Strong Nut Crackers

2 Materials

A neighbour asked me if I could make some nut crackers to shell her macadamia nuts, she had bought a pair which worked well but were a bit flimsy and hideously expensive.
So using them as a pattern and some offcuts of 1/4 inch flat bar I made these

The Bar

This is 1/4 thick bright mild steel 1 inch wide

For each pair I needed 2x 10 inch lengths and 2 x 2.5 inch lengths

The Handle Twist

I put each handle in a vice approx 4 inches along its length, then using a large adjustable spanner and some brute force and ignorance put a 90 degree twist in each one.

To be honest I thought that I was going to need to heat them up for this, but they twisted remarkably easily.

Shaping and Drlling the handles

I drilled an 8mm hole in the end of each handle and shaped the ends round on the grinder (you can file if you don't have a grinder)

I also filed a semi circular recess on each side, one larger than the other for different sized nuts, the edges of these were sharpened to allow better nut cracking.