Grinded to the Grind

"Agrajag" (Agrajag) 04/30/2015 at 09:40 • Filed to: heirlooms, coffee

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After my shitty electric coffee grinder broke, my Mother gave me one that belonged to her grandparents. It was filthy and the internals rusted, but I wanted to try it out.

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It’s an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! produced sometime around !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Same year my grandmother was born.

My Mother remembers it being used when she was a kid but figures it hasn’t seen use since the 70’s. My Grandmother had repainted it sometime in the 80’s and hung it in her kitchen for decoration. After she passed in the mid 90’s it made its way to my Mother and now me.

Dismantling is easy. There are two slotted machine screws that go into square nuts on the back. This allows the body to separate and permits removal of the glass hopper.

Don’t drop the glass! Amazingly the rubber seal is still soft and kind of like a putty in that it almost holds a shape when pressed. Natural rubber?

This is the front half.

And the back.

There are two nuts which lock against each other that hold the handle and shaft/drum in place. Once those are removed and the handle set aside, the drum and shaft just slide out of the front half.

The front half with the drum removed.

Not too bad for decades of disuse.

For rust removal I decided to try this stuff out instead of a wire wheel.

Two hours in the bath.

Holy Shit! That stuff works great.

Some paint came off during the process. Not sure yet if I want to repaint it or leave it be.

I put it all back together for a test run.

I’ve determined that you don’t really want that grinding noise at all. The two nuts that lock each other in place and hold the handle on also control how much the internal drum presses against the housing. Too tight and you can’t turn it. Too loose and the handle wobbles around. I did a test run with the tension backed off to where the drum and housing barely meet and got some fine ground coffee.

Next was to figure out a place to mount this thing.

It needs to be shimmed out a bit since that lower catch arm is further back than the rest of it. I found some scrap wood from when I made a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for my MB.

I ended up gorilla glueing two of these together to get the appropriate thickness. Then rounded the edges using my bench grinder and sanded smooth. I should have drilled my holes at this point. I did not.

Had this stain laying around so that took care of that.

After two coats.

Three coats of poly.

I found a good spot to mount it in my kitchen where it will be out of the way and in close proximity to all my coffee supplies.

Had gotten some beans for my birthday so let’s give it a shot.

Takes a bit longer than anticipated but it’s worth it.

This much took about 3 minutes.

Pretty cool to be using something that is almost 100 hundred years olds. Even cooler that it’s something my Great Grandfather/mother purchased and used for years. I still may paint it and want to replace the two washers on the inside but overall I’m incredibly pleased.

505Turbeaux > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 09:43

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this is awesome beyond comprehension. Also a beautiful piece and well done!

Party-vi > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 09:43

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Color me jelly because that is awesome!

Cé hé sin > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 09:44

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It’s this irreplaceable jar that would scare me.

CalzoneGolem > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 09:46

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I fall in the don’t paint it camp. It is beautiful.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 09:50

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thats awesome. I have a meat grinder at home that I found when we were cleaning out my grandfathers basement. its missing the cutting blades and the nut at the end of the grinding shaft which is some special shape to hold everything together. Kinda bummed I can’t use it

Agrajag > 505Turbeaux 04/30/2015 at 09:50

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Thanks.

CKeffer > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 09:51

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Dude, that thing looks awesome, and yeah Evapo-rust is amazing stuff.

Agrajag > Cé hé sin 04/30/2015 at 09:53

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I guess I could always use a wide mouth funnel when if I break it.

Agrajag > OPPOsaurus WRX 04/30/2015 at 09:54

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That’s a shame. Maybe keep an eye out at garage sales and flea markets.

macanamera > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 09:54

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My mind is destroyed at how well that rust remover worked.

Agrajag > macanamera 04/30/2015 at 10:06

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Likewise. If it weren’t so expensive I’d buy a pool of it and just drive my car into it.

CalzoneGolem > macanamera 04/30/2015 at 10:07

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I’m totally purchasing some of that.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 10:08

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Nice!

Bluecold > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 10:17

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Very cool. You might want to check alignment. If the inner and outer burr aren’t concentric, half the burr will grind finely, the other half very coarse. This will make grinding slow and your coffee unevenly extracted.

It does seem like the burr is supported at both ends, and both halves do seem to have some play when fitting them together, so it should be possible to align everything properly. You might need some shims. For my old Dienes I made a ‘shim’ out of sanded down JB weld clay.

http://www.home-barista.com/grinders/hand-…
That’s the de-facto hand grinder thread.
Your grinder looks a lot like a Spong, construction and burr-size wise
http://www.home-barista.com/grinders/spong…

Agrajag > Bluecold 04/30/2015 at 10:35

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Thanks for the advice!

Looks like Spong and Arcade were both around at the same time and must’ve been competitors. Just now looked and didn’t realize the value these things hold.

doodon2whls > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 10:59

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THis is fantastic and needs to be cross posted to LifeHacker or Gizmodo, or I am sure there is a Gawker Coffee blog somewhere... Nicely done.

doodon2whls > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 11:01

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I miss working with these old square nut fasteners.... Wait.. No I don’t... They were terrible ! But I reminisce about those days.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 11:11

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Dude, I am loving this. You could make some money finding and updating these things and selling them on Etsy, I bet.

\Just started quitting coffee because I may have the early symptoms of GERD.

Agrajag > doodon2whls 04/30/2015 at 11:14

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They work well in this application but generally I dislike using them. There is actually a little ledge that they rest on that keeps them from turning.

Agrajag > R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet 04/30/2015 at 11:16

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These are pretty valuable. Looks like they regularly sell in the $160 to $200 range. If it had the original lower cup they go for $400+. Now I just need to find ones for less than that...

Agrajag > doodon2whls 04/30/2015 at 11:17

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Thank you.

Imirrelephant > Agrajag 04/30/2015 at 11:21

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COFFEELOPNIK! Well done, sir!

wunderwagen wants a longer roof > Agrajag 05/01/2015 at 23:56

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Beautiful piece of history. I just bought a manual grinder a few months ago, it makes such a difference.