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From - Thu Jan 9 07:09:12 1997 From: Rob Chatburn
Subject: potassium nitrate
Some details on potassium nitrate manufacture:

MATERIALS
-about 3-1/2 gallons of nitrate bearing earth (from sources mentioned in the other postings; also soil containing decayed organic matter, old cellars or farm dirt floors, earth from burial grounds, totally burned whitish wood ash powder)

Note; yield can be altered by changing material amounts while keeping proportions the same

PROCEDURE
1. Punch holes in bottom of bucket. Spread piece of cloth over holes inside bucket.
2. Place wood ashes on cloth and spread to make a layer about the thickness of the cloth. Place second piece of cloth on top of ashes.
3. Place dirt in bucket.
4. Place bucket over shallow container. Bucket may be supported on sticks if necessary.
5. Boil water and pour it over earth in bucket a little at a time. Allow water to run through holes in bucket into shallow container. Be sure water goes through ALL of the earth. Allow drained liquid to cool and settle for about 2 hours.
6. Carefully drain off liquid into heat resistant container. Discard any sludge remaining in the bottom of the shallow container.
7. Boil mixture over hot fire for at least 2 hours. Small grains of salt will begin to appear in the solution. Scoop these out as they form, using any type of improvised strainer (e.g., paper).
8. When liquid has boiled down to approximately half its original volume, remove from fire and let sit. After half an hour, add an equal volume of alcohol. When mixture is poured through paper, small white crystals will collect on top of it.
9. To purify the potassium nitrate, re-desolve the dry crystals in the smallest possible amount of boiled water. Remove any salt crystals that appear (step 7); pour through an improvised filter made of several pieces of paper and evaporate or gently heat the concentrated solution to dryness.
10. Spread crystals on flat surface and allow to dry. The potassium nitrate crystals are now ready for use.

Robert Chatburn

Date - Thu Jan 9 21:43:53 1997
From - Ron Hood
Subject: Re: Potassium Nitrate & Black Powder

Rob,
Excellent info! I don't remember all of those steps. We were probably just making some really polluted stuff. What I do remember is what we could use either a parachute or a pack bag to hold the dirt. We also used a military poncho to catch the fluids and "T" shirt filters (Mine already had crystals growing on them). Once the crystals had formed the ratio for the blackpowder was:

These measures are by volume, use a measuring cup instead of a scale or balance.

Now we can really go get those marmots!
Ron Hood

Date: Thu, 09 Jan 1997 08:24:55 -0800
Subject: Re: Natural Sources of Potassium Nitrate (from "Improving cattail tinder" thread)

During my military training we were taught how to make explosives with common chemicals and in some cases, how to make the chemicals themselves. Potassium Nitrate is also known as "saltpeter (Saltpetre)" and is the oxidizing agent in black powder.

It is formed... or precipitated from... feces. Turds lying in a field will, after some time, develop a whitish crystalline powder which is part uric acid and part potassium nitrate. This substance, the crystals, not the turds, are collected and washed to separate the chemicals. I will try to remember the exact process we used and post that later. I do remember that the crystals with the highest concentration of Potassium nitrate were found on the underside of the turd, next to the ground.

This powder was mixed in the classic proportions with either charcoal and sulphur, or charcoal and sugar, to make a stinky explosive. The sugar mix smelled like a candied turd. Do NOT try this in your rifle! It is OK in Bamboo nail guns.

I'll look in my notes for more info on the process. It is simple and the saltpeter is useful in a number of ways to enhance ignition etc. It is not effective in curbing sexual drive as some legends will have us believe.

Ron Hood

Date: Thu, 09 Jan 1997 11:35:55 -0600
From: "Mark L. Anderson"
Subject: Re: More on Potassium Nitrate

Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound, KNO3, which is produced by nitrification in soils used in gunpowder, fertilizers and preservatives (i.e., saltpeter). I would imagine that a good knowledge of your local natural resources would point you to a geologic source. Otherwise I'm not sure how one might manufacture it.

Mark.

Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 15:29:01 -0500 (EST)
From: merv martin
Subject: Re: "Manure-factured" Potassium Nitrate

Andre wrote

Sure, It can be "manure-factured." The best source is a bat cave that's been used for a while. Potassium nitrate is one of the salts that's expelled from the bodies of mammals, I think in urine, but it could be both. Bat Guano, used to be mined for this. Chicken poop should be good too and if you're close to an old outhouse, human waste is high in nitrates (potassium nitrate) too. If it's poop and good fertilizer, then it's probably a good source of potassium nitrate. The best stuff is the well aged stuff. In bat caves, it's the stuff that looks like dirt, not the fresh.

BTW, potassium nitrate is also known as nitre. (That's right, it grows on the walls of catacombs).

Now, to get the stuff out... It's a leaching and drying process like extracting lye from ashes. Water is poured through a pile of ... (be nice merv!) preprocessed potassium nitrate ore, the liquid coming through it is captured and dried in the sun. The resulting crystals are pretty pure potassium nitrate. The easiest way, if you have the materials is to build a hopper to hold the ore and a catchment below it for the liquid that comes through.

Any hydro-carbon soaked in potassium nitrate solution and dried should make a good tinder. Now if we only had some sulfur and some charcoal, we'd be on our way to fun stuff! This combination should make good tinder too!

Merv

Date: Thu, 09 Jan 1997 16:19:16 -0800
From: Terry Hayhurst
Subject: Re: Barnyard Potassium Nitrate

I'm not a chemist but I may have part of the answer. Potassium Nitrate aka salt peter was used by Mt. Men in making black powder. The chemical can be found where animal urine has evaporated (around barnyards or outhouses). White crystals form which are collected and ground into a powder. Add equal amounts of powdered sulphur and charcoal and you have basic black powder. I have collected and processed the ingredients, but have not made any powder.

Grizz aka Terry Hayhurst

Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 11:52:45 -0600
From: Benjamin Pressley
Subject: Re: Improving cattail tinder

That's what it was! I knew it came out of a cave. It isn't mined it comes from bat guano. Duh! I remember hearing that on a tour of the Lost Sea cave in Sweetwater, TN. There was a potassium nitrate operation going on there during the Civil War.

Benjamin Pressley

 

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