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I Forge Iron

Shelling Pecans


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My in-laws' place has billions of pecans all over the place. I have discovered that the only good way to shell a pecan is to crack them from the ends. I cobbled this together tonite.
Ugly but works fine
DSC01779.JPG

made from one inch, outside of 3/4 inch, with a half inch pipe ram and anvil. The handle is bent such that when the handle is all the way down, it does not crush the nut into paste :)

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Google on Inertia Nut Cracker (rubber band model) and you'll see a good design that produces a completely fractured shell without damaging the meat. We had a pecan orchard when I was growing up so I spent every fall cracking pecans by the thousands - if I never see another one, it will be too soon...

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I just posted the other two pictures I took in the gallery
DSC01778.JPG opened DSC01777.JPG and closed

The body consists of two pieces of 3/4" black pipe, each about 2 inches long, pressed into each end of a piece of 1" pipe about 7 or 8 inches long. The piece that is fixed, or the anvil, is drawn down to a small cone or cup to hold one end of the pecan. The other piece has the little seam/ridge filed down to allow the ram to slide freely. A section is cut out of the middle for access to put the nut in for cracking.

The ram is a piece of 1/2" pipe, again necked down to a cone or cup, and sanded smooth to slide through the press.

The handle was forged to resemble a poz tong (I almost used one for the handle, but decided to make one) because the angles and leverage worked real good when dry-tested.

I notched and drilled the block to act as a pivot and to keep wobbliness down, then forged a linkage. drilled and riveted all three connections and gave her what-for.

If i were to do over, I would make the anvil and ram more solid to prevent them from filling with fragments, and figure the angles a little more precisely as mine binds a little now and then.

Oh, yeah, I also bent the end of the handle in such a way as to prevent full closure of the ram, thereby stopping from making pecan/shell mush

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Google on Inertia Nut Cracker (rubber band model) and you'll see a good design that produces a completely fractured shell without damaging the meat. We had a pecan orchard when I was growing up so I spent every fall cracking pecans by the thousands - if I never see another one, it will be too soon...
We had one of those when I was a kid, but I can usually do as good with a handheld nutcracker. Break the shell around the middle and the ends come off without too much trouble.

Good Luck!
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