Just joined here, looks interesting. I guess some will recognize the name from other places ... It's taken a while, but I've come to appreciate Spong over the last few weeks. A Spong 2 first came into the household (forgotten how) years ago, but I took a quick look at the "soft" burrs, said this'll never work, consigned it to the Grinder Graveyard, and went back to using my favourite Zass (the hand grinder gets used almost every day for syphon, Chemex etc -- just like manual grinders for manual brewing). More recently a no 1 arrived. I thought it looked cute so put it on the bench, then eventually started using it, and was quite impressed with the results. With a bit of practice the grind level can be adjusted consistently (more easily than on Zass and similar). I bang the grinds in a diffuser basket out of an old teapot in order to get rid of some fines, but actually there aren't a lot (IMHO it does make a difference though, especially with syphon). After seeing this thread a few days ago, we remembered the no2, exhumed it, pulled it apart (a couple of the screws needed help), cleaned up the rust etc and got it going. It's now sitting on the bench having turfed the no1. It works very smoothly, less effort needed with the bigger burr (even though it isn't that much bigger, and its footprint on the bench is a not a lot more than the no1). It can stay for a while, at least until we get a chance to clean up the no1, which probably needs it. There is also another Spong in the collection. It's round, and came from the UK. It's obviously made by Salter, as it's in the same style as a Salter pepper mill. Marked "QC1" on the bottom. The adjustment mechanism on this looks pretty solid, looks like it should keep the burrs firmly in place. However after looking up some pictures it was obvious that the previous owners had re-assembled it incorrectly, and also that a ball bearing that's supposed to go on the end of the shaft is missing. So when I find one of those will try it out. The burr looks to be the same design as on the "real" Spong. I'm looking forward to giving it a go. With the cast burrs, although I'm now convinced that they work well, I'd still be a bit wary of wear in a heavily used one. Below are a couple of pics of the QC1, you can see some wear spots fairly clearly.
