Thread: A couple of special Pepper Grinders

I was in my local coffee shop the other day admiring the shape of their pepper grinder, a simple curved shape. I explained that I made them and pens amongst other things. I showed them the coffee and peppercorn pens (cast in white resin) I had on me at the time and explained I love doing things like these that were unusual. I told them that I was thinking of making pepper grinders out of similar materials and they said they would certainly buy one if I was successful.

So I took up the challenge. The outside would be sealed with a finish, but I was concerned about sealing the coffee/peppercorns on the inside of the grinders. So I decided to do a double cast, one of pure resin in the centre, the other with the coffee/peppercorns. To minimise resin, I also used a timber blank on the centre in the first cast, sized to be drilled away when you drill the various holes (ie leaving the pure white resin).

I turned the timber 4mm smaller than the holes, then cast it centrally in a 50mm conduit with white resin. I then turned it down roughly so that it was 4mm larger than the holes and placed it centrally in a 75mm conduit. I filled the conduit up with stabilized (with wood hardener) coffee beans and held them down with a timber disk with small holes in it to let the resin pass.

The photo shows the final 350mm long coffee bean blank, with the white resin blank ready for the peppercorn cast (next weekend?). I was worried the coffee beans may move/float, but they have stayed in place and I am pretty happy with the distribution. I ended up using around 300 mls of hardener, 500 g of coffee and 1.2 ltrs of resin all up , so not a cheap blank.

I already know from my experience with Banksia pepper grinders that resin at this dia must be turned with a skew, anything else tends to chip the resin. I'll post more photos as I progress them.

Cheers