Hi guys,

i recently had the chance to get a ditting shop grinder from 1974 for a good price and simply couldn't resist.

Those are the pics i got beforehand:









At first glance... mint condition (at least for a grinder from 74). motor was running as i was assured.

When it arrive at my place i was a bit shocked about size and weight. Height was alright (about 50cm), but the footprint was quite large and the weight is more than 30kg (hope my ikea kitchen counter will manage)

As promised, motor was running but grind adjustment appeared to be stuck. Also, when test grinding with a few leftover beans, the beans where just spinning in the hopper in spite of the running motor/turning blades.

So i started to take the whole thing apart. Due to heaps of rubber-like ground coffee residues, heaps of rancid coffee oil and lots of rust that was quite a challenge.
Only the excessive use of WD40, heatgun and patience convinced the grinder parts to come apart.
The reasons for the stuck adjustment and the grinder not sucking beans in between the burrs became obvious:














Quite disgusting how much goo was in there. That grinder was used in a shop which was closed down and it seems the former owner just put the grinder in his wet cellar without cleaning it....

With the help of a drill, brass brushes, my dremel and some sanding paper i was able to get most of the rust off the grinding chamber/motor block and the upper burr carrier:









Removing old grease and adding some ballistol did for the grind adjustment. By the way: the adjustment system is pretty nice: the whole axis seems to be elastically supported and grind is adjusted by screwing in a conical bolt to lift the whole axis including the lower burr carrier while the upper carrier is fixed.

Here's the hole for the adjustment bolt:


Here you can see the vanes of the lower burr carrier and the brass(?) sliding support of the axis:


Steel wool (00) did well for the brush-finished aluminium casing. the lower (aluminum) burr carrier was polished and the side panels went to the painter to get a matt black finish (the painter also managed to fill in the various dents and scratches):

See next post for final pics

Here are the final pictures:























So, nearly finished, but the most important parts are still missing: BURRS.
Hopefully, the new burr set will arrive by the end of this week.
The burrset which i found in this grinder wasn't usable at all.
No edges whatsoever only a nice rounded slightly wobbly surface

I'll do a small update when the burrs got delivered and i had the chance to evaluate the grinding performance.

cheers
Georg

Yep, 90mm burrs

Ditting stated those burrs have a life expectancy of 20.000 lbs at medium grind (well at 250€ per burr set one would expect no less)

someone on HB quoted a Ditting person saying that the burrs are at its best after appr. 300-400 lbs (lowest fines production), but i think that was referring to the 80mm burrs of the 804/805/Tanzania

right now i have 4kg of cheap discount coffee sitting in my kitchen waiting to be chewed by this monster.
hope that will suffice.

cheers
Georg

Beautiful machine!

Beautiful machine!

tell that my wife. she finds it's really ugly.
still.. as long as i could convince her to let the monster move into our kitchen... best wife ever!

i really like the classic square ditting design. definitely better than the old Mahlkönig shop grinders.

height is not so bad: its 53cm.. so some 20,9''
footprint is nearly 30cmx30cm, so about 12'' x 12''

quite heavy though, appr. 32kg (70lbs)

cute little tank

another_jim wrote:Show her pictures of the alternatives

Well, i did. Even showed her the old self service Guatemala in the local supermarket.
The only answer i got was that any grinder of that size doesn't belong in a home kitchen. Can't really say she's wrong. Using a grinder with an output of at least 500g/min at home is rather insane. Luckily, coffee obsession isn't all about sanity and rationality

another_jim wrote:Great refurbishing job!

Thanks

Can't wait to put its grinding performance to test....