Centrifugal detonator press

[Arkangel]

I've never pressed a det before, so I could be talking out of my arse....however, has anyone thought of making a centrifuge to compact their primaries?

It shouldn't be so difficult to fashion something, even powered by an electric drill. The longer the arms, the more force applied to the material (obviously you'd have to balance it quite well to avoid excessive vibration), and you have no worries about friction setting it off, or you being close to it - you just turn on a switch at the end of a long power extension cable.

[SATANIC]

I think you're making it difficult to perform a relatively simple job. I've also never pressed dets, (don't muck around with H.E. much, only AN mixes)but I don't think you need to go to that much trouble.

first, I don't know how you plan on attatching the det onto the drill, but just imagine if it came off !! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> a pretty serious projectile could be headed your way.

There's still going to be friction as well.... just because you're not pressing it between two things (ram and det body for e.g.) doesn't mean there won't be enough friction between seperate crystals of primary to ignite / detonate. and using a drill or something, it's going to whistling around pretty quickly.

anyway, it's not too hard to press them 'normally' using a ram / shield setup, so why bother with a risk you don't need to take? (sorry if i'm spoiling your fun) but I would stick to the tried and tested method, because as far as i can see, yours offers no advantage.

actually, I suppose some primaries may be suited to it, but I don't really know enough to comment on that..... but I'm sure someone else will.

[mongo blongo]

IIRC this has been talked about before somewhere but I can't find it on the search engine? Good idea though. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[Arkangel]

Mongo, I did have a good look, but nothing came up except stuff about centrifugal bb guns and centrifugal forces in ball milling. (same for you probably)

Satanic, the construction of this would be safe, and a piece of piss.... :p

Get a long round metal rod, and weld a Flat piece of steel to one end to make a "T" shape. Then weld a short piece of steel tube on to each end of the flat steel, capping the outer ends to make cups. Then you mount the round rod in two bearings that are fastened to your bench and stick your drill chuck round the bottom of the "T".

To use it, you'd weigh your det assembly and put a matching counterweight in one tube. Then put the det in the other end (making sure that neither could drop out) and spin it up.

Length of the "T", speed of drill and duration of spin will determine the density of the final product, but the advantages are that you would have no plunger friction (agreed with what you say about internal friction), you could be WELL removed from the proximity of the process, and it would be easy to produce dets of a consistent quality by timing your spin.

I reckon I could knock one of these up in an hour, and if you already have a welder/drill, it should cost you less than $15 to build.

[A-BOMB]

I posted this kind of thing awhile back, first you would need a weight ontop of the primary and the chance of getting some of the primary between the weight and the casing would be great and something else that I can't remember right now but I remember it later.

[Zach]

I think you would need a much greater speed than can be provided by a hand drill. unless youve got a metal or wood lathe flipped on its end, with no table, or you used really short arms, this idea seems impractical.