How to make Nitrocellulose (Gun Cotton)

Step 2:

The nitrocellulose will now be very tangled and knotted. For best performance, it must be pulled apart and made fluffy as cotton once again. This is a very tedious job to do by hand, but is necessary to make it burn quickly enough to not harm the skin. Untangling the cotton will be much easier if the cotton balls are unrolled before nitrating them. The nitrocellulose must be fully dry for use. From the 2.5 g of cotton that is used in this experiment, approximately 5 g of nitrocellulose should be produced.

This process can be done to cotton in any form. Thin fabric or paper may be used to make flash paper, though it is difficult not to rip it during nitration. A glass tray may take the place of a beaker to nitrate sheets of cotton more effectively. A demonstration of such a process using cotton fabric is demonstrated below:

The process demonstrated in the video yields lesser quality nitrocellulose than the above written synthesis will yield, so that should be taken into consideration should top quality be desired.