FrankenRoaster – Coffee Roaster Drum

Materials: Ordning Colander x2, Ordning Utensil Caddy x1, Metal shears, pop rivets, grinder, gloves, drill, hammer. Plasma torch optional.

Description: First, remove the handles from the colanders.

They are attached by 4 small spot welds. Your 1/8 drill bit should be fine, and that will get it warmed up for later.

Flatten the handles with a hammer.

Cut the bottom out of one of the colanders. Hard to do with the shears. A plasma torch works great. The grinder will also work, though you will lost a lot of material. If you go that route, buy a second Utensil Caddy.

On the other colander, cut a small cross on the bottom. Not quite an inch across. You can easily cut between the holes.



You will also need to get a piece of 3/8 stainless rod, about 3 feet long. Inventables is a good source.

Cut the caddy down the side, and then cut out the bottom. You should now have two circles of stainless. If you didn’t end up with a circle when processing the first colander, use another caddy.

Cut the circles in half.

Cut two strips, about 3/4 wide, all of the way around the caddy. One should not have holes in it. This would be from the top of the caddy. Drill some holes along it, but not in the middle of the length, and pop rivet them together.

Cut up the rest of the caddy, getting 12 or so pieces that do not have holes. I had 6 that were maybe 2 inches long by 3/4. The rest were 1/2 by 3/4, roughly.

Lay the long strips against the flat handles, so that half of the strip hangs off of the side. Drill and rivet. You should end up with a 2 inch strip running along the side at each end.

Bend the remaining strip 90 degrees, away from the handle. Repeat.

I had two of these handles with only a small piece of metal at one end. Not a big deal.

The half circles will be angled vanes fitting into the curvature at the ends of the colanders. I used my grinder to shape them. Note, the vanes will be opposite from one end to the other. As the drum rotates, you will want these vanes to move the beans out of the end and back into the center. They should point downwards, and towards each other once mounted. I mounted them with another tab of stainless, riveted first to the vane, then to the colander.

You can also place the tabs against the colander to make drill markings. A sharpie works great for this. Mark with a sharpie, hit with a punch, and drill away.

The colanders have symmetrical patterns of holes, which make locating everything a breeze. I picked the center of a field of holes on each of the 4 sides, and touched the inside seam with the grinder, cutting a channel for the side vanes to cross through. Otherwise, they would not lay flat. These vanes will also be holding the two sides together.

Now, take that double thick strap, and cut the length so that it is 2 inches longer than the colanders are wide. Fold one inch on each side 90 degrees. Hold against the side of the colander that you cut the bottom out of. Mark the drill holes, then drill. Also, start a larger hole in the very middle, and then cut a star pattern. Make sure you force the stainless rod through to open it up. Now, mount the strap across the colander. Make sure that the direction that your star points will be the same direction as the star points on the bottom of the other colander. This way, you can push the rod through all at once when it’s time.

OK. Vanes mounted at an angle? I folded the tabs I had riveted to the vanes, marked the tabs close to where they would be, drilled and riveted. I was then able to adjust them just a bit.

Mount the side vanes on one side. Once that is done, drop the other colander over. I had to fashion a little hook tool from one of the rivet dowels. I held it with pliers, stuck it through a hole, and pinched the flat of the sheet steel attached to the vane, but not yet attached to the new end of the colander. Without pinching it, the drill simply pushed the sheet metal away. You can also get your hand into the colander, but I wasn’t too keen about holding a small piece of metal that I was about to drill. Once you get one hole drilled, put in a rivet, and then you should be able to drill a couple more.

Get all four of those attached that way, push your rod through, and you’re done!

A drive motor and gearing is another dialog.

See more photos.

~ beefybean, United States