What do you do when you can't afford a new Linea single group, but no second-hand ones come up for sale? You take a 3 group and cut roughly 440mm off it, and weld it all back together again.

And there you have it; a Frankenstein machine that looks like a Linea single group, hand-built in New Zealand at a fraction of the price of a genuine one built in Florence. Erm, unfortunately no, not quite so simple.

I knew I wanted a La Marzocco for home, and had been looking out for a single group for several years. One finally came up, but the owner wanted silly money for it, approaching the new price, and it was an old model. But that is the only second hand Linea 1 group I have ever seen for sale. I then lowered my sights a bit and finally found a Linea 2AV that I bought and serviced. I have been very happpy with it, but there's still something about a single Italian from Florence ... (hope the wife's not reading this)

3 Group Lineas are probably the commonest size in New Zealand, so when one came up at a reasonable price, I thought about setting up a chop shop. The nominal width of the 3 group Linea is 930mm, and 490 for a single group, so could I just cut off 440mm? The first problem is that there are 3 connections that get lost if you cut out the middle of the steam boiler. The other problem is that this is an early Linea with the small 100mm diameter steam boiler, so if I cut it down to the required length, the capacity would go down to about 2 litres. I had already noted Greg Scace's comments to the effect that once you had moved to a 2 group Linea, you wouldn't want to go back, and that it had bags of steam, so I wasn't keen on only 2 litres. I checked with the La Marzocco agents in Auckland (thanks Frith and Ben for all the help; I'll probably be bugging you some more ...) and found that a new single group steam boiler wasn't too expensive. It had all the connections in the right place and was the larger capacity, so steam wouldn't be a problem. Excellent.

The brew boiler wass another matter; it was rougly 4 times the price of the steam boiler. The connections are much simpler, and the capacity hasn't changed from old to new single groups. I worked out that with 1 cut and weld I could get a boiler that was about 60mm longer than the correct one, and with a bit of judicious juggling I could get it to fit into the cut down frame. I needed to machine down the drain valve to get about another 10mm of clearance on the right side of the frame.

Well that's about as far as I've got so far. This is definitely a work in progress; still a lot of work to go; electronics, panels, etc.


The brew boiler before any cutting.


The new frame cut to size.


The cut brew boiler, starting to be fitted into the frame. It had to come over to the right quite a bit. The new steam boiler is in the background.

Excellent Thread!!
I have been monitoring the the local craigslist and ebay for a suitable machine to cut down like you are doing.
Please post a lot of pictures and detail.

Steve

Very nice! FrankenLinea! Will be monitoring this thread closely.

cool. and neat welding!

All the specialist welding not by me, unfortunately. I've only done the basic stuff. I particularly wanted the boiler to be done by a certified pressure vessel welder, so the machine is still up to commercial safety specs.

Totally insane project, in the good sense! Adding in any nice extras? PID controllers, manual pre-infusion, or even pressure-profiling maybe?

Personally though I'll stick to a genuine single group Linea, or possibly a GS/3. I currently have the opportunity to purchase a brand new Linea EE single at about 80% the price of a brand new GS/3 but can't quite decide between the two...

Yep, it will have dual PIDs as I already have fitted to the 2AV. I will also be adding pressure profiling with a 3 phase motor, VFD and Arduino controller.

The boilers are securely fitted to the frame, and both have their winter woolies. I decided to try Insul-Bright. It is certainly reasonably priced and is very easy to work with. I've started laying out the hydraulics. One of the main differences is that the 1 group uses the right-hand steam knob for hot water, so I will need to make some kind of adaptor there for the water spout. You can see the brass offset bushes I made to shift the brew boiler to the right position after the reweld.

Utterly insane, but brilliant! Lovely welding on the frame. I like the bushes you made. The right hand water valve should be easy to adjust, you just need to a new shorter wand for the valve - however you can cut it and thread it - should be easy compared to what you have done already.

It's ALIVE ...

After having staggered off the operating table, and still sporting livid scars, Lineastein lurches into action.



There were surprisingly few issues to deal with. The drain fitting on the sight glass had corroded inside to the point that it sheared off while testing last night, so that had to be replaced. One of the steam taps had a channel in the washer seat, so I had to machine that flat again. The pressure relief valve will have to be replaced. But otherwise it's looking good.

I'm going to make custom long legs so that I can fit a control box underneath for the PIDs. (and later the Arduino) I fitted the PIDs into the control panel on the 2 group, but things get too hot up there, being so close to the groupheads.

I was surprised by the nasty black gunk that came out of the steam wands, this being a brand new steam boiler; it seemed to be greasy, maybe some residue from manufacture.