Market Farming

[Willie McKemie <mf AT austinfarm.org>]

On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 08:40:32AM -0500, David Tannen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm interested in purchasing a bean and pea sheller.  I am looking for 
> feedback on the Taylor "Little Sheller",  
> http://www.peasheller.com/index.html, for shelling peas and beans or 
> information on other shellers.

The "washing machine wringer" type sheller is well suited for small 
quantities of peas and beans.  A talented operator might be able to 
push a bushel through in as little as about 20 minutes, but it's a lot 
of work and an hour is a more likely processing time.  I still have a 
Taylor for use in case my Welborn goes down.

I bought my first drum type sheller, a 1 bushel model, about 15 years 
ago from Welborn Devices in Laurel Mississippi (601 428-5912).  It 
served me well.  When I encountered a labor shortage about 5 years ago, 
I bought a 2 bushel model.  As I recall, the 1 bushel cost about $1600 
and the 2 bushel about $3500.  The 2 bushel is much nicer in that there 
is a blower and a wire trough that sends out much cleaner peas.  I 
would put the comfortable daily capacity at about 10 bushels for the 
smaller model and 30-40 for the larger one.   I rarely do more than 4 
bushels in a day.
By the time I gave up my 1 bushel model, the plastic beaters were worn 
out and in need of replacing.  The rubber latches on the hatch had to 
be replaced several times and I had to call Welborn to get them.  So 
far, the only repair I've done on the larger one is replacing a 
standard electric switch.

All mechanical shellers work much better on drier peas than you would 
want for hand shelling.

As near as I can tell, Welborn does not have a website.

Willie