I have the first one you listed at the $499 price. It works great. But just the same as in hand shelling if the peas are still green it will only mash them and not shell them. It will shell dry peas and beans just as quick as you can feed it which is why I bought it since I process about 100 bushels beans and peas for seed each season. On fresh shellies it is a little slower but can easily do a bushel in 30 mins but must manually by hand insert the peas or beans small end first into the rollers if they go in randomly and go thru parallel to the rollers it will mash the seed and not shell. So I load a peck or so on the tray then as quickly as I can feed the peas in at right angle to the rollers or pointed end first. I also have a little hand sheller that I bought from redhill general store and it works great sitting on the porch doing small batches. I mounted my hand sheller on a board that fits over a wooden box. This holds the sheller in place and it is quite fast. I would recommend the $38 hand sheller over the $499 sheller for a few bushels of peas works great and I have used mine for 5-6 years now. I still use the hand sheller when doing up a mess for a meal rather than setting up the electric one for a few peas and having to clean it after wards. I have not had luck with either shelling Butter beans in the shelly stage but works great for all bry beans. Rodger

Here is a link that might be useful: pea sheller

Thank you, rodger!

I'd want to use a sheller this year for fresh Purple Hull cowpeas and fresh small-beaned Willow Leaf limas for freezing or cooking.

Do you think the problem with shelling fresh limas (using the hand sheller) is the bean size? Or the pod thickness? Were all varieties of fresh limas problematic for you with the shellers?

(Somebody, maybe you or even the good Shot on another forum likened the process to an old-fashioned washing machine where rollers squeeze out the water as the crank is turned!) I see how they'd just mash any pod and its beans that went in parallel to the rollers. I'd think that if lima pods didn't open under pressure even if guided into the rollers as other shellies are, they'd end up mashed, too, so just wondering if this is a problem with limas in particular.

Hi rodger,

Have you, by chance, used the Redmill sheller with a hand-mixer. From the way I read it, you just insert the opposite end of the handle into a electric hand-mixer, just like a beater. If it works, that might be a really good (and inexpensive) option for Anney and her arthritis. Shoot, it might be a good one for me too lol!

Rick

I have'nt tried the hand sheller with the mixer. I am not much for electric gadgets or noise. I do not watch TV, I have one , a 1983 Curtis Mathis but it is not even plugged in.I get my news etc from the web.When I am not at work I am outside doing something ,if the weather is bad or its dark I'm in the house doing chores. I could never get anything done if I had a TV on and it is so nice just to have silence or have a good conversation. I also never use the electric model for fresh shellies. I enjoy setting on the porch on a warm summer evening listening to the whipporwills and crickets while hand shelling or snapping beans, peas and limas and talking with my wife about the days events. A glass of wine or a nice ale is not to bad either.
Anney neither the electric table model or the hand held model will do fresh limas they just mash them.

rodger

Thanks for the final word on the shellers and lima beans, even if it wasn't what I want to hear! So it will be half-way useful in my case. I've planted a lot of cowpeas, the only other shelly this year.