putting it together

it's shortly after thanksgiving. a quick turnaround is always welcome. and, as promised the powdercoating was done within 8 days and the quality very satisfactory! i really can recommend west coast powdercoating in south san francisco.

i discovered the year of make, at least according to the pressure gauge it's 1973. the heydays of orange/brown color schemes!

the gaggia originally had 2 heaters but some previous owner removed the lower wattage heating element and brazed it shut. i got a replacement from espresso parts which fit right in. i had to braze the gasket seat on the right heating element opening on the boiler plate because it was starkly pitted. on the left the taps for the studs where misaligned and the threading partly destroyed. i brazed, drilled and tapped and fitted on both openings new custom made ss studs.

in general i replaced all fasteners with stainless steel parts.

outsourcing

it's end of october in the meantime. i tried to sandblast the frame at my friend wendell's shop, but the coat of paint turned out to be quite stubborn. btw, if you need the service of a fabricator of the very first order, i can put you in touch with wendell. if it's metal he can do everything with it. if he can't, it's not metal.

i went on a search for a powder coating place and after a surprisingly short mission i found an excellent shop in south san francisco, west coast powder coating, their number is 650-871-0400. they did a great and quick job with both the frame and the bodywork. within 8 days everything was finished for a very reasonable price. i decided to keep the old paint scheme, brown for the frame and orange for the bodywork.

the strip down

not many surprises while stripping down the machine. the only real surprise was how simple lever machines actually are.

the boiler was moderately scaled. all the fasteners were quite easily removed.

on the work bench

taking the machine apart came rather easy. the only thing i had not been really sure about was the group head. i removed the top part with the rack and pinion mechanism and the piston. further i removed the set of seals from the cylinder. i contacted espresso parts in WA, but couldn't really get an answer which seals i need and how many. it's not really clear in the parts diagram.

so i decided to drop the group head off at an espresso machine repair shop here in san francisco. they quoted $150 and a couple of weeks. great!! or so i thought...

getting started

the gaggia found a temporay resting place on my work bench. or let's call it the operation room.

after removing the body work it became more invasive.

during the disassembly process i took lots of pictures to help me later with putting everything back together.

a lever machine is actually pretty simple. it consists of relatively few parts:

-frame and bodywork;

-boiler w/ boiler plate w/ heating elements;

-group head;

-3 valves (refill, steam, hot water);

-pressure gauge;

-pressurestat;

-safety valve;

-sight glass;

-plumbing;

-electric switch;

that's it!

4 years later

in the last 2 to 3 years i got more and more into coffee and became a conossieur and a bit of a geek. esp. when hanging out with my friend ben, who is about to open a high end coffee place in queens, NY and doing the build out right now. you can follow him on twitter.com/kickshawnyc.

talking with ben about his project and getting infected by his enthusiasm was the trigger to pull the gaggia out of storage and to get busy with it.

and that happened on october 3rd, 2010...

collecting dust...

not much happened after i found the machine. i dragged it in my shop, dusted it off and tried to identify it. a metal tag said: gaggia orione 3ug.

i took a few pictures and sat down at the laptop to do some research. but not much turned up besides 2 entries on the home barista site.

well, that was maybe 4 years ago. the gaggia became one of several projects reserved for time slots in the future....