Making Blackpowder
 

Now here's a handy skill if there ever was one! I expect everybody knows how to make charcoal. Here's how to make saltpeter.

http://www.fryingcolors.com/saltpeter.html

The question remains how to make sulphur?

I'm pretty sure it'll work without sulphur and the saltpeter should work with sugar and neither charcoal nor sulphur.

Re: Making Blackpowder
 

Many of the caves around here and up into southwestern Virginia were mined during the War of Northern Aggression for saltpeter. They set up log earthworks ( you can still see them in some caves ), ran water thru the dirt and carried the leachate outside to evaporate, leaving the PN crystals behind.

Re: Making Blackpowder
 

Doesn't it take an awful long time for a very small amount of saltpeter to be collected? I saw a lot of it for sale on Ebay, I was considering buying it, but the gov't 100% monitors everything that is bought on ebay (I have a friend who got paid a visit)

Re: Making Blackpowder
 

I'll have to build one myself and get back to you, but from the research I've done it looks like the process is quite similar to composting. It is slow, depending on your definition of slow, but you get a lot, depending on your definition of a lot and how big your pile was in the first place. A compost pile's worth of saltpeter "generator" ought to keep you in blackpowder if you can come up with the other ingredients. The charcoal can be made from most softwood in the usual way but it's the sulpher that seems tricky to me.

Re: Making Blackpowder
 

Sulphur is an element, I think you have to mine it.

Re: Making Blackpowder
 

There is sulphur in lots of stuff, eggs and my well water for instance. The problem is how to extract it. If you can make sugar you shouldn't need it, though.

I'm going set up a saltpeter pile next to my compost pile and see what I get.

Re: Making Blackpowder
 

Can you reclaim sulpher from sulphuric acid in junk car batteries? Good way to recycle. And don't they have lead in them too? Lead for bullets, sulphur for the blackpowder, this might actually be good for the enviornment!

Re: Making Blackpowder
 

You can get bulk sulfer at some gardening supply places as it is used as a fertilizer for acid loveing plants. Small amounts is easy to get from many drug stores.

Re: Making Blackpowder
 

As an interesting aside, it is a little known fact that plants use almost as much sulphur as phosphorous, yet, often, very little sulphur is applied in commercial growing areas.