Nutcrackers: Heavy-duty Shellers

It's a couple days before Christmas, and I wanted to do an article on some holiday or winter related tool. Snow shovels and busters was my first thought, but they're just not very festive. Then I saw a notice about a local dance group doing "The Nutcracker" and Pow! - a new article was launched.

There are lots of the cute little nutcracker figurines out there that sit on the mantle and crack about 5 nuts a year. But here at Easy Digging we like for our tools to be a lot more heavy duty and useful than that. So I went looking for some really unique and powerful and amazing nutcrackers.

We will look at snow shovels and ice chippers some other day. For today, stay warm and have a couple of nuts.

Thanks for reading!       by Greg Baka

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The most handsome of the bunch.   It appears to work off cam action, which is very powerful. Being attached to a hardwood tray is great for leverage. Made in the USA by Hard-Nuts-To-Crack

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Impact Nutcracker   Basically like hitting them with a hammer, but safer. One side has a spring-loaded that is pulled back as the pin rotates along the curved ramp. It is released at the top of the ramp and smacks the nut. I like that all this is run with old treadle sewing machine mechanism.

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Tabletop Impact Nutcracker ...I was going to just do hand powered crackers, but this one was pretty cool. It is made here in the USA and sold by Lee Manufacturing - which also has lots of other home scale food processing tools.

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Rubberband Nutcracker   If my Grandma would have had one of these when I was a kid, my cousins and I would have opened every nut in the house at Christmas time! This one comes from Redhill General Store.

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Australian Nut Hammer. They seem to do everything differently Down Under. Basically it is a hammer and a hand-held anvil. The trick is the hammer has a rubber sleeve to grip and hold the nut. I think that after a few cups of holiday eggnog there may be a few smashed fingers...