Corn Sheller really work on Walnuts?

[Brad_bb]

I appreciate the offer.  I'd really like to try it.  I'm a little concerned about transporting them far for fear of spreading something.  I heard that some sort of canker or something is supposedly spreading in black walnuts in IL?  Have you heard this?  I have them already loaded in two large rubbermaid garbage cans, another half size tote so they wouldn't be hard to transport.

[Ron57]

  I helped my dad this fall using a corn sheller to hull walnuts and it works pretty good, once in a while it plugged but didnt take long to clear it out and get going again.
  I just put them down on the lane behind the shop and run over them with the truck or tractor a few times and it seemed to go a lot faster and was a lot easier than cranking the corn sheller. We got 11- 5 gal buckets after they were hulled.

[Chuck White]

Why wouldn't a cement mixer work.

Put some fairly small stone (like what they use when paving a road) in the mixer and turn it on, then dump in a bunch of nuts.

I think the husks would be pretty-much on the top once they are dislodged from the nut itself.

You could take a course screen, like chicken wire over a 5 gallon pail to separate the husks and nuts from the stone.

[beenthere]

Cement mixer works (see post #2 ) ok. Can just keep adding water and the offall just floats out and away.  Just pick out the nuts and leave the stone for the next batch. Give it a try without the stone, and the results might be quite favorable too.

[Brad_bb]

Don_Papenburg is the man!  I took him up on his kind offer to help me hull my walnuts(3+ full size rubbermaid garbage cans worth) with his corn sheller.  It did work awesome and was far faster than by hand.  To put it in perspective, 2 people working 7 hours could hull 1 garbage can worth.  So this would have been about 3 full days work for 2 people by hand.  We hulled all of it in with the corn sheller in 2 hours.  I do still need to pick the nuts out of the hulls, but it has really taken 85 percent of the work away using the sheller.  I guess now I have to find a good sheller and fix it up/prepare it for next time.  

Now to decide how I'm going to crack the nuts after they are dry....$450 for the stainless drill powered cracker? ....too bad I don't have one of those hay crimper things....Powered is definitely nicer than by hand.  I can sure appreciate that now.  

I really appreciate how many good guys are on the FF.  I'm very thankful Don was willing do donate the time and effort to help me out.  Hopefully I'll be able to return the favor to him or another.  I also had a great time sharing stories and talking about projects with him.   

[beenthere]

Or better yet video.  Remember on here if no picture, it never happened.

How about that video to go with the famous quote. 

A good video was hard to find, so perfect opportunity to add to the archives.

[SwampDonkey]

I thought Lawn and Tractor had butternut and walnut crackers for $250?

[beenthere]

Hulling and cracking are two different operations.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, but he said a $450 cracker in his last post. 

[Don_Papenburg]

I think that he was thinking of the fancy electric  cracker that you just dump and catch cracked nuts with a flip of a switch.

[SwampDonkey]

I can buy a lot of shelled walnuts for $450.

[WH_Conley]

I can buy a lot of shelled walnuts for $450.

Yep.

[Don_Papenburg]

Ya but storebought ain't as good as homegrowed.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, I suppose. But in my case of wanting butternuts, it's all home grown.  Being a rare commodity the price of the meats must be about double ain't it?  Always had a pipe dream of a butternut orchard on 150 acre field.

[Brad_bb]

Yeah this is half or more for fun.  A $450 dollar investment would take a while to pay back.  I can envision building a motorized cracker via one of Don's ideas, but that would take time and work, which I have too many projects going on now as it is.  It's a dilema.  I'm guessing I have 35 gallons of hulled nuts drying.  It's too much to do with a hammer or even a vice I'm thinking.  Motorized is the way to go I think.  Any other options, I'm all ears.  Maybe Rent the sheller out to try to make up cost?

[WH_Conley]

How about an arbor press? It would be faster than a vice and easier on the fingers than a hammer.

[Brad_bb]

You still have to load them one by one with that method.  In order to speed up the process, need to be able to keep them flowing like in the corn sheller hulling.  We fed a constant single file stream into the sheller.

[Don_Papenburg]

Take them to a metal fab shop that has a press brake .  Line them up in the bottom die ,12' of walnuts , then lower the top die crack !!!!!!!!!!!!!! sweep into a bucket  ,repeat.   How many walnuts can you fit in a 12' Vdie?  Now your talkin.