In article .com,
wrote:

Perhaps you or someone else has some suggestion for materials that
wouldn't break the bank. I would like to keep this part of the project
under $75. I know that's not much and it's a one-off sort of thing but
I'm just trying to tinker and don't want to set the wife off on what
was supposed to be a cost cutting measure long ago.

You might want to start by looking at the design for production coffee
roasters. I did some work for a custom coffee roasting company a few years
back and got a good look at the machines. They're basically a circular
drum; inside there's a big rotor that stirs the beans and keeps them from
getting burned. The inside space is like a donut; the beans ultimately get
poured out throught the "donut hole" for packaging.

In addition to the big production roasters, the coffee man showed me a
small "test roaster" that roasted a few pounds at a time for test batches.
If you can get a look at one of those, you could probably build your own
simplified version. Maybe you can find a coffee roasting company in your
area and visit with them; or google up the manufacturers of these machines
to get some ideas.

The coffee man also gave me some green coffee beans, which I managed to
roast satisfactorily using a cast iron frying pan on a gas range. So that
option will cost a lot less than $75.

--
Jedd Haas - Artist
http://www.gallerytungsten.com
http://www.epsno.com