Shell-cracking apparatus for hard-shell coated seeds

Abstract

Disclosed is a shell-cracking apparatus for hard-shell coated seeds including a hopper in which the seeds of pine nuts are put. When a seed-receiving plate is vibrated by driving a motor in this state, the seeds enter the grooves of that plate. Thereafter, the seeds are guided downwards into an outer cylindrical member via a cylindrical seed-discharging member into which they have dropped from said plate. At, or at around, this time, a cock of an air injection pipe is opened. A compressed air is injected from a small air injection bore of an air injection pipe supporting plug member into the outer cylindrical member. The seeds are thereby quickly forced into a funnel portion of a seed ejection pipe supporting plug member. Then, while the seeds pass through the seed ejection pipe, which is slightly larger in diameter than the longitudinal sizes of the seeds, the seeds fly with their pointed ends toward the advancing direction of the seeds, until they violently collide against the central holes formed in a pad plate, perhaps because the air stream is greater in speed around the center of the pipe than on the inner peripheral surfaces of the pipe.