobody really did much with it but in the 90's it took off. Just wondering why. The internet perhaps.

[Greg O'Bryant]

Just making a possible claim to fame. In the early 90's I came up with rocket candy all on my own. I thought that I had invented it. I know that this isn't true and that isn't a big suprise, but I think I may have made up the recrystalized process. I would use water in a frying pan. All I could find was the prilled KNO3 and I hated the time it took to ball mill the propellant so I came up with disolving instead. I even sold a pamphlet on how to make it this way. It is copyrighted May 18, 1995. I am bringing this up now becuase I just read a thread that said James Yawn started the recrystalized process some time after 2000. Can anybody find reference to recrystalized rocket candy earlier than 1995?
Thanks

[Zippiot]

Nakka's site has a big section dedicated to the history of rcandy, but I have not read it all

http://members.aol.com/ricnakk/history.html