nutcracker

Following Mr Peter Knapp's suggestion in the latest MEW edition, I regret to say that a fully adjustable, improved nutcracker has already been invented.

I like your practical style!

Yesterday, I watched clickspring (u-toob) making a card press. I thought it very nice but mine would have been much much simpler.

That will not win you a bag of nuts!

Neil

I have had zero success using that tool to catch moles so there is validity in re-purposing it.

My original suggestion to Neil came from this year's abundance of hazelnuts in my hedgerows and a tremendous variation in size. An ideal nutcracker would be rapidly adjustable for size, limited in closure to avoid crushing (both of which the above tool is capable of) but also aesthetically pleasing, easy to clean and keep hygenic and ideally avoid bits of shell littering the living room carpet. Indeed it should also cope with everything from Brazil nuts through almonds to hazel. A plastic bag and hammer does most of those things quite well too.

Perfection would be pocket-sized and usable as i stroll around the farm.

pgk

What you will likely need is some form of squirrel eradication scheme.

Around here, there may be loads of ‘green’ nuts but sadly they are ‘squirrelled’ away at the earliest stages of ripeness.

I have used this implement for many years to successfully extract whole Brazil nuts from their shells and also intact Walnut halves. It also copes with Almonds, Hazel nuts and most other nuts you can think of. Coconuts can be a problem, but a hefty swipe is usually sufficient to crack the shell.

The design of the conventional nutcracker is in my opinion pretty crap as once the shell gives way it is very difficult to avoid crushing the flesh of the nut.

H Neil. I didn't really expect to win, as it is not my invention. I'm not really bothered because I already have a bag of nuts.

That has been a problem in the past but this year the nuts are outnumbering squirrels by enough multiples that I have collected a few kilos - currently spread out on newspaper to stay dry without going musty.

I agree with Anthony Knights that the Mole wrench - or whatever name you you prefer - answers the functional requirements about as perfectly as possible in a tool of such practical dimensions. It's a bit like those C19 demonstrations where a steam hammer could crack an egg in a wineglass without harming the glass.

Nevertheless the Austrian modernist Carl Auböck made something like this in the '50s, which I shamelessly pirated as a pressie for friends and family last year 'cos the missus thought it attractive:-

It can do walnuts and hazelnuts easily, and brazils with a bit of care to locate the apex in the piston recess - plus of course, once the user detects that the structural integrity of the shell is defeated, further advance of the piston to damage the kernel becomes unnecessary...

Edited By Mick B1 on 30/09/2019 18:40:19

AS machinists, should we not design one with a tool to cut the shell, rather than just crush it (Brute force and Ignorance, etc) Sort of: hold it a 4 jaw and part off the outer end of the shell?

Conventional nut crackers, because of the sudden failure mode of nuts, can result the kernel being crushed into tiny pieces as well as the shell. Eating miniscule bits of kernel, with attached bits of carpet, is not the healthiest diet!

Should this be tongue in cheek?

Howard

I'm not sure how you'ld hold these in a 4-jaw effectively...

Thanks to grey squirrels I haven't seen a wild ripe hazelnut for twenty-plus years.

Neil

P.S. I'm sure Finbarr Saunders would have something to say about this thread...

Ah, another Viz reader!

.

Something along these lines [suitably scaled] would be better than the 4-jaw

**LINK**

https://www.ebay.com/itm/392423399783

MichaelG.

I'm 12 miles West of Welshpool if you want to come pick some before the rest fall off and get lost in the hedges and thick stuff...

The real issue locally is hedge brushing - they cut back just when the flowers and catkins are forming. Reason I have so many is that i did my hedges by hand 3 yrs ago- just the sides- and they've grown back to fruiting well. Will have to trim some again this year if I can find the energy and enthusiasm for the mile or so.

Still squirrels about but do seem fewer.

pgk

pgk - seriously, for hedgerow nutting, I have great success with a middle-sized (9"-10" pair of water-pump pliers - whilst slightly too big for the back pocket, they do fit comfortably in a waxed cotton jacket, have a cut-out in the jaws, and the long handles give such control that the shell can be cracked without crushing the kernel, particularly once one gets a feel for the adjustment. I've never looked back!

For those with deck shoes and a a white-topped peaked hat, maybe?

rgds

Bill

Like the serrations - cast-in, filed or shaped?

Does it retain the kernel when the shell cracks, or does it all fall into the dish?

Diogenes:

or the smaller nuts I actually use ordinary pliers.. the ground out section by the cutting jaws sngs the nuts well enough when small. Pump pliers I have to try.

Cornish jack:

Aesthetically pleasing..may plaigerise - swapping ships wheel for lathe hand wheel style. I suppose then it'd need an acme thread?

pgk

This was my version of a nutcracker which I designed and prototyped to be injection moulded in polyacetal. Several metal parts formed the mechanism.

I based the action on a typical mastic-gun mechanism. The (fly-back) release was spring-loaded using the same lever seen at the front of this picture.

Please excuse the poor quality images, they are rephotographed (digitised) from paper prints.

Although parts were eventually injection moulded (and could be snapped together with integral 'undercuts' minus those crude 'U' shaped clips), I never got to see the finished article. I was informed by a colleague however, that they were 'perfect' for cracking lobster claws.

The acid test for a nutcracker would surely be opening macadamia nuts?

BTW, there are more even poorer images in my nut-cracker photo album.

Sam