Hi everyone.

I've been looking to replace the steam tip on my NS Mac 2000, but the steam arm has M9 male threads. I'm still waiting to get verification from NS US office if the pitch is 1.0 or .75. I wanted to use the Isomac two hole tip that Chris Coffee sells. It's a M10 (also unsure of the pitch.)

Are metric reducing bushing available that has m10 male threads and m9 female available, or would this be a custom part?

Maybe I'm taking the wrong approach. Instead of adapting the tip, maybe I should look into swapping the steam arm. Are steam arms easily interchangeable (threads the same)? Anyone with a NS machine attempt this? I believe mine is this one. Its the one that swivels.

thanks for any advice.

can't help w/ the bushing but my guess is likely that it'll be custom.

To check your thread pitch, go to the h/w store and purchase an M6x1 bolt (or whatever diameter,
as long as it's 1mm pitch) and see if the threads match. I was trying to find an M10x1 bolt which is pretty much impossible to find, not even at McMaster Carr. They only come in M10x1.25 or M10x1.5. So I doubt it'd be M10x.75, too fine of a pitch for that large of a bolt.

Take a look at McMaster-Carr under the pritish standard thread pipe fittings.

cannonfodder wrote:Take a look at McMaster-Carr under the pritish standard thread pipe fittings.

no luck there.

erics wrote:The thread size, pitch, and gender of steam wands and steam tips can be mind-boggling. For example:
Not only would the adaptor you need be custom, it would be very cu$tom and you have the right idea to search around for a different (better?) wand but that, by itself, could be challenging. Challenging because of differences in the ball swivel size and exact method of retention.

I would think that NS might offer a different tip for MAC's much like LM offers different tips for their machines and even Bezzera offers a choice of two tips for their line. Its entirely possible that the tip offerings from their current production machines (Aurelia, Appia, etc.) would fit the MAC.

I was afraid of this. NS unfortunately does not offer a different tip for the steam wand I have (older chrome one.) To switch to the newer stainless steel offering is pricey since I believe you are changing out the whole assembly. I have an Expobar in the garage that is waiting to be refurbished, so I'll see if I get lucky with a simple swap. I'm not holding my breath, but worth trying. If I can find a male M10 to male M10 pipe adapter, I can look into getting my current tip drilled and tapped female M10, i'd have a kludgy working solution. Not ideal, but working.

Here is another question. I'm trying to get away from the commercial overpowered four hole steam tip. I can do this by blocking two of the holes on the current tip, but what is a good permanent safe way of doing this? I've read people are using toothpicks, but I would think it was get pretty gross after awhile with milk build up and the associated gross things that would grow on it. I've read others using JBWeld, but without reading the MSDS, my gut feeling is that JBWeld is not food safe.

seriously? M8.5?

erics wrote:The thread size, pitch, and gender of steam wands and steam tips can be mind-boggling. For example:

The wand on a Vibiemme Domobar is 1/8-28 BSPP male and actually measures to spec on this size.

that must be purely accidental...

beatstanfurd wrote:seriously? M8.5?

It does sound strange, but M8.5 it is. This seems to be in use on quite a few machines. When I adapted the QuickMill joystick valves to my Duetto, I was interested in shortening the steam wand to better fit the Duetto. After consulting with Eric and Jason from CC it was confirmed the QuickMill tips were indeed M8.5.

I searched for an M8.5 x 0.75 tap so I could cut down and re-tap the wand but the best I could do was a quote from a custom tap maker of $120 for a tap. Ouch! Turns out the Duetto II no burn arms are the same thread size and slightly shorter than the QuickMill so I got one of those.

In fact, the tip adapter I've ordered from CC is listed at M8 x M10 but it fits perfectly with the Duetto II (and others) no burn wand.

In regard to your original question, if you can borrow a tip for testing you could try wrapping teflon tape (over wrapping!) around the M9 threads to fit the M10 tip. The risk would be the tip separates during use and it would be more of a pain when removing the tip for cleaning. Finding (or making) a bushing with that small of a difference between the threads is going to be real tough.

George