Thread: Portafilter Handle - No Lathe

Hi, wanted to post this for a bit. A friend of mine was restoring a nice old espresso machine. He has helped me out a lot on other things. So, when he asked me if I could make him new handle for the filter I immediately said yes.
The old handles were plastic and had cracks. He also gave me a piece of Macadamia wood from the tree in his own backyard, which he had drying for ages. I thought that is even better. A nice connection there.

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I first cut a blank from that piece and made the holes first. It was quite challenging as the holes were different diameter from both ends and part of the inner hole had to be square to accept the handle and prevent it from spinning on the metal body.

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I took me bit to get the holes aligned from both ends. As I do not have a good accurate drill press, I used a little trick I saw online. Basically, what you do is to make a small square block with the hole dead in the middle as it should also go into the end of the blank. Then you use that block to guide the drill by having the block and the blank straight against another straight board. It worked ok.

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I then had to go and chisel out the inner hole to a square shape until the handle fit snuggly in. To ensure I am heading in the right direction I also made myself a square dummy with same dimensions as the square profile from the handle. I could stick that in, and one see how far I still have to go, but also to ensure I am staying fairly straight.

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Finally, I had a nice square hole through the center and the handle did sit nice and snug.

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Now to shape the handle. I do not have a lathe and liked the challenge to find a way without. The post from woodhutt to make a walking cane gave me the solution. I made up a jig like his and added also some guide for my number 4 plane.

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That way I shaped it into a multigone first. Then I could sick the rod also into my cordless drill and went outside to sand it round.

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I wanted a defined taper on one end of the handle and the plane guide was brilliant here again to allow a very defined taper.

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After rounding I made my marks of the shape I was aiming for. Basically, same as I saw on the woodturning videos. I used a saw to make little cut around the circumference as deep as I wanted to go to have a guide for the chisel. Then I could chisel the notches and knew exactly when I was deep enough.

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Rest was then taking material off with spokeshave and more sanding on the drill. For that I had a board with a hole in my vice and could support the other end of the rod in the hole. This way I had one hand free to sand the handle smooth.

The finished handle shape is fitting really good in the hand. I was happy. Finished it with some food safe oil.

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I still had some scraps left of the wood and thought what best to deliver it if not in a nice box. The handle on the top was from a piece where the block of wood had a big crack inside and I liked the life edge surface. I think you can see the crack on the very first picture. So I incorporated that and practiced making splines. The box body is from pallet wood and the splines and handle from left over macadamia.

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Finally delivered and my friend was very happy. And I got a really good coffee

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