u/s__brina

farm-raised organic large brown variety. i’ll check in in a few months to let you know how they’re developing

been slowly cleaning off the walnut haul, thought it was pretty interesting the amount of dirt that comes off of these things, as it really makes them less black.
right now most of mine look this light red-brown rather than black, with some having a richer, deeper red tone than others. this pair is pretty large and super satisfying to play with but slightly unevenly matched dimension wise.
I’ll share some of the other nice pairs once they’re all cleaned :)

bought a $10 bag of black walnuts to see if i could find any gems in the rough. i’m away from my calipers right now so i did an initial sorting by eye, but there’s definitely a few standouts!

it was SO fun to pick through and sort these nuts, i highly recommend that anyone try it out (even better would be foraging for your own nuts!). i think i may even try to come up with some names for them :)

the pic with all of them has the rejects in the bottom left, with two that are a potential match - but both have very split bases.

the real standouts are, in order;
• small yin yang pair
• triplet small round nuts
• some big fatties with nice matching tops and bottoms (one is accidentally upside down in the photo)
• great visual pairing on the pattern, but not the best size pairing
• three ridge single, looking for a partner
• pointy baby, kinda reminds me of a chicken heart

i will definitely be measuring these bad boys up with my calipers later on, it’s possible some pairs may switch up. next step after that is to give them a cleaning up, and any extra pairs that i don’t want to roll myself may be up for grabs in the near future!

updates will follow as the nuts get measured and cleaned!

about a month ago i bought two pairs of walnuts from Emily at Banri, one dimen source of life and a variegated bull ingot. after a LONG time of waiting they finally arrived yesterday, and she threw in an extra pair of iron nuts as well, a beautiful wide-bellied ingot :)
i started to brush off some of the dried husk, dirt, and micah particles that were stuck to the nuts, but i realized that the soft steel brush seemed to be lightening a lot of the nice black hue on the dimen and variegated pairs to a purple/reddish color. preferably i’d like to keep this rich black as much as possible.
those of you with dimen or variegated pairs - do you brush them with a steel brush like you would clean a normal pair of nuts? or do you skip this step and just use a nylon or boar bristle brush? the extra bits of dirt in the cracks are almost impossible to see on the dark parts of the nuts, so i can’t imagine its worth it to scrub at them with a steel brush too much.
i’ve managed to clean both pairs up so there’s nothing glaringly dirty on them, but i’m very curious what everyone else does to clean up their dimen walnuts so you can start rolling them!

about a week ago, i ordered an $18 pair of walnuts and bracelet combo on ebay. i knew it would end up being a scam, but since it was only $18, i figured i would give it a shot!
everything came as described (along with a crappy brush) and the walnuts - as expected - were pre polished, sticky, dirty, carved up abominations. you can see tooling marks on the bottom, fully flat surfaces, and loads of polishing compound caked in the crevasses.
the REAL standout of this purchase was the bracelet - it arrived unpolished and pale, and the walnuts actually look pretty legit! for $18 i’m fairly happy with the bracelet alone. i probably won’t be wearing it, but definitely will be playing with it every now and then for a few months to see how it patinas up :)

have y’all made any risky purchases before? i’d love to hear stories about “too good to be true” walnuts from cheap retailers that ended up being a great deal, or ones that ended up being disappointments or fake!

this is my first scary purchase - 17 bucks for a pair of Ma walnuts and a bracelet from a random ebay seller. the listing popped up in my email this morning, and i just HAD to give it a shot. the seller has no other wenwan products, but the price was insane for what’s included - it’s a one of one product, and if the nuts are what are pictured in the listing, it doesn’t even look like a bad pair and bracelet!

in my eyes it’s worth it! if it turns out to be a scam, i won’t be very disappointed about wasting $17. very excited to see how this one turns out - i’ll keep y’all updated!

just picked up this beautiful three-ridged yuhua stone pair! they’re pretty small but quite hefty, and feel amazing to roll around - much smoother than my ma variety pairs!
i’m just about finished cleaning them off, still a bit of dirt in the deeper crevices, but with the stone varieties i prefer to start without the gloves on.

when you roll your walnuts, do you spin them loosely or give them a bit of a press together?
i know a big part of the process is the erosion from playing with them as a pair, but how much does everyone try and speed up that process?
first 10 seconds is a gentle roll, last half is a (slightly exaggerated) more forceful roll. please excuse the chipped nails, i’ll be re-doing them soon!

my first pair (four towers) are finally cleaned out! after one glove, one wire brush and one cheap micro brush all totally worn out on this one pair, i’m finally letting them hit my hand :)
it’s been exactly a week of cleaning with only the glove on, but they’ve definitely already taken on a bit of color. i’m just so glad to finally be able to play with them - there were some NASTY grooves that proved extremely tricky to clean out.

as a jeweler, i wear a LOT of rings, made out of many types of metal. i’ve been curious - should I remove my rings while playing with wenwan? will copper, brass or silver change the patina color? maybe the rings erode the walnut faster?
interested to see if anyone here has a take on rings + wenwan!

as a jeweler, i wear a LOT of rings, made out of many types of metal. i’ve been curious - should I remove my rings while playing with wenwan? will copper, brass or silver change the patina color? maybe the rings erode the walnut faster?
interested to see if anyone here has a take on rings + wenwan!

my very first pair, i made sure to get raw, unprepped walnuts so I could get the full experience! i’ve been brushing them and handling them in the gloves during pretty much all my free time for the past 2-3 days, so they’re still very fresh but getting plenty of love. they do have some pretty deep grooves, but i know with frequent brushing all the stubborn dirt in them should come out eventually!

i’m curious how my progress is - are they relatively clean for such a new pair? when should i switch to rolling them in my bare hands? last pic is the only pre-cleaned pic i’ve got, but i think they’re looking pretty good!