Mazzer Major refurbishing

[LGB]

I've bought an old Mazzer Major (March '94) from an e-bay bidding. When it arrived it looked like this:

What an awful paintjob! What where they thinking to give it such a colour?!

I'm currently refurbishing the beast, I've taken apart the doser (which is now looking and smelling as new), there must have been coffee residues dating back to 1994 in there The smell was grotesque!

I've been sanding the beast for about a week now, resulting in this:


Looking sexy! The next step is to polish it, hoping it will shine, shine, shine! It will look a lot better this way next to my Silvia, I think!

[darrensandford]

That's looking superb!

[sweaner]

Yes, that looks great now. I should do that to my Mini.

[Spresso_Bean]

Was that a factory color? Looks like it might have been a popular color back in the 70s or something, but the raw metal looks great so far. Do you plan on just leaving it raw metal or applying a clearcoat ? You might have started a trend...

[IslandAddict]

Wow, I'm impressed. I've never seen such a good job of Mazzer paint stripping. It looks good enough to leave as is.

[dsc]

Hi LGB,

this does look good indeed:) did you use any powertools? I bought the same model in a much worse condition, but only repainted it without stripping completely (I did use some sandpaper on it though to roughen the surface). Currently I'm putting together an electronic grinder controller to turn this beast into a Major-E grinder:)

Here's a before shot:



and after



and a clip of the controller here:



Cheers,
dsc.

[mitchellb]

I bought the same model in a much worse condition, but only repainted it without stripping completely (I did use some sandpaper on it though to roughen the surface)

What type of paint did you use on the grinder? How did you apply it.. (also you did just buy a new doser, yes?)

I did a paint job on my old old major about a year ago that is already coming off at the base..

both of these refurbs look fantastic


p.s. I apologize for the thread hijack LGB.. i simply don't have the energy to sand my major, went down that road once before. I can't wait to see it polished, though.

[dsc]

Hi again,

I washed the whole case with warm water and soap, degreased it with some alcohol and wet sand it with some fine grade paper (1000 or so). Afterwards I checked for rough areas, sand it some more until it was smooth and degreased again. Than came the primer gray, a few thin layers and the base black colour also applied in a few thin layers. Remember to work slow, wait between layers and degrease each time before painting (you can also wet sand it between layers with 2000-2500 grade paper). I used spray paints and if you plan to do the same remember to work in a well ventilated area or outside (avoid windy days extreme humidity/temperature conditions).

As for the doser it's the same one that came with the grinder. I stripped the paint off and sand it several times with different grades of sandpaper.

Cheers,
dsc.

[LGB]

Hi,

Thanks for all the kind comments!
The polish is working out quite well. Unfortunately there are some dents in the metal which would take days of labour to sand away I think. But looking from a distance, the thing looks good. When I'm finished I will post another set of pictures.

I've sand 3/4 of the paint of by hand, the rest by powertool when I got the opportunity.

Still I have a question. How much / what kind of sound (if any) should you hear when you turn the shaft by hand?