Abstract: A utensil for cracking the shells of crabs, lobsters, and other shellfish. A pair of handles are pivotally connected, each handle having a jaw with a tapered cutting edge for cracking the shells without severing the meat which the shells contain. The handles are bent in such a way as to prevent complete closure of the jaws, so that the shell is cracked while leaving the meat of the shellfish intact. This construction also facilitates using the bent ends of the handles for extracting the meat from the cracked shell. For this purpose the bent ends of the handles are bevelled, and taper from wide to narrow in a direction away from their jaws and toward their free ends. When the crab cracker is ready for storage, the bent handles are locked by forcing them apart and placing them in a parallel position. This enables the crab cracker to be easily and neatly stored in a minimum of space.

Abstract: A hand-held, electrically operated fish scaler includes a motor driven descaling tool which defines teeth having scraping edges especially arranged with respect to one another and to the axis of the descaling tool. The descaling tool includes a shank which is removably secured to the motor for rotation about the axis of the shank, and a member secured to the shank for defining the teeth and the scraping edges. In one embodiment the teeth are arranged with respect to one another to provide a periphery of an oval shape along at least a portion of the axis. In another embodiment the teeth, which are defined by a front wall, a rear wall, and a pair of side walls, have the respective front walls lying in non-radial planes with respect to the axis, thereby providing either a positive or a negative rake. Preferably the motor is a relatively high speed motor, and a speed reducer is provided for enabling the descaling tool to rotate at a slower speed than that of the motor.