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Beadblasters and the Elmore Macadamia Husker and Cracker
Ilko Scheepens is the owner of “Beadblasters” and is a 20 year+ experienced NCME qualified precision engineer, located in the picturesque macadamia growing region of Waitakere, north of Auckland in New Zealand.
In addition to his engineering expertise, Ilko is also a keen orchardist, operating a 1.5 hectare macadamia orchard of 160 trees. The orchard was planted out in the mid 1980’s by Ilko’s father and comprises predominantly the “beaumont” variety. Ilko’s entire macadamia crop is husked and cracked in-house for the farmers markets. It was for these local markets that Ilko put his engineering skills to work and designed and built the first purpose built Elmore Macadamia Husker and Cracker.
The Elmore machine attracted a lot of interest and it wasn’t long before Ilko was manufacturing the cracker de-husker for growers in the district. The Elmore machine has been refined and has now been in production for 11 years. It is sold both locally and in overseas markets.
The Elmore Macadamia Husker and Cracker
The key attraction of this machine is that it was precision engineered and fine tuned by a macadamia grower. It was developed and refined in a production environment with particular emphasis on quality, robust build and versatility. Key features include:
- Capability. Ability to husk and crack all nut sizes automatically. Motors, available in either 110 or 240 volt versions, are able to husk at 100 kgs per hour. Cracking at 35 kgs per hour is dependent on how dry the nuts are.
- Versatility. Macadamia nuts are husked by means of adding a husking hopper and sorting table. After drying, nuts are cracked through the same machine by simply changing the hopper. It can be supplied solely as a hand wound machine or upgarded by adding both motor / gearbox drives and hoppers as a future option.
- Scalability. Suitable for both the grower with just a few, or hundreds of trees. For larger orchards it is perfect for quality control checking of the crop prior to dispatch to the processors, while at the same time, still being able to crack a couple off tonnes for farmers markets and gate sales.
- Quality. Quality control is assured as the Elmore Macadamia Husker and Cracker is manufactured in the Beadblasters own workshop. Weighing in at just over 50 kg (motor driven machine), customers are pleasantly surprised at the solid build and robust nature of the Elmore. All equipment is fully guaranteed.
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Ilko Scheepens “stands by his results”
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