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

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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

[ApplegateRanch]

We love lima beans, but that is a LOT of limas!

I always think of ‘butterbeans’ as dried Speckled Butterbeans.

We can only (other than in a good year) raise Henderson Bush Lima or Thorogreen Bush Lima. Most of those are used as dry beans.

Our climate adds 15-30 days to stated maturity dates for most veggies.

[tdscpa]

Could be. Perhaps it is just the photo, but they look a little jagged on the edges.

The ones my mom served, and the ones I bought in cans were very smooth. I do not remember ever seeing my mother cooking them, but they were probably prepared from dried beans.

I believe way more than 75% of the canned food she served us, she canned herself.

Cooking dried beans for 3 hours is probably not enough, but would be no problem for me. I cook my dry pinto beans on low in my crock pot for 10-12 hours, then add ham, onion, and pepper, then cook for another 6-8 hours when I make my ham and beans.

I never frequent fast food restaurants for ham and beans. And, I am pretty sure the last time I ate a butter-bean, it came out of a can.

Sometimes I see something in a grocery store I just want to eat that is way more trouble to cook from scratch than I want to endure.

Such as pizzas, hominy, Vienna sausages, sardines, peas, fruit (except strawberries), celery, head lettuce, and any shelled bean.

I grow my own, and almost never buy them in a grocery: tomatoes, peppers, corn, radishes, asparagus, melons, onions, cucumbers, carrots, beets, pumpkins, green beans, strawberries, cabbage, Brussels sprouts.

If I can't grow it in my garden year round, I just eat it in season, except for peppers and corn, which I freeze, and onions which I can store all winter and spring, and tomatoes, radishes, beets, carrots, cabbages,lettuce, spinach and Brussels sprouts, which I can grow in my greenhouse all winter.

[Yosemitest]

This sheller thread is about the ability to preserve your own home grown beans. You can buy them today, cheaper than you can can your own, but that may not be true next year.
Bought shellers are expensive and after a little use, don't always work so well.
I know from my past that this type works, if you pick the beans when they are filled out, and not too green.
But you don't want them too dry either.
Water boil canning takes time, but I believe it leaves the food tasting better than pressure canning. Check out these books (click on them):

These books aredn't good JUST BECAUSE of the recipes,
but because of the diagrams about building storage ares, smoke houses, and many other detailed items,