I made a coffee scoop for myself using a kit. When the time came to make one for our son, I went kitless. It was actually a very simple project.
The simplest way to make a kitless scoop is do a small hollow form and a handle, and then glue them together. If hollowing is a challenge for you, you can always start by drilling a hole using a forstner bit, and then fine-tuning the shape to whatever you want it to be, paying particular attention to making the bottom smooth and eliminating the small divot caused by the point on the drill bit.
You can drill a hole to attach the handle after turning the cup, but it's easier to drill that hole when then blank is still square - that way, you can better control the angle of the hole. Ideally, the hole won't go all the way to the inside of the cup, but that's harder to do if you drill the hole before turning the cup. But there's nothing wrong with drilling the hole all the way through the blank, turning the cup, gluing the handle in, and then sanding the inside of the cup to smooth the end of the handle.
The handle is a simple spindle with a tenon that fits into a hole in the side of the cup.
The thing that triggered the need to make a scoop for our son (a computer geek) was that he bought himself a fancy coffee grinder, and needed to measure the quantity of whole beans that he ground to make a cup of expresso. The grinder came with a plastic scoop that supposedly would hold 12g of beans. My solution was to fill a 35mm film canister with whole beans, and then use a small digital scale to weigh those beans. Because a 35mm film canister has parallel sides, it was a simple matter to calculate the depth of beans that would weigh 12 g, and then calculate the volume that 12g of whole beans would occupy. It was then a simple matter to turn a cup with that volume.
Obviously, because he works with whole beans rather than ground coffee, there is a potential that a scoopful of beans won't weight exactly 12g - but that same problem existed with the scoop that came with his coffee grinder.
Vic
