[yhtomit]

Tonight, I went to a rodeo -- in New Jersey! I had no idea such a thing existed, but there's a long-running rodeo at a place called Cow Town ("Cowtown"?), with bull riding, barrel racing, etc, and a friend of mine soon moving out of town wanted to go.

She and her sister ordered some peanuts (hot and roasted, but not salted); she eats them with the shell on. I tried this, and thought that as cardboard goes, it wasn't very tasty.

However, the texture seemed like it might make a decent tumbler medium; anyone have experience using peanut shells in this way? Would be possibly be harmful? Are they too soft to get any purchase on the grit?

I anxiously await the always interesting answers :)

timothy

[mc223]

I do not have a good scientific reason of why not, but I reckon if it was a good idea, everyone would be using it.
Keep thinkin outside the box, maybe you'll hit on the next big time/money/accuracy, rage of the century.

[Steve C]

I would think the issue with peanut shells would be the size of the pieces. Using corn cob or walnut shell the media can be ground to a pretty small size but peanut shells have long stringy veins in the shell and probably doesn't lend itself to being ground into small uniform size. Peanut shells are also relatively shoft and may work well for polishing but probably not as good as walnut or harder media for cleaning.

[Shoney]

Tumbling Medium, isn't that when a psychic is a gymnast????????

Well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In order to get enough peanut shells , you have to eat a lot of peanuts. In order to eat a lot of peanuts, you have to drink a lot of beer. When you drink enough beer, you will begin tumbling every time you stand up; and in addition you always get a horendous case of the S.P.A.'s the next day.

So yes! Peanut hulls are good tumbling media, so to speak. :evil::neener:
Whether they will clean and polish brass is another question.

[Sheldon]

I would think the peanut shells tumbling qualities would be closer to corn cob then walnut shells. Getting it crushed to uniform pieces may be a hassle, which is why the prepped stuff is so popular as the fine texture woun't plug inside the cases or the primer pockets.....hopefully.

[mscott]

I love saving money, but these threads for homemade lube, case polish, and off-the-wall tumbling media, etc. crack me up.

[RustyFN]

I went to a rodeo -- in New Jersey
Now there is a sentence I thought I would never see. I agree with mc223 about thinking outside the box. You never know until you try. I have heard of people who grind the corn cob in a blender to make it smaller and also people who use rice to tumble in. The peanut shell thing might turn out to be great. You might try putting them in a blender or food processor and see how it works. If you need help eating the peanuts and drinking beer let me know.:D
Rusty

[Sunray]

Peanut shells are too thin and soft. It'd create a lot of dust too.
"...went to a rodeo -- in New Jersey..." Cowboys and rodeos are everywhere. Look at all the people in New Jersey wearing cowboy hats that have never been closer to a cow than a glass of milk.

[scout26]

Put in call to George Washington Carver at the Tuskeegee Institute....

[no_problem]

<<In order to get enough peanut shells , you have to eat a lot of peanuts. In order to eat a lot of peanuts, you have to drink a lot of beer. When you drink enough beer, you will begin tumbling every time you stand up; and in addition you always get a horendous case of the S.P.A.'s the next day.

So yes! Peanut hulls are good tumbling media, so to speak.
>>


:D:D ROTFLMAO :D:D

[jibjab]

How about filberts,or Brazilian or pistachios nut shells, one could use a food processor or bean grinder to chop, and then screen out the dust. Next fall I'll save some shells for testing :D

[yhtomit]

mscott wrote "I love saving money, but these threads for homemade lube, case polish, and off-the-wall tumbling media, etc. crack me up."

Why's that?

I'm attracted to reloading partly for the DIY aspect of it, but there's plenty of reliance on precision-made stuff in the process. When there are feasible substitutions etc (like in the sticky thread about helpful inventions), I find them intriguing. Brake cleaner is cheaper than specialized "gun cleaning" products that do the same thing, for instance, and I'm glad to find such things out.

Maybe peanut shells are for some reason(s) completely unsuitable for tumbling (too much dust? too stringy? Too smooth?), but until I started reading this site and getting interested in reloading, I would never have guessed that high-tech walnut or tactical corncob were the media of choice* :) Peanuts are just another organic product that it seems to me have a texture not *too* far off from those, at least if blender-chopped a bit.

timothy


* I guess I would have known that if I had some other hobby involving tumbling such parts, but no such luck.

[koja48]

Dunno about peanut shells, but as an old, misplaced Montana bull-dogger, what the heck did they ride? Back on topic, too thin, too much dust, and I doubt that whatever cleaning/polishing attribute such have would last very long, durability being important.

[yhtomit]

Koja48 -- I guess you mean what were they riding at a NJ rodeo, right? :)

Bulls (the first event was one round of bullriding, but this was split up into three groups), horses (girl's barrel racing and buckin' horses), and calves (if you want to count "wrestling" as "riding" at least). I think there were nine total events (inclu. 3 rounds of bull riding).

The whole event was about 2 hours long, not an all-day show; they do two shows nightly summer weekends. Overall, a good time, but I'm ambivalent about the animals involved; not sure how I feel overall about the ways they get those bulls to buck, for instance, or about the frightened calves being wrestled. A better life than the slaughterhouse, I suppose ... and since I eat meat, how much room do I have to complain? Just noting for the record.

timothy

[Walkalong]

Shoney nailed this one. I'll be sticking with corncob. :D

[koja48]

Just joshin' you, Timothy; my apology if I offended you in any way. I thought "trying" tp ride calves when I was a kid was PLENTY exciting!!! First time I tried bulldogging I got run over . . . Dad came out, saw I was alright, told me to get back in the saddle & try again . . . added this advice: "Remember, you're supposed to throw 'em, not trip 'em."

[Steel Talon]

Why?
Given the avaiabilty and cost of walnut/corn cob bedding. I would think collecting grinding etc. of peanut hulls would be way to time consuming for me anyway.

Peace
Steel Talon:cool:

[yhtomit]

koja48 -- no offense taken, far from it! I was just answering the question I thought you were asking ;)

I thought the bucking [bull/bronco] events were exciting, but sheesh -- I'd buck too, with a rope being yanked around my testicles! The courage to stay on, or even to *get* on in the first place, is pretty intense, esp. considering that the riders pay to enter the event in the first place, and then BAM, a few seconds later it's over.

And for the record (to everyone wondering why I'd want to use peanut shells in a tumbler ;)), it was just an idle thought and casual curiosity. One bag of corncob medium was about 15 dollars, and I think enough to last for a *long* time!

Cheers,

timothy

[TimboKhan]

Completely off topic, but the comment:
Look at all the people in New Jersey wearing cowboy hats that have never been closer to a cow than a glass of milk.

isn't entirely accurate. While I am no particular advocate of New Jersey agriculture, it does have more to offer than what the Sopranos might lead you to believe. I give you this qoute from the New Jersey Dairy Council:

In 1999, the state's 186 commercial and six institutional dairy farms produced just over 256 million pounds of milk valued at $43 million. New Jersey dairy farmers also produced heifers, cull cows, calves, grain, hay and other agricultural items, including breeding supplies such as calf embryos and semen.

Sorry for the off topic, but seeing as how peanut shells would not make particularly good tumbling media, I thought that I would add this to the discussion instead.

[loadedround]

I heard that Kitty Litter works pretty good also.:)

[loadedround]

;)

[BigG]

How about plain old sand? :confused:

[koja48]

Good. Sometimes I'm guilty of only letting half of my wit out . . .