I received mine today as well and just finished putting it together. Damn right those needles do fit in pretty tight. Even with the oil, I also had to use pliers. I'm not sure how Barb did it in the video but she's got some sort of magic going on there lol. Nonetheless, it all came together just fine and easy enough. Soaking in some dish soap now and looking forward to using it tomorrow morning.

Great news regarding Doug and Barb now stocking spare parts in the US! Leave it to them to save the day and stop us from rigging up our own solutions

Pliers, ouch.

I don't have the tool, but I would imagine that when pressing the needles into the plastic it would be very important to keep the tool absolutely parallel to the surface that is being used to press the heads against, and equally as important to lift it often as Barbara did in the video so that the needles find their centers. Both would reduce sideways pressure against holes that are already tight. It was smart to include that rubber mat to keep the needles solid on the surface while pressing.

I made two coffees and one espresso yesterday and took some before and after photos with using just the OE Leveling Rake which I've made into a collage and posted below, before first and after second. I've been using this since I got it, and I also picked up a spare set of pins and made a WDT tool, but I used just the rake for all the shots I pulled yesterday. Some of the times I've intentionally dumped the coffee in at an angle and the OE Rake does seem to level it out in those cases. This was done with 17 grams of a Saka espresso blend.

I haven't seen the deep furrows that Matthew shows here but you can see traces of where the pins have been in the coffee after raking as shown below. Sorry for the bad pictures, the lighting makes it hard to really tell how level the coffee is. The jury is still out on what difference the rake makes. I've shown my Robot at rest, packed up with the new WDT tool in the left hand and the OE Rake safely stowed in the basket.


Before


After


At rest

yakster wrote:Oh, and I heard Orphan Espresso should have the Robot screens, silicon replacement pins, and piston gaskets in a couple of weeks.

They're in stock now on the same page as the leveling rake and the WDT pins. https://www.oehandgrinders.com/accessor ... robot.html

After my first try using it, I'm kind of disappointed with the raked result. I thought this would level/flatten the top mound of my puck after my wdt routine. But it "looks" like it got worse. Anyone here on same boat as I am? I'll give it another try but I'm not optimistic.

This is probably for people who dont wdt or rake the top puck using wdt.

I loaded some baskets intentionally unlevel and used the rake and it did rake the top of the coffee and even things out. I don't consider it a coffee leveler that will result in a very flat surface appearance but it does move the coffee around so that it's basically level before I tamp. If your already doing WDT first to groom the puck then you can probably skip the rake.

I don't have the tool, how deep do you WDT? What is the gauge of the needles on your WDT? If you only WDT the surface with fine needles perhaps try the oe tool first, then the WDT?

Before OE leveling, after top puck rake. took my like 10 secs:



after OE leveling:

yakster wrote:I loaded some baskets intentionally unlevel and used the rake and it did rake the top of the coffee and even things out. I don't consider it a coffee leveler that will result in a very flat surface appearance but it does move the coffee around so that it's basically level before I tamp. If your already doing WDT first to groom the puck then you can probably skip the rake.

I agree that you have to somewhat intentionally dose it wildly to see its impact. This tool is probably for someone who dose from a grinder that skips wdt.

Ken5 wrote:I don't have the tool, how deep do you WDT? What is the gauge of the needles on your WDT? If you only WDT the surface with fine needles perhaps try the oe tool first, then the WDT?

I do deep wdt with my .4 in circles moving my way up and top rake to finish. I dont see the value of doing OE first and WDT after.

I've been using the rake (happily) since I got it but I don't WDT *or* tamp anymore; I funnel the ground coffee from catch-cup to basket, rake, press fit the screen on top of the bed, and add water.

This is probably a good addition to the workflow of using the magic tumbler or blind shaker. So:

1. Grind to tumbler
2. declump using your tumbler
3. Dose from tumbler to basket
4. OE level
5. Tamp (or not)