JonR10 wrote:The roaster has arrived.
In this instance, I agree with Ken's assessment.
It's probably more work than it is worth to modify.

I sent the seller an email asking if I can return it, but as yet have seen no reply. I also offered in my message to help him modify the base design to make the thing more useful.

I believe that as a MINIMUM the drum and trap door would need to be replaced, and the frame stripped and repainted before this could be safely used to roast coffee. I may post pictures later, but the drum has holes in it that will let the beans escape...and the stirring vanes inside are loosely attached to the drum leaving gaps that will trap beans (to become charcoal).

Also, to remove the drum one would indeed need to break a couple of small welds but judging by the quality of welding work that shouldn't be too challenging. I may decide to rebuild this roaster if the seller does not accept the return, or I may make it an ornament for our back patio.

Make sure you give the ebay feedback that is deserved. Hell, hold him hostage to accept back mine and the other fellow's ("Baby Dom"). He is very motivated to avoid bad feedback, but someone needs to warn the public and I failed to do that.

ken

Ken Fox wrote:Make sure you give the ebay feedback that is deserved.

Sadly, we made the deal outside of eBay even though I did pay with PayPal. But, he has responded positively to my request to allow me to return the unused roaster for a refund

He did send a message asking me to hold it for a few days until they finish a roasting video to show people how to use it, but I declined and again reiterated my concerns about beans spilling out and wrong paint.

I'm sending the unit back to his warehouse in Spring, TX (a suburb local to Houston).
We'll see how it turns out.

.

If he ever does post a video about how to use it, I'd love to see it, especially the part about how to clean all the loose beans out of your cooktop after they have settled inside the burner and become incinerated . . . .

It was tempting to blame the bad results from our first roast on "operator error," although after 2 tries it was pretty obvious that its the roaster, not the operator, that is to blame.

ken

Alrighty....I have an update.
So far - no video.

So I went ahead and returned the roaster locally (my shipping cost was about $12). The seller confirmed receipt within a day or two and agreed to refund my purchase. That was over a week ago.

Well....at least he has stayed in communication Apparently he has a cash flow problem, I guess it's not surprising given the economy and his quality issues.

He sends me regular emails (once or twice a week) to update his status but so far has not issued the refund. Last night he sent me a new message offering to make me a new unit with a stainless drum, and he would test the thing before shipping it. He also said that I could still return it for a refund if unsatisfied.

I am a bit reluctant, but I replied that I would try his new unit out IF it would be built so that I could disassemble it and remove the drum (i.e. the housing ends would be bolted to the frame instead of welding). I figure if it's built so it can be disassembled then I would have a reasonable chance to modify the design myself to make it useful....we shall see.

Did you ask him not to paint it?

JonR10 wrote:I am a bit reluctant, but I replied that I would try his new unit out IF it would be built so that I could disassemble it and remove the drum (i.e. the housing ends would be bolted to the frame instead of welding). I figure if it's built so it can be disassembled then I would have a reasonable chance to modify the design myself to make it useful....we shall see.

That's cool. The idea of the roaster was good -- a rugged bare bones sample roaster. If you can get the reality close to the idea; you may actually put this guy into a decent business.

don't under any circumstances send this guy another nickel; it will prove to be a waste of good money after bad.

I would rate the likelihood of this guy understanding what you want, and actually delivering it, as being quite low.

ken

Ken Fox wrote:don't under any circumstances send this guy another nickel; it will prove to be a waste of good money after bad.

Wise advice as usual Ken. Of course I'm not sending any money, and in fact I only hold out a modest hope of any eventual refund if the new build is complete shyte like the last one.

Ken Fox wrote:I would rate the likelihood of this guy understanding what you want, and actually delivering it, as being quite low.

While I do agree that his grasp of our language is weak comparatively speaking, from our exchanges I think he got my drift pretty accurately.

Here's a possible point of interest: I may have an opportunity to visit his shop (if it could be called that). Turns out the guy makes these things just a short distance from my sister-in-law's place. For those who may not know it, my wife is Salvadorian.

Since we already plan to return to El Salvador this winter to visit the mountain Finca resort where we stayed in January (CLICK for PICS) I was thinking maybe I could visit him and give him some tips to help him make a better product more efficiently. Since he seems open to the idea then perhaps my 2 decades of engineering design and manufacturing experience won't go completely to waste after all.

Making things better and more efficiently is a special area of expertise for me. I feel strongly that the build quality of this roaster could be totally upgraded with a very modest cost impact....if these guys got some sage advice it might make a big difference for their product and for their business.

Hopefully this good deed will go unpunished.....

I had quite few email exchanges with this seller before the "roaster" (intentionally enclosed in quotes) arrived. Almost all of these exchanges were initiated by the seller, who seemed to be paranoid that I would leave him the bad ebay feedback that he certainly deserved.

I can't claim to be one of those armchair psychoanalysts who glean important information from emails and ebay sales listings. Nonetheless, it was not my impression that this fellow is a crook (in the Nixonian sense of the word). Rather, I think we are dealing with a combination of incompetence and outright lack of understanding as to what a real, functioning coffee roaster might be. This would explain such things as using paint that burns off at temperatures way below which the roaster would be exposed to in roasting coffee, a drum design that is worse than a joke, lack of any testing before shipping, and in summary just a hellacious piece of crap.

If his goal was just to rip people off, I can think of a number of easier ways to accomplish that than fabricating useless "coffee roasters" in El Salvador, packaging them up, and selling them on ebay; an online "phishing" scheme or any number of other frauds would seem a lot easier to me to execute than making these faux roasters and selling them on ebay.

Even if you get so far as to communicate clearly with this fellow about what it is you want, the likelihood that he can or will actually deliver it seems to me to be rather small.

Still, I have lost much more money on many other very foolish things than two or three hundred dollars on one of these "roasters," so the loss has to be put into perspective. For myself, I am going to visit a Home Depot in Boise when I return there from France (on my way home) and am going to spend another few dollars on some black enamel paint. I'm going to paint over the burned off paint and with half an hour's effort hopefully am going to return my own personal POS back into a decent looking objet d'art. It will henceforth repose in my living room as a conversation piece, but I'll never roast another bean in it.

ken

When I owned a bulk cement hauling company, in another life, we used an aircraft paint on the trailers, due to the corrosive qualities of cement. The name of the company that manufactured the paint was Ameron, think it was an epoxy paint. Ameron might be a paint type that would work for a hot coffee roaster.