A Home Made Pea Sheller
We've been growing (and buying in bad years) all kinds of
peas for a good long time, and few things are more satisfying than a meal that
includes a nice helping of peas we've put up. They just seem to taste better
than store-bought. One of my favorite childhood memories is eating Grandpa's
"Field Peas" and Grandma's fine-meal
I love peas, and I like the security of a few bushels put up in the freezer, but I've really got too many other things to do than shell 'em for hours and hours. I remember Grandpa's "pea sheller", and how fast it got the peas out of the pod. Grandpa had other things to do, too!
His pea sheller was nothing more than a pair of old wringer washing machine rollers mounted to one end of a wooden tray, driven by an old motor. He'd feed the pea pods in between the rollers one at a time, the rollers would zip the pod through, and the peas fell through a slot into a pan.
Wringer washer rollers are as hard to find these days as a 5-1/4" floppy drive, and probably fetch "collectible" prices. The solution is to find a modern equivalent, in form, function, and obsolescense.
The answer is as near as a yard sale or thrift store - dot matrix printers! Nobody wants one, when stink jets and lazers are so much better. I picked up two nice Panasonic printers for $6.88, and gutted 'em like a catfish. I chose the Panasonic units because the platen roll shafts were fairly sturdy. Epsons are kinda wimpy. I was careful to avoid breaking any little bits, and save everything until I was done.
I also used an old AC motor, a big pulley from a Speed Queen washer, a belt from a Mitsubishi pickup, and some leftover plywood. I had to buy some bronze "Oilite" bushings for the shafts to run in. If I hadn't scrapped out my old motor pile in a misguided fit of cleanup last spring, I'd probably have had those, too.
Here's the right hand side, showing the pulleys and driven side of the rolls:
You can see the sides and motor base, made of 3/4" plywood, and the shelf, made of 1/4" plywood. One of the oilite bushings is visible, with a steel washer and screw holding it in. The wedge-shaped thing is a chute to catch and deliver the peas to a pan.
Here's the left hand side, showing the connecting gears and chute opening:
The gears are vital - they drive the rolls toward each other, pulling the pea pod between them.
The gears are driven by a little steel pin through the shaft, and they are held in place with "set collars". Actually, the top gear only needed one collar, 'cause I had to hog it out with a drill bit and force it on the shaft. It's "snug".
The gears are just a hair bigger than the rolls, so they mesh, but leave a tiny gap between the rolls. This gap - I should charge money for this bit of information - varies from .010" at the gear end of the rolls to .050" at the driven (pulley) end. Different types of peas like a different gap, usually running .020 to .030. If the gap is too wide, the peas get mashed.
Don't have a feeler gauge? Notebook paper is about .003" per sheet. Stack up the right number of sheets.
You might also find the rolls run too fast. I put a jackshaft with a 1" and 3" pulley between the motor and drive roll, and liked the results. It was not pretty, and I had to go to press, so it came off. (I AM proud of the Snapper self-propelled mower belt I found that fit just right, though).
Happy shelling, and try not to pea on the floor.