Have you tried it with alkanet root ?

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
Have you tried it with alkanet root ?

African or European?

South American.

When I was a kid we used to harvest black walnuts by the bushel full and hull them with a tractor and a trough, jack up one side and the trough sits under the spinning wheel. Pour the nuts in and it will remove the hulls and throw the nuts 30 feet away.
No one does that any more; at least I don't; let the squirrels have them, or rot away. We have lots of them. ]
But there is nothing like the taste.

I have my grandparents old walnut sheller. Holding bin on top and large hand crank. Setting in the shed next to the corn sheller.

They were OLD when I used them 60 years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
When I was a kid we used to harvest black walnuts by the bushel full and hull them with a tractor and a trough, jack up one side and the trough sits under the spinning wheel. Pour the nuts in and it will remove the hulls and throw the nuts 30 feet away.
No one does that any more; at least I don't; let the squirrels have them, or rot away. We have lots of them. ]
But there is nothing like the taste.

Doggone it, I thought we were the only ones who did that! Where I grew up, outside Joliet, we had 2 very big (4'+ diameter) black walnut trees and a smaller one on our farm.
We fired up the old Farmall and let 'er rip.
A whole lot of fun.

We didn't have no factory sheller. But had lots of walnut trees. In WV.
You can use a jacked up pickup truck tire too. Works well.

Ever try and start a hand crank Allis Chalmers in the winter?? Hard for a 10-12 year old. Thought I broke my arm once when it kicked back

Granddad wouldn't let me us the either.

So the hand crank shellers were the option

Never tasted black walnut ice cream but will be going through 40 black walnut stock blanks next week. They were cut in 1972 and have been air drying in an out building. I hope they were quarter sawed.

There were lots of black walnut orchards in Santa Clara (Silicon) Valley when I grew up there in the 50's. Walnut fights were a lot of fun, until you took a head shot.

Blue Bell makes some good black walnut ice cream. A little bit of that with a good cup of coffee makes a damn good desert. I also use them instead of pistachios in baklava.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
When I was a kid we used to harvest black walnuts by the bushel full and hull them with a tractor and a trough, jack up one side and the trough sits under the spinning wheel. Pour the nuts in and it will remove the hulls and throw the nuts 30 feet away.
No one does that any more; at least I don't; let the squirrels have them, or rot away. We have lots of them. ]
But there is nothing like the taste.

And I bet if you forgot to put your gloves on you woke up the next morning and your hands were not a flesh color anymore.

The perfect ingredients for spicing up that Black Walnut Ice Cream. Note the Alkanet root bag contains a sufficient amount.

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
Ever try and start a hand crank Allis Chalmers in the winter?? Hard for a 10-12 year old. Thought I broke my arm once when it kicked back

Granddad wouldn't let me us the either.

So the hand crank shellers were the option

We had an old John Deer: Two horizontal cylinders. Start on gasoline, let it warm up, switch to diesel. Started by opening compression release valves, then taking a hearty grip on the flywheel and spinning by hand. The back side of the flywheel had finger grip grooves. Crankshaft was perpendicular to the length of the tractor, flywheel was about 4 feet off the ground. Cylinders on the aft side of the crank Strange looking engine, when under a load you could hear each individual cylinder fire. Thump, thump. It was a big machine and was a hoot to operate, almost like the street car drivers in San Francisco.

We called them a Johnny popper

I’ve got a third generation black walnut tree that came from my parents home, which came from my grandparents home. I also gave a seedling to my son so he can eventually have walnuts.

As a child, we would gather them up and lay them in a row on the pavement. Then we would place a 2x10 board on them and my dad would slowly drive his truck on one end of the board. Slowly the nuts would start cracking. It would require quite a few trips backward and forward as we would move the board and gather the cracked nuts. Then came the task of picking the meat out. Lot of work for a taste of walnuts, but it was worth it... at least back then.

I collected a few pails last fall, husked them and buried them in a 3 foot circle about 4" deep. I now have a 3' circle of 1 foot tall seedlings I will dig up and plant next spring just as soon as the ground thaws. Probably 80 seedlings in there.

Man, I gotta get a black walnut tree.

Then seeds in 12-15 years

That bag of Alkanet root powder should last for a few hundred rifle stocks.

My DIY project was with dried root in big long flaking bits. I just infused the roots in BLO and also tried some in Mineral Spirits and IPA. I ended up mixing all 3 as there was not a lot of difference.

It is used by the craft shops to colour candles, soaps etc. Works on litmus principle - ranging from Red to Blue with variations of purple, pink etc. depending on pH.

quote:

Originally posted by WoodHunter:
The perfect ingredients for spicing up that Black Walnut Ice Cream. Note the Alkanet root bag contains a sufficient amount.

We had three big walnut trees in the yard when I was growing up in the '40's. We hulled them by leaving them in the driveway so the car would run over them. The local seed store would buy them by the keg. I don't remember ever selling any, however.

I heard Alkanet would make a beautiful stock. I carefully planted, fertilized, and watered but no matter what I tried I never could get any of that Alkanet root to sprout. I guess I'll just have to be happy with stocks made from walnut wood.

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
Then seeds in 12-15 years

Yeah, I’m not really planting them for myself...but my 4 year old son might get use of them when he’s (much) older.

I inherited from my Grandfather (an excellent millwright woodworker) a Grandfather clock that he built in the 1940's. It is black walnut but the other interesting aspect of this is he cut down the tree himself + then milled all the lumber;also the tree was the one was that my Grandmother swung on when she was a little girl.This is a family heirloom with real heritage.

Could you post a photo of the clock?

Great story.

quote:

Originally posted by NormanConquest:
I inherited from my Grandfather (an excellent millwright woodworker) a Grandfather clock that he built in the 1940's. It is black walnut but the other interesting aspect of this is he cut down the tree himself + then milled all the lumber;also the tree was the one was that my Grandmother swung on when she was a little girl.This is a family heirloom with real heritage.

I would feel honored to do so ,as well as a pic of my Grandfather in his dbl. breasted suit beside the clock right after it was built.Give me enough time to get my kids over to post photos.

Bobster

Lets see those blanks when you get to them.

Steve........

What a waste of Everclear, We used that in punch in my college days, Had a hell of a kick. Best I recall a 8 0z. glass to a washtub of punch..but not sure.