Went to a friend of mine's house today, and he has a lot of pecans on the
ground, and two trees FULL. My last test of the shaker did not work too
well, as I put the vibrator in line with a chain, and exerted a sideways
force.

My new plan is to simply make a hook out of 1/2" cold rolled steel, and a
1/2" electrical conduit 10' pole. It will be raised up into the tree, and
hooked over a branch of no more than 4". A lot of long branches are in the
2-3" variety, and I am fairly confident that the vibration will cause them
to fall. The vibrator device is right at 30#, and I have a hook under it
that I can hang a pail of 35# of water. So, I think it will be raining
pecans.

I brought back two bags of pecans in shucks. I ran them through my vacuum,
and the outer shucks were removed from most. I then made an angle iron
piece that the shells will run into at full velocity, and hopefully be the
right force to knock off the four part hull.

I have a couple ideas of cracking that I'm going to work on as the next
step. That is where you get the real money, in the pecan halves. I have
some pretty good ideas where separators, classifiers, crackers, and sorters
can be made out of simple screen sizes, and yard sales vibrator sanders and
car polishers. Plus a couple of vacuums or blowers here and there to clean
out the last of the waste at one part of the process.

This is fun stuff to work with, and thinking up the ideas to solve the
problems is fun, too. I think I'll make a lot of it out of metal, as that
is what I have and know.

Will take some youtube videos when I go shake the trees and pick up the
pecans with a vacuum. Then some on the shelling/cracking/sorting part.

Steve