It’s amazing how much a difference 1.5″ makes.

After the SFMoma event we went back to the drawing board, which is not a great place to be when you’re waiting on your Golden Master to arrive. Paul and I were concerned about the amount of resistance coming from the flywheel when grinding. Changing the gear ratio wasn’t an option, the size of a 2:1 ratio bevel set would be too big for our current design.

The alternative was to provide more leverage. After a drunken bout of power tools and vodka, we knew that we could gain a mechanical advantage of over 30% by adding 1.5″ inches to the outside diamter of the flywheel, as evidenced in the Frankenlever posting. But we didn’t want to make the flywheel any bigger. The HG one grinder sits a hair over 17″ high, and while it might seem that adding 1.5″ to the outside diameter of the flywheel would be inconsequential, it wasn’t. The knock on would be the grinder would be a tight squeeze under wall mounted cabinets.

Alternative two, lose the flywheel all together and replace it with a handle. Based on our testing of the Frankenlever we knew it could work, but we’d forfeit some mechanical advantage by losing the weight of the wheel. And most tragic of all, we’d lose the aesthetic that everyone loved. Needless to say we were disappointed. I headed back to Los Angeles from San Francisco with no solutions.

On my six hour drive home, Paul and I discussed all of our options, and we couldn’t come up with anything. Finally, ten minutes from home, we had an idea. Combine both. Some furious modeling in Solidworks the next day, some even more frantic calls to our machinist, and our solution has made it into Prototype C (Mimi).

We like what we’ve come up with, and we sincerely feel that the new design looks better than the original.

Flywheel Lever

If you’re a power user than you can take off the lever and mount the handle directly to the flywheel. The grinder still fits underneath at 17″ cabinet height counter top, and most importantly of all, we feel that most people will be able to use the grinder without issue. Yes, there’s still some resistance, but nothing that we feel would be a deal breaker. My left handed wife was able to grind without hopping the machine, and while using the 83mm burr sets. If anyone has any lingering concerns, then order the 71mm version of the grinder.

So once again, we’re waiting for our final Prototype, and then we’ll open up the store for pre-orders.

NB: Since we have 6 test units, Paul and I were thinking of opening up a raffle for one of the prototypes with the proceeds going to charity. More to come on that front.