I made a small ‘ball mill’ for making small quantities of snuff. It’s just a small cosmetics jar (about 1.5" diameter) with a load of 1/4" steel ball bearings dumped into it. I crumbled and dried out half a cigar, put it in the pot and shook it for a minute or so. I opened the container just to see if it was working, and was surprised to find that, not only had it worked, but it had worked so well that almost all of the tobacco had already turned to snuff! Once the snuff was ground, I simply used a magnet to remove the ball bearings. I just need to make a pantyhose sieve, and I’m all set. It’s way faster than a mortar and pestle, and makes a much finer powder than a standard coffee grinder would. I was going to buy a mortar and pestle for snuff making (I have one that I use to make black powder, but I don’t want to use that for snuff…) but now I don’t think I’ll bother. Edited to add: If you click to enlarge the photo, you will see what looks like large lumps of tobacco. Rest assured that this is just a thin layer on the top, and that at least 90% of the tobacco is the consistency of rather fine snuff.
That’s brilliant! Makes me think of repurposing my old rock tumbler…
@doctor that is an excellent idea, never heard of this method before. Stefan
Thanks guys, trust me, nobody is more surprised than me that this actually works! @Dogwalla, I bet you could mass produce the stuff with your rock tumbler! Using this size jar and the 1/4" balls, you can make (to my untrained eye) about 15-20g of snuff at a time, shaking for about 2-3 mins to get fine snuff. It seems to be best to shake the pot gently in a circular motion to swirl the balls around rather than shake it hard. Of course, there will be some slightly larger pieces and bits of stem etc, so this snuff still needs to be sifted, just as when using other grinding methods. I wouldn’t want to use this mill to grind a whole pound of snuff in one sitting, but you could easily make a large tin of snuff in ten minutes. I wonder if glass marbles in a larger container would be better? I can’t detect any steel scent from the balls, but I’m still getting over a cold so my sense of smell is not very good.
that is really fantastic … this would allow me to grind down the more coarse snuff i would prefer to be a fine powder … yes?
I used some of my (now ex) wife’s white ceramic coasters to grind some snuff once…sorta worked…but now her coasters are snuff colored. I like your idea better.
@snuffbrant: yes, it will do that easily, just as long as you don’t mind drying the snuff out first. @matsnuffs: ceramic is almost certainly the best type of media to use for something like this, I bet you can buy ceramic balls for real ball mills that would work better. Having said that though, the steel ones work good, maybe even too good. If you wanted a coarse snuff, you’d have to be really careful not to grind it too fine. I just found that once you’ve sieved the snuff out, the larger pieces grind better if you dry them out further before putting them back in the mill.
Pure engineering genius!
I have read about ball mills being used for other purposes, but it’s the first time I’ve heard of anyone using them to make snuff. Very clever idea.
In addition to the windforce driven stamps we also use ball mills to grind our tobacco. Jaap Bes.
@doctorbeat hats off to you. Real creativity there! im going to try it with a handfull of 6mm shot (bb’s). I suppose the only concern is about metal dust getting into the mix… but if its magnetic it will filter out.
We just finished our auction last weekend (we downsized our lives) and I finally found the tumbler I was looking for. It will let me run up to three different barrels at a time. I’m going to pick up some ball bearings this week, and all I’ll need then is some tobacco to experiment with. I wonder if the weight of marbles would give a more coarse grind. Hmmmm…
Aw shucks, thanks guys. @Dogwalla, I read the wikipedia entry for ball mills, and apparently the size of the balls makes a difference to the size of the finished granules, the smaller you want the particles, the smaller the balls need to be. I don’t know if this applies to our use for snuff though, this may be more geared towards making very tiny grain sizes for scientific analysis. I think marbles would do the job, but I guess there’s only one way to find out… I’m not too concerned about metal dust. The pulverization happens pretty fast, so I doubt there would be enough time for any significant material to wear off the balls. Some of my bearings have areas of black oxide on the surface, and this didn’t wear away during use. Stainless balls would be better, as the balls obviously can’t be kept oiled to prevent rust. For our use, I think grain size is mostly dictated by the length of grinding time. I found that my little ball mill gives a pretty consistent grain size, ie you don’t get a mixture of huge flakes and fine dust. It seems that the longer I shake it, the smaller the grains get, so this would be the thing to watch if you wanted coarser snuff. Also, bear in mind that if/when you add moisture, the grains will increase in size. The sieve stage of the process is important too. I was going to buy a coffee grinder, but I think I’m going to make a bigger version of this instead. Maybe a hand cranked cylinder.
Great idea! Many mini pestles working all at once.
Thank you :o) I just tried using a load of assorted nuts and other small metal objects and it works fine, so if you want to try this, you don’t have to source a load of ball bearings, just use whatever you have to hand.
Excellent idea. I think I’ll have to make one for myself.
So I’m trying out the rock tumbler tonight. My dad is such a rock hound that I also scored (beyond my 3 barrel unit) a single barrel small batch unit that had never even been out of the box. I’ve got the balls and plain tobacco loaded in and we’re grinding as we speak. I picked up some orange and peppermint essential oil, and some hose as a sieve. I hope this stuff is good, the smallest bag of plain tobacco I could find locally was 340 grams. O_o