Explosion at MDM

[mike3132]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37155705/ns/business#storyContinued

[minst7877]

This will probably mean the end of Black Mag Powder. Bad situation and two workers died my thoughts go out to their families.

DC

[rossman40]

I was told a while back that the powder was made somewhere else, maybe they moved the powder making in house. They (Black Magic) also recently came up with a priming powder sub for flintlocks. Maybe they hired some ex-Goex employees, that plant was/is famous for blowing up every so often, while it was in PA and even after they moved it south.

Loss of life is always bad, my prayers also to the families.

[rossman40]

It will be interesting to see the results of any investigation. Luckly there were only 3 people in the building which MDM shared with other firms. MDM just moved into the facility last year and already had another incident with fire and injury.

The big hazard is milling the powder which is why most modern smokeless powders are extruded, flake or ball. That way no milling is required after the powder ingredients are mixed. Traditional powder making involved grinding the ingredients, then mixing with water to form "cakes". The cakes were put back into a roller mill to grind into the proper size/coarseness. Old vertical roller mill,



Stones were replaced by steel rollers right around the civil war and the mills became more compact. Modern roller mills can be fairly small and guys that make their own gunpowder for fireworks and rocket motor propellant even use a ball mill which are easy to make and somewhat self contained.

Regardless if it is gunpowder, talcum powder or flour you have the chance of a dust explosion and just one spark from static electricity, a bad bearing or even a speck of flint in the old stone grinding wheels could ruin your day about like a flood in a fizzy factory.

Of course mills in general, flour, feed or grist, in the past had a bad habit of burning. We have/had a few old mills in the area and if you look at their history they burned and were rebuilt several times.