DIY Electric Pepper Grinder - Cordless Drill to Pepper Shaker Adapter

This is a really simple project.  Once we got home with the parts it took about 15 minutes to put together and test.  It REALLY cranks out the ground pepper.  Alton Brown, beware...

Materials Needed:

1) A Spice / Pepper Grinder.  We used a McCormick disposable Pepper Grinder, but this project will fit many other grinders as well.

2) Some hose clamps (we got ours from Harbor Freight for $4.99).  You need a larger one, but if you can't find one, you can put two or three together to make one large enough.  We highly recommend the harbor freight assortment because they are very thin and flexible making the project easier and they are cheap.

3) A 4" (or larger) flexible sanding pad back.  (This is a round rubber pad that you can chuck into a drill).  We also obtained this from Harbor Freight.

Tools

1) A Cordless Drill / Screwdriver with a Drill Chuck (not one of the hexagon bit holder chucks).

2)  A Screwdriver that fits your hose clamps.

3) A Sharp Knife

Step 1 Cut the Rubber Circle into a plus sign.

Take the rubber pad out of the packaging and cut it as shown.  You want to cut it with a sharp knife.  If you use scissors you will probably cut into the base of the finger slightly which will weaken the fingers.  Depending upon the strength of the rubber this may or may not be a problem.

Comments

[l8nite]

I can see the possibilities of this but there is something to be said about using a hammer to crush a handful of peppercorns in a plastic bag....

[Truehart]

This is one of those times where I ask, "Why?" and then somebody else says, "Why ask why?" Very cool!

[joeynovak]

Thanks!

To answer your uit's led question: it isn't for dinner table use, rather it is for grinding large amounts of pepper for cooking. I.e. when my wife is cooking and asks me to finely grind 1/4 cup of pepper. (it takes a LONG time to manually grind 1/4 cup of pepper...)

Joey

[joeynovak]

*unasked*

Argh... Auto correct