Black Walnut Cracker Machine- Fill a bucket in just 5 minutes! This black walnut cracker can also crack filbert nuts, hazel nuts, almonds, English walnuts, macadamia nuts, and any other hard shell nut with speed and ease. However, I certainly recommend gathering them for food. Considered a “superfood,” black walnuts are high in omega-3s and antioxidants. Plus, they pair exceedingly well with dark chocolate (or any chocolate, really). Black walnut trees are very common and produce in enormous quantity, and you may have one right in your backyard, as I do. Use a black walnut cracker: A black walnut cracker is expensive, but worth it if you process a lot of black walnuts each year because it will save you lots of time and effort. Try vice grip pliers: Adjust the width of the vice grip jaws to be just slightly smaller than the walnut. Place the jaws along the seam of the nut and clamp down until.

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Larry Palmby, Dover, Minn., built a walnut huller by mounting a wheel hub and tire on a metal frame.
The tire is shaft-driven by an orbit motor. Walnuts are fed into a metal hopper and drop down between the tire and a length of channel iron. The de-hulled walnuts fall into a pail.

How To Make A Black Walnut Cracker Plans Southern Living

“It really works good and it’s fast – I can dump a 5-gal. pail of nuts into the hopper and in less than 1 minute, 90 percent of the nuts will be out of their husks,” says Palmby.
“I rotate the wheel at 16 rpm’s. By loosening a double-nutted bolt I can vary the gap between the tire and channel iron, according to the size of the walnuts.”
He dumps the cracked walnuts onto a homemade 4 by 5-ft. sorting table to be hand sorted. The de-hulled nuts go down one hole into a pail and the hulls go into another hole. When the nuts are dry, he cracks them using a homemade cracker. It consists of a metal frame with a 10-in. long bolt that has a 4-bladed knife screwed onto the bottom of it. To crack, Palmby sets the nut under the knife and then hits the top of the bolt with a hammer.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Larry Palmby, 607 County Road 10 S.E., Dover, Minn. 55929 (ph 507 273-4206).
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How To Make A Black Walnut Cracker Plans Without

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All about Black Walnuts

(Juglans nigra)

These delicious Nuts grow wild in many parts of the United States.
They are not picked from a Ladder; but from the ground.
They have the hardest shells of all nuts.

Black Walnut Trees bear a full crop about every second or third year.
Luckily Trees take turns; so most years there is an average crop.

We sell Natural Organic Black Walnuts.

We sell Natural Organic Black Walnut Hulls.

We sell unique Black Walnut Cracking Tools.

Different trees produce different sized nuts
which may vary somewhat by rainfall and soil nutrients.
But the delicious flavor varies very little.

Above Left:When a ripe Black Walnut or Butternut Hull(or Husk) begins to deteriorate, it has dyes that will stain your fingers an indelible brown.
Cooked Hulls make a very effective Easter Egg and Hair Dye, Woodworking Stain, and Fox Trap scent remover. It is also used in Natural Remedies.

The Hull should be at its spongy stage to remove it. Usually those which have dropped naturally are ready for hulling. They are not picked like apples or Oranges. If you pick them from the tree, they may be too green and refuse to release the Walnut. Most bearing trees have their limbs too high to allow picking.
Lower limbs often drop off as a tree matures.

Above Right:This small hand-cranked Antique is a great Walnut Huller.
Bolted to a plank, and anchored securely, this makes a worthy Walnut Hull Removal Tool. A 5-gallon bucket placed beneath it will catch most of the hulled Walnuts. Note the aggressive teeth on the wheel, and the spring-loaded adjustment (Red arrow) which applies pressure to the toothed wheel. Buy yours HERE.

The insert shows four green Walnut Hulls which are not ready to be removed,
but they are just right for making Natural Home Remedies.

The three above them are just right for hulling.
The top two may no longer be useful.

Larvae of the Husk Fly eat the Hull of the Black Walnut,
but do not damage the nut inside.

Here, ripe Walnuts are placed on a 3' by 3' piece of 1' by 2' mesh fencing.
A Boot with deep tread is used to forcefully roll the Husk off the Walnuts.
A Kitchen Tongs is used to handle the Walnuts and prevent indelible finger staining.
This works well for a few Black Walnuts.

If you have a really lot of Black Walnuts to hull,
we have Plans to convert a Cement Mixer to a Walnut Huller.

My Father noticed that Walnuts which fell in his driveway were separated from the Hull by his car tires, and so he would move the others into his driveway to eliminate the Hull removal chore. The tires seldom damaged the very hard shells.

A wire Potato Basket makes a good tool to remove the Hull residue when it's agitated vigorously in a bucket of water. Then allow them to dry in the sun at a location which is not accessible to Squirrels or Neighbors.

Cracking a Black Walnut requires a bit of effort. An English Walnut Cracker will not come close. A hammer and a Brick will work; so will a strong Vise, which you can close on each Walnut. This is slower, but has the benefit of very few damaged Nut Meats. A Cracker made especially for Black Walnuts makes the job easier.

The trick is to stand the walnut on its pointed end. When hit on the top point,
it will fracture on its midline, resulting in larger Nut pieces,
which are easier to remove from the Shell.
We sell unique Tools to facilitate Nut removal.

Antique Crackershown Above Lower Left is a mechanical marvel.
When the Handle is lifted, the Ram opens to allow insertion of a Nut.
Then when the Handle is lowered, the tapered Wedge slides
to automatically adjust to the size Nut you are cracking.
It goes from Black Walnuts to much smaller Filberts without missing a beat.

Then additional lowering of the Handle rotates a Cam which exerts great force on the Ram and the Nut Shell. Many Nuts have been cracked with a Hammer by standing them on their point to cause them to fracture around the center. But this procedure may be determined by the shape of the particular Nut. Some are 'tall' and some are 'fat' which may cause them to fracture differently.

The Hulls contain a Toxin called Juglone. It is also contained in the roots, bark, and leaves of the Black Walnut tree. It is thought to be harmful to Horses.
It is KNOWN to be harmful to garden plants, especially Tomatoes
which become wilted as though blighted.

It is prudent to distance other plants from your Black Walnut trees. Some think the Toxin will dissipate during composting. But it may be wise to limit the amount of Black Walnut sawdust, leaves, chips, and Hulls in your Compost.<