So, cracking nuts can be hard work. Cracking Black Walnuts can be even more difficult than other nuts. If you have a tree that produces lots of nuts you know that to eat them takes a lot of time and effort cracking them.
Well, this is a product review of the best nutcracker I’ve ever used. This past Thanksgiving, we traveled to visit my family and they had a nutcracker that was so easy to use with minimal effort. I found out it was made by my Uncle for them, and this nut cracker works really great.
This nutcracker works great on Black Walnuts, Hickory Nuts, Butter nuts, or just about any other species. It adjusts quickly depending on the species or size, which saves a lot of time in processing nuts you have harvested.
When Mounted at shoulder height you gain so much leverage / mechanical advantage that it makes cracking a nut so easy! I’m serious, this contraption cracks nuts like a hot knife cuts through butter. They were showing it off to us as now they can harvest some of the thousands of Black Walnuts that fall in their forest every year.
I’ve written about Black Walnut Trees before, and also what plants can live (or not live) near Black Walnut Trees. And although they are nutritious, they are very difficult to open up. But just check out this nutcracker to see how nice it is, and how well it works.
Using the nutcracker
It just takes a couple of screws to mount this beast on the wall. They had it mounted at about shoulder height, which made it really easy to use. And it works awesome. See pics below.
Here is a GIF of the Nutcracker in action. It seriously cracks black walnuts quickly and cleanly with almost no effort. Right Click on the image to play the GIF file.
Video demonstration of nut cracker
Adjusting the nutcracker for different species
But what is also cool about this nut cracker is that the bottom mount point is easily adjusted. You can have it set up for a couple of different sizes. Then, you can adjust the top nut to get the compression stroke to the perfect length. This one was set up for cracking butter nuts and black walnuts. You just remove the bottom mount point, rotate it 180 degrees and push it back into place. And, voila! You can now crack nuts for a different species.
The top handle really gives you a lot of leverage for applying torque. This is by far the easiest way to crack black walnuts I have found. It is just a piece of conduit that is reinforced by a collar and dowel. That keeps the handle strong and prevents it from deforming.
Also, when not in use, you can loosen the knob at the top, move the handle up, and re-tighten the knob. That is how you store this. So, it will only stick out from the wall a by a few inches. Easy storage is just a nice feature of this.
Where they bought their nutcracker
So, these nut crackers are made by my Uncle. He actually sells the nutcrackers off of Ebay. So, head over there if you would like to check them out. Also, in case you are wondering – our little site gets no compensation for these nutcrackers. They just work really well and are easy to use.
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