Hi, I am new to coffee and decided to get a Lido E-T as everywhere I read say that a good grinder is very important. I received the new Lido E-T for more than one week but have not start using it as I am waiting for an email reply from Barb and Doug regarding an issue I have with the E-T.
I have not received any reply from them so far as they may be busy with SCAA and hence I decided to seek out some advice here. There is a pretty big 'rusty/contaminated factory oil spot' as can be seen here: Rust?

As I was hoping that the $200 investment can be a 'buy-it-for-life' purchase, is this 'defect' something I need to be worried about? Thanks in advance for any advice!

Looks like it. .But don't you worry, a little 0000 ultra fine steel wool will polish that out in a jiffy. Don't get wound up about it, it's not on a spot that has any affect on the grinder's operation anyway.

I sincerely empathize. I've learned long ago that expecting inside-out perfection often leads to disappointment, so never expect anything to be 100% perfect -- no matter how much you spend on it. At the end of the day, your issue makes very little difference, cosmetically or functionally.

Either polish in place with cleaned 0000 steel wool or forget about it. That is not worth taking the grinder apart and then enduring all the hassles of correct reassembly. Most plain burr sets come with some surface discoloration, not a problem.

jayeff34 wrote:Hi, I am new to coffee and decided to get a Lido E-T as everywhere I read say that a good grinder is very important. I received the new Lido E-T for more than one week but have not start using it as I am waiting for an email reply from Barb and Doug regarding an issue I have with the E-T.
I have not received any reply from them so far as they may be busy with SCAA and hence I decided to seek out some advice here. There is a pretty big 'rusty/contaminated factory oil spot' as can be seen here: Rust?
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As I was hoping that the $200 investment can be a 'buy-it-for-life' purchase, is this 'defect' something I need to be worried about? Thanks in advance for any advice!

From OE website:

I see some spots on the burr. Is it rusty?

The grinding burrs are made of steel. The way they make them is that they "cut" the burrs on a special milling machine or lathe when the steel is "soft" and then they put the burr through a heat process that hardens the steel. At any point in this process some contaminant or oil etc can get baked a make what looks like a spot. Rust is obvious but these brown or dark spots on the burr are not avoidable, at least by us...that is the way the burrs come from the factory. If you think you have rust on the burr you can take it out and wire brush it to verify that it is not rust, but really it is generally best to just run some beans through and get those oils on the burrs to protect them. The cosmetic aspects of the inner parts of the grinder are one of the difficult areas that we have to face every day. As our design for the grinder is so transparent, everything can, and will be seen (unlike any other grinders we can think of) so even the working areas (grind chamber) is there for inspection. Rust is different from spots, but some of these types of things fall into the extreme fastidious range of critique.

Thanks for the link! I have actually read the FAQ, just wasn't sure if this unusually large spot belongs to that category of cosmetic issue.