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In order to make my first batch of fireballs I needed some charcoal fines or dust. I charred some switchgrass and leaves to start with. That would be easy to reduce, but was unsure how to go about this task at hand. Having already removed the paddles from the cement mixer, I got the bright idea to place the switchgrass and leave char in the cement mixer plus one large rock, see picture #1. So I gave it a try, not knowing that there is such a device as a ball mill. I learned fast that a lid was in order! Dust cloud anyone? This worked well for the charred switchgrass.


Well, I did not have enough dust for my experiment so I robed my heathut, wood furnace, for some charcoal. I though that one could just crush it up with a hammer and save some time. I was more than surprised to realize how tough wood charcoal is! I learn fast that another method was needed. So I set the mixer up one more time, but now with lumps of wood charcoal in the mixer with my large rock, see picture #2.


It started to reduce the wood charcoal kind of fast but as some dust was made the dust production slowed. In other words the presents of dust seemed to slow down the reduction of the charcoal. Next I added one more large rock. This helped somewhat. I let it run for about one hour and decided to shut it off.  Picture #3 shows what the end product looked like. Simply too many small lumps mixed up with the fines. Next I decided to screen the charcoal with a kitty litter scooper. Not a speedy operation but it got the job done and you can see in picture #4 what the lumps looked like. Finally I had my charcoal fines and they can be seen in picture #5.




About six months later I got the silly notion to try to reduce retted switchgrass in my poor excuse for a ball mill. As you can see in picture #6 I found some smaller rocks for this experiment and more of them. Picture #7 shows the switchgrass particles flying out of the cement mixer. It seemed to work but I was loosing most of my switchgrass particle out of the opening of the cement mixer. Lacking the necessary time to make a temporary cover I decided to add some water in order to settle the dust. Also this would work in nicely with hydrogen bonding, but thats for another article.


Of course to start with I added too much water and the switchgrass and rocks just stayed put, lost traction, as the cement mixer turned. So most of the water was drained out. Picture #8 shows the operation in motion. It seemed to be too noisy so more switchgrass was added and that can be observed in picture #9. One could also observe some fibers being produced but the amount seemed low for the amount of time and energy being exerted.


I noticed some objects flying out of the cement mixer during this phase of the experiment. After closer observation they appeared to be small wafers of switchgrass. Picture #10 shows the first two wafers gleaned. They were still wet at this time. Please excuse my dirty hand that appears in this photo!


In picture #11 one can see them in reference to the size of a penny. The penny is in the center of the picture. The wafers are dry in this and the remaining pictures. Picture #12 shows a closer view. Picture #13 shows a close up of just one of the wafers. Picture #14 is just one more shot of the wafers in reference to the size of a US penny and picture #15 shows a group of wafers.


I do not know if there is a name  for these objects made in a ball mill. If not I have thought of a few possible names: ball mill wafers (BMW), ball wafers, firewafers (after fireballs) or biowafers.

Testing these wafers will have to be left for another article.