I fixed it!

(the espresso grinder)
(actually, I fixed two of them today)

We have three, actually, and I have fixed two of them before. Most of the time fixing it simply involves cleaning out the burrs. See, a good grinder works by having two burrs, one is stationary and one spins at a high rate of speed. The burrs can be moved closer together or farther apart by screwing the top one down or up, making the ground coffee finer or coarser respectively. When ground coffee gets built up on the teeth or whatever you'd call them of the burrs it will no longer grind properly. (Interestingly enough, it seems you also must have SOME ground coffee between the burrs before it will grind at the fineness required for espresso.)

So I simply cleaned one of the,. The other one was working for the most part but the leaver that turns the little carousel like dosing mechanism wasn't returning to the position it was supposed to and thus resetting the mechanism that causes it to catch and turn to a specific point and stop. So you had to push it back into place. A small hassle and frustration, to say the least.

I took the doser apart today at work and made a huge mess all over myself and the counter of old, ground espresso and grease. I figured it needed some more grease and so I brought it home with me. When I took it apart at home I noticed that about an inch of the spring that makes it snap back into place was two springs. Then I noticed that one end of each of those springs was sharp and pointed - obviously the spring had broken at some point and wasn't as long as it should be. I put a washer between the two spring bits to keep them separated, as well as about 5 extra washers just to give it some more space. It works now. Woo. I'm handy!

I've also fixed the fan of the roaster vent, and the knobs for the milk wands (Becca has done this, too, we go MacGuver and use paperclips to fix those). It's nice to know that there are mechanical things in this world that I understand. Cars just are a few steps beyond me. I can fix something if someone tells me what is wrong with it and exactly how to fix it. But these things I fix on my own and it's a nice feeling.
- posted by Nick @ 3/19/2005 04:18:00 PM | 0 comments