I found a couple of old gate valves in my dad's shed with some pretty neat handles.
The finished product.
I used Sugru to affix the grinder machanisms and create small, rubber feet.
Drilling a 23mm hole in the bottom of each bottle with a diamond bit normally used on glazed tiles. This took over 20min per bottle.
The donor gate valves needed some firm encouragement to release their handles.
The tap-handle's square keyway was too big for the grinder shafts so I trimmed down the included key plates to fit.
I had a couple of rather interesting Nikka Japanese whisky bottles lying around. I really have a hard time throwing out cool-looking bottles and decides to repourpose them into something that had a good reason to sit on our kitchen table.
After ordering a couple of new salt and pepper grinder mechanisms from a Tasmanian wood turning supply shop, I set to work drilling through the remarkably thick bases with a 23mm diamond bit. To avoid smashing the glass, progress had to be kept to a snail’s pace. I used Blutac to create a little dam around the work surface so that the drill bit could be immersed in water while slowly grinding downward. This is essential to prevent thermal shock.
Once the holes were drilled, I sanded them out with wet/dry and thoroughly cleaned the bottles. The grinder mechanisms could then be fitted using Sugru.
The final step was to free the old tap handles and modify them to suit the smaller square shaft of the grinder mechanisms.