I read somewhere that if u mix equal parts of zinc powder and sulfer it makes a real good flash powder. Can anyone tell me if this is true. I don't wanna buy the shit and have it suck.

try askin in the backyard balistics forum. they would know better. or maybe even the better livil through chemistry forum....though asking here IS a bad idea

should. any oxidiser and fuel will for the most part. just remember, if a pairing goes up and across the periodic table from alkalias to non metals it make a decent flash powder.

Zinc + Sulfur is often used as a rocket fuel. You should be able to get more info on the RRS website or over at rocketryonline.com. You can also search for '+"BETA Rocket" +zinc' on your favourite search engine and start sifting through the results.

~Snake

Yes this will totally work, just a matter of getting the zinc fine enough.

Hey and the ZnS residue left over can be used to make H2S gas, mmmmm. good idea.

Thanxs, is 325 mesh fine enough?

Zinc can easily be obtained, by the way, in bar form at your local Home Depot. In the hardware section there is a rack of random metal bits- Steel and aluminum strips and L brackets and rods and whatnot. There is also a selection of zinc rods and strips, and I think these are relatively pure.

I'll keep you posted on this. I think I've devised a mechanical means of grinding the stuff into a fine enough powder.

~Zero the Inestimable

I found a real good website where u can get just about any type of powder. They sell zinc dust for about 5 bucks a pound. Check it out below.
http://www.pyrotek.org

WOW.
No one on this board new about that site!

Well, scratch that. Even though the label said the bars at the hardware store were pure zinc they are in fact zinc plated steel. There goes that idea.

~Zero the Inestimable

can't you get zinc out of a battery in the papper tube?

you can get zinc out of batteries but batteries are kinda hard to get open and you get a ver small amount out of one battery plus the shit inside a battery is like a pastey form. One pound of zinc is worth like a few hundred batteries.

Pennies made after 1983 are composed of 97 percent zinc. The rest is copper plating. A penny weighs between two and three grams, by my scale, so if I can find a good method of grinding down pennies we may have a solid source of zinc.

Anyone have any thoughts on chemical means of doing this? I know hydrochloric acid will dissolve zinc, the trouble comes in extracting the zinc from the acid afterwards...

~Zero the Inestimable