Plans for a Homemade Butter Bean Sheller

DavesGarden.com ^ | July 24, 2010 | Terry Lea of Dave's Garden

[Yosemitest]

I found these plans and I thought I might share them.
Click on them for the source.


Several years ago, Bud generously shared his detailed plans for a bean sheller.
These plans draw in numerous visitors to Dave's Garden, and today we say "thank you!" to Bud for sharing them with us and so many gardeners around the world.
If you've never had purple-stained fingers from hand-shelling purple-hull or black-eyed peas, a sheller might not seem like an important tool,
but to those who harvest and hull a lot of field peas, you'll appreciate the convenience of a sheller.
If you have a sheller, or have memories of hulling field peas and dried beans, please share your stories in the comments section below!

One of the comments we hear frequently about these plans is that the measurements are a little hard to read from the scanned images,
so we've re-typed them here to make it easier to read them.
Here is the bill of materials from page 1.



Items needed	For...
2 ea. 3/4" x 30 3/4" x 41 1/2" plywood	sides of box
2 ea. 3/4" x 24" diameter plywood	ends of drum
2 ea. 3/4" x 8" diameter plywood	ends of drum
1 ea. 1/2" x 42" x 41 1/2" plywood	back of box
1 ea. 1/2' x 42" x 40" plywood	front of box
1 ea. 1/4" x 35" x 31" plywood	tray bottom
4 ea. 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" x 34 1/2" wood	drum frame
2 ea. 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" x 32 9/32" wood	deflector support
1 ea. 1 1/2" x 3" x 17" wood	pulley mounting bracket
4 ea. 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 48" wood	legs
1 ea. 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 37 1/2" wood	deflector support
2 ea. 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 12 13/16" wood	deflector supports
2 ea. 1" x 7 1/2" x 24" wood	to cut out end rails of drum
1 ea. 1" x 5 1/4" x 6" wood	pulley mounting bracket
2 ea. 3/4" x 3" x 34 1/2" wood	tray sides
2 ea. 3/4" x 3" x 32" wood	tray sides
1 ea. 3/4" x 1 1/2" x 37 1/2" wood	box & deflector support
4 ea. 3/4" x 1 1/2" x 36" wood	sides of drum
2 ea. 3/4" x 1" x 36" wood	drum door
3 ea. 34" x 16 3/4" 22-gauge galvanized metal	drum panels
1 ea. 26" x 14 7/8" 22-gauge galvanized metal	drum door panels
1 ea. 2" x 6" 26-gauge galvanized metal	delector screen edging
2 ea. 2" x 11" 26-gauge galvanized metal	deflector screen edging
1 ea. 34" x 78" hardware cloth with 1/2" mesh	drum
1 ea. 22 1/8" x 40 1/2" hardware cloth with 1/4" mesh	deflector screen
1 ea. 3/4" diameter x 51" cold rolled steel rod	drum shaft
2 ea. 3/4" diameter x 5 1/4" cold rolled steel rod	pulley shaft and motor mount
1 ea. 3/16" x 1 1/2" x 13" flat bar	drum paddles
1 ea. 3/16" x 1 1/2" x 1 3/4" flat bar	drum paddles
2 ea. 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 3/16" x 5 1/4" angle iron	motor mount
1 ea. 1" x 1" x 1/4" x 5" angle iron	motor mount
3 ea. 12" diameter V-belt pulley
2 ea. 3" diameter V-belt pulley
1 ea. 2" diameter V-belt pulley	mounted to electric motor
4 ea. 3/4" sealed ball-bearing pillow block	box & drum
3 ea. 3/4" standard mount sealed ball bearing pillow block	pulley mount
6 ea. 3/4" locking collar	drum & pulley mount
5 ea. 1" x 3" butt hinges	box access doors
7 ea. 3/4" U-bolt, 1/4" diameter	paddle mounts
14 ea. 1/4" nut & lock washers	paddle mounts
1 ea. 115 vac electric motor 1725 RPM
1/2 sheet 20-gauge galvanized metal	for pulley shroud

---



A wife and mom of three, and a gardener for more than 2 decades, in windy Oklahoma for 15 years
and "back home" in middle Tennessee for nearly a decade now

[Yosemitest]

This is a useful tool, but it requires a skilled builder.

[mylife]

How many butter beans do you plan to eat?!

[smokingfrog]

I seen one of them, thar contraptions down at the farmers market. You could use it for free when you bought yer fresh butter beans.

[mylife]

They gots a bean shucker down there?
And I cant find a decent tomato.

[Yosemitest]

With aging parents and hard times coming, it's how many beans do you plan to put up.
150 quarts a year is about right.
Do you know how many hours of hand shelling that is?
TOO many.

[mylife]

Ive never done butter beans.

I have snapped hundreds of bushels of green beans and shucked hundreds of bushels of corn.
That’s a lot of snapping and shuckin!

[djf]

Are butter beans what Americans call lima beans?

I luv lima beans. And they are very, very good for you.

I was wonderin why my blue lake pole beans weren’t doing so well this year.
Until the night I was sittin on my porch, heard a thrashin sound over there, and saw the two doe munching down on them like there was no tomorrow!

[djf]

Ferget it! I answered my own question!

Those don’t look like lima beans.
I was thinking about how the British call lima beans “broad beans”.

[Yosemitest]

The difference in Butter Beans, Lima Beans & Madagascar Beans is of little importance, but there is a difference.
Most people in the south like Fordhook lima beans that are commonly called butter beans, and I personally like the pole or vine bean, better than the bush.
My back isn't fond of any bush plant.
Look at this link for Deer repellent spray.
It'll work until it rains, and usually after a couple of applications, the deer get the hint and won't come pack until next year.

[Yosemitest]

The photo at the top is of peas, probably big boy peas.
Try this link for butter bean/ lima bean seed.

[djf]

Lol. I got this stuff early this year to keep the feral coons and cats away. Can’t remember the name exactly, it’s out in my shed.

Dried, dehydrated, crystallized coyote urine.

Tell ya what. You DO NOT want to be downwind of that can when you open it! NNNNNASSSTYYYYYYYYYY!

[Yosemitest]

This is what I sprayed on my plants and it worked, and it didn't stink.

FROM: www.farminfo.org/pests

3 raw eggs
3 tbls. of red hot sauce
3 tbls. of garlic juice or minced

Add enough water to a blender to process and mix well.
Add this to a gallon of water and spray on plants.
You can make the spray last longer by adding Wilt Proof to it.

FROM: A Minnesota Master Gardener at www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/AAMG/wildlife
Blend 2 eggs and a cup or two or cold water at high speed.
Add this mixture to a gallon of water and let it stand for 24 hours.
After 24 hours, spray on foliage.
The egg mixture does not wash off easily, but re-application 2-3 times a season may be needed.
For a larger quantity, blend a dozen eggs into 5 gallons of water.
This mix is also said to repel rabbits.

[ApplegateRanch]

At 10 quarts shy of 5 bushels, why would you shell, instead of cutting & threshing?

I’m assuming you’re talking dry beans.

[Yosemitest]

Here's another plan on PDF Leaflet Plan S-691 Pea Sheller, September 1984.

[Yosemitest]

No, I'm talking about lima beans/ butter beans.
We call them butter beans because we put a lot of butter on them when we eat them.

[Yosemitest]

Also read Homemade Pea Sheller

Having grown up on a farm, I can appreciate the labour-saving advantage machines provide for larger-than-backyard scale agricultural work. As a child I was fascinated by the various machines littering our farm in all their mechanical complexity and glory (and sometimes lack of).

Gradually with age I have come to avoid mechanical complexity as much as possible (for various reasons, esp. $$$) and enjoy the simple but effective, quiet, non-motorized hand-held tools of the backyard garden. But I must admit my aunt's homemade pea sheller seems like a great idea for both rural and urban agriculture. Shelling peas from a large garden can become tedious!

Step 1: Load peas into inner threshing cylinder.

Step 2: Set wire-mesh door in place onto the cylinder.
The wire-mesh holds the pods while the peas fall through.

Step 3: Close outer screened hatch and slide pea collection tray below the wire-mesh cylinder. The outer screen keeps the peas from flying all over the place.

Step 4: Turn crank (various methods, see below).

The pulleys on the right side spin the inner paddles inside the threshing cylinder at a speed faster than the hand crank.
The pulleys on the left turn the outer paddles & wire mesh cylinder at a slower speed than the hand crank.
This causes the pea pods to get a real paddling, gradually split open and separates the peas from the pods.
The peas fall through the wire-mesh onto the collection tray below while the pods remain inside the wire-mesh cylinder.

The pea sheller was built using plans from Saskatchewan Agriculture's website.

I'm thinking this could be a great project for a community garden.
This is one option of many for such a device, but seems to be effective.

For those overwhelmed by the thought of turning a crank for a lengthy time, they can always try my aunt's method of attaching an electric drill to the crankshaft.
Even my uncle was convinced after first scoffing at this method.
My aunt left to pick some more peas leaving my uncle to operate the crank.
When she returned, she found him using the drill!

[Nailbiter]

Interesting

[tdscpa]

Not this American! Way back when I was a kid, a Lima bean was a hard, nasty tasting green thing, and a butter bean was a softer, tender, slightly mealy, off-white to pale yellow bean 2-3 times larger than a Lima bean.

I would never grow either, so I have no need for a bean thresher, but I do grow green pole beans to eat fresh. I do not save any dry ones, except for seed.

I think I have eaten a few cans of butter beans over the last 30 years, just for bean variety.

[Yosemitest]

It this what you're talking about?

In order to get these soft, you have to slow cook them for about 1 1/2 to 3 hours.

[Titan Magroyne]

Cool thread, especially with the deer repellant recipes & picture of the actual contraption featured further down in the comments!