I'm lucky enough to live at the shore of the Atlantic. Access to a lot of great soil amendments and compostable stuff is everywhere around here. For kelp, crab shells and shrimp shells, I use an old blender to powder them up for my soils. I am now looking for a method of crushing clam and oyster shells to powder or close to powder. This is not an easy task and could use any ideas you all have. I've tried sledge hammers but can never get them into a small enough size to be beneficial. I don't have access to any machine shops so the big mechanical hammers are out! All help is appreciated. Thanks. B61
I tried running them over with my truck lol & then composting, IMO without some serious equipment you won't live long enough for them to be broken down enough for plants. OTOH you could make a bitchin Bocce ball court.
lol! Thanks but I don't play Bocce. A lot of marinas and parks around here use shells for their parking lots. I was thinking of gathering up some of the deeper stuff that's been there for years. Just worried about the other crap that could also be in it, as it is a parking lot! B61
Jerry111165 made a tube crusher. Which if I recall correctly was a tube with the end welded closed. He had a large piece of stock that fit inside the tubing and welded handles on it. It was made for crushing granite into dust. I believe he quickly gave up on the idea as the time and energy to make it didn't make sense. If you work 1 hour of overtime you can purchase enough OSF to last you a lifetime. I do like the idea of sourcing my own raw material locally.
Rock tumbler with stainless steel ball bearings added in would act like a ball mill. Should be pretty effective.
You're right Nacho but its not the money that gets me. Its the fact that I have so many natural resources around me that I can't use! All there for the taking. Like with seaweed(kelp) I use that in worm bins,compost piles and dried out to powder. Same with fish carcass, crab and shrimp. It just really irks me to see all those clam and oysters just sitting there! Its a waste! B61
I like the rock tumbler idea but it would have to be huge to be worth it. Plus the time it would take to tumble just a few shells would be forever! Thanks for the comment.
I grew up having to rake up & haul away that treasure, it is backbreaking heavy & loaded with bugs & WAY TOO MUCH salt/sand. Now if you had clean kelp +++ but it is still a shit ton of work. With the prices of amendments today it might be profitable on a commercial scale. N. shore L.I. boy here, we ate a ton of the oysters, hard & soft shelled clams, flounder, fluke, striper, bluefish (not so much) but nobody was eating the mussels & it was thick with them.