# Shims



## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

My mate needs some for a graef, what's the best thing to use and where would one source them?


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## Thecatlinux (Mar 10, 2014)

What sort of shims ?How thick ? You can buy purpose made or make some


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## El carajillo (Mar 16, 2013)

You can buy shim steel from engineering suppliers in various thicknesses.


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## mremanxx (Dec 30, 2014)

What do you need Jeebs, PM me if it's steel that he is going to cut and use I should have some at work.


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

How do you work out size/thickness required etc?


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## Thecatlinux (Mar 10, 2014)

Depends on what you're trying to do ?


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

Make it grind finer so raise the lower burr? Internal diameter of whatever the burr is screwed onto, OD less than the diameter of the burr?


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## Thecatlinux (Mar 10, 2014)

Is a milk carton too thick ? Very useable plastic easy to work with , could double up if needed


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## mremanxx (Dec 30, 2014)

You will probably find that the adjustment he will need is small 5 - 10 thou. Let me know what the diameter of the spindle is and the diameter of the burr I will see if I can get something.


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## dsc (Jun 7, 2013)

How are you trying to use shims to make a grinder grind finer? is it simply to re-align it to make burrs more parallel in order to move the burrs closer together without rubbing?

For shims try ebay, loads of different sizes, although you can also try aluminium / kitchen foil, last time I checked it was close to 0.01mm, fold over for thicker pieces.

T.


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## jeebsy (May 5, 2013)

Think the Graef is stepped so it was just to move them closer together, unless you can recalibrate?


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## bronc (Dec 10, 2012)

A workmate has a Graef and he's told me that there is some internal adjustment thingy in addition to the collar grind adjustments.


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## dsc (Jun 7, 2013)

Dunno the grinder, but I can see now what you are trying to do. As mentioned above there's usually a way to move the '1' setting to be finer without using shims, have you opened the grinder at all? I remember that on the Gaggia MDF there was a plastic collar with numbers on it and this was fixed with two screws to the brass collar of the burr chamber. By loosening the two screws you could easily lock the grinder down more into the finer regions, than re-attach the plastic scale collar, thus moving the '1' point and allowing the grinder to grind finer on the lowest setting.

Shims will in effect do the same, but you'd have to know how close the grinder is to the true 'zero', or just use 0.5mm or 1mm shims and be careful when dialing it in (with thick shims you'd reach the rub point rather quickly somewhere in the mid / high regions of the stepped scale).

T.


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## elonii (Jun 24, 2015)

If it's the Graef CM80 I had the australian version of this grinder (a sunbeam EM480) and did the shim adjustment on it as the grind was just awful. It just wouldn't grind finely enough for espresso. I used a 0.25mm shim. The calibration of them out of the factory seems to vary greatly. Some people were using one or two washers under the burrs, others were having to remove them to get the grind right. It was such a known issue that at one point Sunbeam were posting out shim adjustment kits to people who rang and complained.

From memory, I just went and got a washer from the hardware store to do mine.


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