Coffee Grinder: A Segmented Turned Box
My wife has quite the fondness for coffee. So far I have made her a coffee bar and some coffee scoops. A coffee grinder seemed like a good next gift, so I tackled it for our upcoming anniversary and Valentines Day.
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Check out the tools I use.
It is basically box with a drawer turned out of Indian rosewood and purpleheart with a grinder mechanism on top.
This is a more complex project that requires a lathe, and unless you are exceptional with a coping saw, a band saw. However, if you only have a lathe you could skip the segmenting and make this out of a single blank and separate the top and bottom halves instead of using a pull out drawer.
If you do not have a lathe, you could build a square box and mount this on top.
The first task was squaring up the rosewood blank and cutting down some purpleheart. Then came resawing the purpleheart and rosewood so I would have some thin pieces to make a "sandwich" that will become the box. The thickest piece of rosewood will be the middle, so I marked and cut the drawer out of that piece. Then all of the pieces were glued together.
After the glue dried, I shimmed the drawer into place, secured it with a screw where there will later be a hole for the coffee grounds to fall through, and cut the box to a rough circle on the band saw. I initially mounted the box on the lathe with a screw chuck, then turned a recess I could use with the four jaw chuck. Then I turned it to a pleasing shape with a recess on top for the mechanism to set in.With the shaping complete it was time for a lot of sanding and buffing, and the finishing touches.
A recess was carved into the drawer using the drill press and routers. I turned some small knobs, one for the front of the drawer, and one to replace the knob on the crank for the mechanism.With everything made, all that was left was to assemble. I secured the mechanism to the box by drilling and tapping some holes and inserting the bolts that came with the kit. So far, the wife loves it, so that is a successful project in my book.
This project was my submission to Shogun-Jimi's Valentines Day Maker Challenge: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp1gai6QjnedYDxLQSQyYtbQGzztJMbHR
This design was inspired by David Reed Smith, you can see his build on his website here: http://www.davidreedsmith.com/Articles/CoffeeGrinder/CoffeeGrinder.htm