Handground Precision Manual Coffee Grind

And another revision, September 13, 2019. I currently have four Handground units - three defective with jammed shafts as described in my earlier review (below) and an original Kickstarter unit that still works. I just took apart all three defectives and found the shafts scored where they enter the bearing at the base of the hopper. Contaminants in the beans (probably dirt) get caught between the shaft and the bearing, scoring the shaft and causing it to bind. A possible fix is to put an o-ring or piece of tubing on the shaft and press it against the bearing. This will keep some contaminants out provided the grind setting isn't changed. A more permanent fix would be to put a shaft seal on the bearing holder or, better yet, go back to the sintered bronze bearings used in the Kickstarter units - not sure Handground is going to do either. The Kickstarter unit uses sintered bronze bearings while the newer units use stainless steel bearings. A competent machine designer would veto the stainless shaft/stainless sleeve bearing combination since stainless binds easily to stainless in moving assemblies. Clearly whoever did the cheapening redesign was ignorant of this. April 2019: This is a revision of my previous 5-star review. Would be a zero star but that's not an option. I purchased another Handground in April 2019. I used it at our weekend place while continuing to use my original (Kickstarter) unit at home. The new Handground failed in less than a month: the vertical axle seized up. I got a replacement from Amazon (it was still in the 30 day replacement period). That one failed in the same way after three months of use. Two identical failures in three months? Hmm...after a bit of study I believe the root cause is a change made in the lower bearing mechanism sometime after the original Kickstarter units were produced. See photos: Left (black) unit was purchased on the original Handground Kickstarter campaign (2016) and has been in near daily use for well over two years. Note the bronze bearing around the center shaft. Right (white) unit was received in April 2019. Note the plastic surrounding the center shaft - the bronze bearing found in the original has been deleted and replaced with plastic. The white unit and its immediate predecessor failed in the same way - the center shaft seized up while grinding. The unit got harder and harder to turn before this happened; as this was going on I noticed the gears in the top were sounding a bit distressed - I'm guessing these would have failed if the shaft hadn't seized first. Quite a few other reviewers mention failed gears. OK - what happened? Someone - either a Handground designer or a contract manufacturer substituted an inferior bearing for the original. As a result an excellent product has become useless. To add insult to injury, Handgroud support seems overwhelmed and unaware of their own warranty terms (that's a charitable way of putting it). When the first unit failed we exchanged it on Amazon for a new one as we were in the 30 day exchange period. When the replacement unit failed well after the 30 day exchange period we contacted Handground support and asked for the unit to be repaired and, after some fiddling, Handground said they sent us a 'repair kit.' Three weeks later there is no sign of it. So today we asked for a refund - and were refused. This is contrary to their warranty terms. When we pointed that out they asked for return of the product - at out cost - and said they will give us an Amazon credit when it shows up at their Texas facility. We shall see - needless to say the return unit is going via a traceable carrier. This is a good example of how to ruin a product franchise: cheapen it and don't support it. Conclusion: DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. And here's my original review: I first used a hand operated coffee grinder over 40 years ago. It was wall mounted and used steel/iron burrs. At the time (mid 1970s) they were common junk shop items, having been made by several Wisconsin companies well into the 1950s. For various reasons, including bits of metal in the grounds, I switched to an electric grinder and gave the hand unit back to my sister-in-law. When I switched to Danish press (aka 'French' press - marketing at work...) brewing about five years ago the electric grinders weren't up to the job. I went through four or five electric models w/o much joy and had to settle for store-ground coffee. The problem with home electric burr grinders (and don't get me started on blade grinders - ugh!) is that the burrs are too small and spin too fast to get a narrow range of particle sizes. That is, a coarse grind results in maybe 50% of particles in the correct size range but the rest are undersized with many fines (1/10th or less of the desired size). This clogs a Danish press and gives muddy coffee - good for those who like Heretical roasts ('burned at the stake') but not for me. Large commercial grinders found in stores use much larger burrs that spin relatively slower giving a narrower size range and better brewing results. So I went back to a hand grinder - only to find my cast iron fav of the 1970s had become a trendoid artifact with worn out units going for $100 or more in 'vintage' (otherwise known as 'junk') shops. Ugh. I tried several vertical axis hand grinders and found them a PITA to use - the ergonomics of operating the units are not consistent with the strength of the human wrist - the wrist is weak in the plane in which the turning force is applied so the grinding action proceeds in fits and starts. Not for me. When Handground launched a Kickstarter campaign to make a horizontal axis grinder I jumped on board. My first unit was very good and improved greatly with the new burr supplied about six months after launch. Now I have a second Handground - works great, makes good ground coffee in good time - ~1 minute to grind 2 ounces of beans for my Danish-American press (Espro). So, get a Handground and toss out your vertical axis hand grinder. Your wrist and arm will be much happier - and you will drink better coffee!