I have owned many unbranded grinders, space cases and sharp stones, but my recent daily driver I had been using a free trees grinder from PIU, which is honestly a pretty good grinder because of half turn threads on the herb chamber and 3/4 turn threads on the kief catch, but I cant say I recommend buying one. When I first got it I threw it in a 99% iso bath and it stripped off a lot of the black coating, took multiple iso washes for it to stop. Aside from that though...
I decided to upgrade and I bought a Lift around 4/20, managed to get one of the bronze rejects so it was 90USD (which pushed me over the edge). I liked the design and that the blade, screen and plate are all stainless, I wanted to do away with wearing teeth. Coming up on 2 ounces and 4 weeks with it I have some first impressions. The honeymoon has been great, and honestly I cant figure out why it was a reject either. Possibly a slight imperfection on the logo but definitely not on the anodizing. I soaked it in 99% iso and nothing came off of it, the iso was still perfectly clean when I was finished.
But speaking of the logo, holy cow there is a lot of that on it. That is the thing that bugs me the most about it. There is a big lift logo on top with a maple leaf and made in canada, along with a big reject stamp logo, bottom has another reject stamp and a serial number and their website. A bit over the top but I wonder if they are counting on people posting pictures of it on social media, basically free advertising. Blegh. If they could tone it down a bit, that would be greaaaaat. (In Bill Lumbergh's voice)
On to the function - it is insanely smooth and easy on the wrists. Living in Colorado, most of the bud is super dry and I have to rehydrate it. The medium plate does a medium-coarse grind, and is most consistent when using more hydrated flower. If I throw in some really dry stuff it does produce an inconsistent grind, where half of the grind is very fine and the other half is the normal medium grind. I have not been able to avoid that in any grinder though - overly dry, trichome covered buds just do that. This isn't a problem for me though, my flowerpot works best with a coarse bed in the bowl topped with fine, and even with super dry flower it ends up about 50/50 fine to medium-coarse.
Flower with decent moisture content is where it really shines though, it produces hardly any kief and the grind is beautifully fluffy and medium-coarse. I was a little worried that the quarter turn would pop open if you dropped it but they are much more secure than I expected. The grinding chamber can do probably around 1g at a time depending on density, while the herb chamber can probably hold around 2g. The kief catch is fucking deep! I could have done with a shallower kief catch and a deeper herb chamber but it is good enough for me.
Some of the negatives - I wish the grinding chamber were larger - the 3 spokes on the piece above the blade could definitely be smaller which would make the grinding chamber bigger.
If you pack too much in when you grind, the blade can cut off the bottom of the nug and keep it wedged above the spinning blade, so it doesnt fully grind. This can be remedied with a little tap while grinding but after my first week with it I learned to not pack the grinding chamber and it hasn't been a reoccurring issue.
I wish the stock sift screen was a little smaller, they offer them spearately but it wasnt an option. I think it let's a few bits of herb into the catch, not just trichome.
As for maintenance, all I've done so far is brush the sifting screen periodically to keep it clear enough to let kief through.
Pictured below is a loaded grinder, then a picture of the grind chamber after 5 back and forth motions of about 1/2 a rotation, most has been ground and fallen through, then a picture of the empty grind chamber/blades.