"Made-It-Myself" Pea Sheller

Made-It-Myself Pea Sheller CROPS Miscellaneous If you grow a lot of green peas you might want to take time to make a giant pea sheller like the one Barrie Sones made The former teacher of agriculture raised a pea patch that was 200 yards long on his Cecil Lake B C farm They took a long time to pick so he didn’t want to spend hours shucking them too He picked up an extension bulletin with plans for a small sheller and made a wooden unit that did about a gallon at a time Then he decided to supersize it with the help of his students “My big one does 3 gal of peas in 2 or 3 minutes ” Sones says A 1/4-hp motor with 1/2-in V-belts turns a 34-in paddle assembly made with six 4 by 6-in beveled 1/2-in fir plywood paddles The assembly is inside a 3-ft long drum with a frame covered in 1/2-in hardware cloth wire mesh The drum spins over a 2 by 4-ft plywood drawer with a 2-in hole in one corner He dumps peas in through a door on a section of the drum levels them out and turns on the motor The drum rotates slowly with belts and pulleys and when the peas spin to the top they fall on the fast moving paddles and hit against the screen which opens the pods The shelled peas fall through the screen into the drawer “Some broken pod pieces fall into the drawer too ” Sones says He pulls out the drawer which has a cover over the hole and rolls it back and forth so the broken pods stick to the bottom Then he opens up the hole slopes the drawer and vibrates it so shucked peas roll over the pods and fall through the hole into a container He rotates the drum to open the door at the bottom and dumps the pods cleans up the drawer and is ready for another batch Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Barrie Sones P O Box 176 Cecil Lake B C Canada V0C 1G0 ph 250 785-3112

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