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Stanford Product Realization Lab, 2018

As part of Design and Manufacturing (ME 203) at Stanford, I was tasked with choosing a project as an introduction into manual machining and woodworking techniques. I decided to make two important pieces of espresso equipment: a portafilter and tamp. Over the course of the class we identified needs, sketched forms, prototyped functionality, and built our projects using Stanford’s Product Realization Lab resources.

The head of the portafilter was made of machined brass, with a stem turned on a lathe. The two parts were then brazed together, sanded and polished, and then nickel plated by a contractor. The aluminum base of the tamp was turned on a lathe, and lightly sanded and polished. Both handles were turned on a wood lathe out of oak, and sanded and finished.

One of my goals for this project was to create very complicated geometries to showcase proficiency in manual machining (which I learned over the course of making this project). Along the way, I learned a lot about fixturing and planning operations (particularly for the curved, tapered tabs on the exterior).