Hobart 66420 single grinder

[Carlosgenco]

Hi! I'm from Argentina and I'm restoring an old coffee grinder from Hobart. My grinder is almost complete but I think that one or two pieces are missing. Have somebody information (pictures, or documents) about this model or some related? Enclosed are some pictures of my machine (name plate and parts being cleaned)

Thanks a lot!

[harrisonpatm]

Please don't take my word as law, because I'm not an expert in all the myraid variations of vintage Hobart models. I have restored several old Hobart coffee grinders thought, and unfortunately, from what I can tell from the pictures, what you have is the old Hobart meat grinder, not coffee. The main motor section on both is similar, as you'll see from the pic I pulled off a quick google search below.

Like I said, I could be wrong. What Hobart did back then was take the same motor and use a number of iron castings for the front to turn the motor into either a coffee or meat grinder. They're great motors, my restaurant uses one regularly for filter coffee.

From the picture you sent, it looks like the big round gear is the gear differential to take the high speed motor and turn it into the slower speed meat grinder. The Hobart coffee grinders, while they use the same big red motor, don't use the gear reduction; the burr is directly connected to the rotor shaft.

For clarification, could you send a couple pics of the machine as a whole? It would give me a better idea of exactly which model it is.

[Carlosgenco (original poster)]

Hi! Thanks a lot for your response, I appreciate it. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of whole grinder... below are pictures of burrs. My grandfather bought this grinder from a coffee owner ( my grand father used to grind pepper with it). I found a picture of a grinder identical to mine...

This is a picture of both burrs:



This is a picture of movable burr:



This is a picture of a grinder same model as mine:



May be this model on Argentina was used for meat and coffee grinder. I have the grinder, hopper and a receipt for collect grinder coffee.

If you have restored several grinders, could you send me some pictures of pieces near to grain size selector? I think that some pieces are missing between the nut moved by selector dial and main axis.

[harrisonpatm]

What a unique find! Thank you for sharing.

The interesting thing about these older machines is that, even though they are somewhat standardized, they are also very easy to modify and the parts were common back then to do your own modifications. From the last picture you showed me, it does indeed look like somebody took then Hobart meat grinder motor and gear reduction, and outfitted it to the Hobart coffee grinder burr housing. That's why I prefaced my first comment with, don't take my word for it. The machine is 90-100 years old, anything could have happened in that time! Amazing machine you found, likely one of a kind.

Whats interesting to me is that, with the gear differential in place on that motor, leading to coffee burrs, it looks like it would be way too slow to grind coffee well, something like 60-200 RPM. However, since you said it was used for grinding pepper, that would work great; if you're just trying to crack peppercorns and not get a uniform powder, this would be a perfect machine.

I will PM you about sending my pictures from my restorations.

[RobAnybody]

it looks like it would be way too slow to grind coffee well, something like 60-200 RPM.

At thr risk of derailing the thread, why whould this be to slow? I won't get beond 100 RPM on my Spong hand mill (comparable burr size and orientation, especially on the nr 3/4 model) and that works just fine..
cheers,
Rob

[harrisonpatm]

Nope, you're right, I should have been more specific. Let me clarify what I meant, since of course you can grind coffee just fine at whatever RPM you want.

I meant, if you're going to the trouble of restoring and using and outfitting a giant cast iron workhouse of a motor, that weighs 50-100 pounds, to grind coffee at an RPM and grind quality that you can beat with a hand grinder... Doesn't seem worth it to me. Of course, there's a lovely aesthetic quality to be had by a 100-year-old grinder. My comment was more towards, why even bother (100 years ago, originally) designing an attachment for a 1/4 HP motor to grind coffee at only 60-100 RPM?

That's actually not a rhetorical question. I would love someone with more insight than me to weigh in.

[Carlosgenco (original poster)]

I finished disassembling and cleaning of mechanical parts of my grinders and started to assemble it.







I'm surprised because when I try to mount the grinder head, it doesn't fit so good: a gap (aprox 1/8") remains between grinder head and main frame... but before disassembly it, there there isn't a joint or another piece. Any tip?

[harrisonpatm]

If you haven't tried it already? Hit it with a rubber mallet.