Growing nuts is one thing, being able to make the most of the bounty and having a good supply for the kitchen needs good equipment.There are many types of nutcrackers some work and others may be total duds and a waste of effort.
While staying with a friend in France, we visited her parents and her mother gave me this great nutcracker. She said it was Swiss made so of excellent quality. (She was Swiss) She was right and its so efficient to use. It does not matter
how large or small the walnut or hazelnuts it does a great job.
I have seen similar nut crackers in Australia – they are often promoted as champagne openers. I think there are easier ways of opening champagne.
Macadamias present a challenge. There shells are extremely hard. I used a hammer where as Quentin preferred to use vice grips.Both method were very slow and inefficient so the harvest of macas just sat in storage and where cracked only in small quantities usually only to make pesto. Recently we brought a Queensland made macadamia nutcracker… Wow it works so well. The hinged long handle makes it so easily to crack the macas so now we are using them as fast as they are harvested and dried. In our climate a lot of nuts fall off with the green outer shell still on and uncracked these where a pain to remove before drying but the maca cracker does this job as well.
For more info http://www.tjsnutcrackers.com/