Maize is one of the most popular food crops in the world. The grain crop serves as key input in many manufacturing companies and poultry industry. After harvesting, maize processing begins with de-husking and shelling. Maize is shelled manually by hands or other traditional means. This method has not proved to be effective due to drudgery attached, kernel breakage and poor shelling capacity. Over time, motorized shellers have been introduced to address the challenges faced by processors; they have not gained widely adoption due to unaffordable cost of owning one. There is therefore the need to design a cost effective and eco-friendly solution that will suit the need of farmers in the industry. This work focuses on development of a hand-operated maize sheller. A major component is the hand-operated lever arm fitted to a ball bearing to transfer rotational motion to stripping chute. The machine uses the principle of abrasion to shell maize. The model (Y=54.92+ 2.68X1-2.68X2+ 1.187) from multivariate analysis of data obtained from evaluation reveals that machine capacity is a function of two predictors, speed and moisture content. For every unit increase in cranking speed at a particular MC, material throughput increases considerably. When the experiment is run at much lower moisture content, material throughput increases significantly. The machine reached highest material throughput (50 kg/hr. – predicted, 60 kg/hr. – estimated) at lowest MC (14%) and highest speed of rotation (120 rpm). The machine is suitable for use by small and medium scale processors; it can efficiently replace the manual shelling method as it is affordable, less stressful and easy to maintain.