Restoration of an Olympia Cremina

[srobinson]

All of you have done it. You have seen that machine on EBAY, the object of your dreams and secretly hoped you could get a low bid on it and convince the wife that yet another trophy could be added to your collection. Then after a few beers and a couple episodes of American Chopper, you decide that not only do you want a new machine, but you also want to tackle restoring one. How hard can that be...a few sparks will fly, a little polish here and there, send the tins out and then you would really have a machine to fulfill your fantasies.

Well my friends this will be one of those stories. A story where the ending has not been written, but an adventure all the same. A story that will be filled with highs and lows and hopefully result in a new addition to the cronicles of lever machine history....the rebirth of a classic Olympia Cremina.

Now those of you in the LMWDP or follow our insightful posts know that the machine of our dreams is the Olympia Express Cremina. This is a machine made in quantities of only 160 a year in a small factory in Switzerland by an Italian whose objective was to make the best home espresso machine with the best engineering...price be damned.

Let's take a second to reflect on the history of this machine:

For over 81 years Olympia Express has been one of the pioneers able to draw on a wealth of experience in the construction, research and design of first class high precision fully automatic/super automatic espresso. coffee machines for meticulous connoisseurs.

Until the early 60's when Luigi Bresaola, Jr. took over the company from his father, Olympia concentrated on production of commercial espresso machine. In the middle of the 60's Olympia started production of espresso machines for home use.

Although expensive-perhaps the most expensive espresso machines of their time and crafted for a service-free long life, the high demand for Olympia espresso machines flourished and 1965 the company moved from the old production factory in Chiasso to the newer and modern large factory in the Swiss town of Morbio Inferiore.

In 1979 Olympia determination in design and first class construction was recognized in a survey published by The New York Times as the best home espresso machine.

In 1992 Luigi Bresaola, Jr. closed production and sold his factory. The original Olympia Express company was succeeded by a holding company, Mokaespresso SA.

So with the seed of desire planted firmly from Dan's picture of a beautiful Olympia Cremina 2002, the hunt begins...

[srobinson]

With goal in hand, I began the search for a worthy candidate for restoration. With the hope of scoring one of the Olympia's from their original factory. After many months of mindless EBAY surfing, the following popped up:

This is the Olympia Cremina espresso maker. It works fine, heats, the frother works fine. The person I got this from said the seal gasket was leaking on the bottom, he put in a new one it does not leak now. From the water leaking the bottom plate got a bit rusty, the inside was in excellent condition, with no rust to the tank, or other seen portions of the machine. The pump handle seems a bit tight, at least until it runs the hot water through, (Im not sure if this is normal or not). Cosmetically nice with a few scratches. I am offering this AS-IS.

These are typically very basic machines so I decided to roll the dice and won the bid.

While expecting the machine not to be in perfect condition, I was quite surprise to see it show up with the worst packing job I have ever seen. Tossed in a box of peanuts, with only one layer of bubble-wrap which resulted in the case being damaged in transit.





While this was not expected, negotiations began with the owner on some restitution for this surprise.

Now I am a true believer in EBAY so I quickly opened up the machine to see about that replaced gasket and that slight rust.

With regards to the gasket, I found this.

Now this wins McGyver points just out of sheer ingenuity. Instead of dropping the $12.71 to order the correct gasket from Switzerland, the previous owner cut his own out of 1/8" cork and rubber gasket paper. Well you have to hand it to him...looks like it did work.

Now prior to this fix, it did look like this machine suffered a bit of rust, so the bottom plate looked like this.

Now with hours fading in the day, I decided to take a look at the grouphead internals before I called it a night and had this vision to haunt my dreams before my early morning flight:

Is this the work of a true Swiss artisan? No it is the work of some idiot prying the dispersion screen off with a screwdriver which resulted in bending the grouphead shaft out of round. How could this be? Had not everyone read my posts on how to properly remove the piston? At stress overload I decided it was Miller time and headed to bed.

So the plot thickens dear readers. Can the machine be fixed? Will the seller provide some compensation for the unseen damages? Does Lino hold the tools to get the head back in shape?

Look forward to another chapter in this cliff hanger to see if the Olympia gets reborn....

[lino]

Oooh!

Love where this is going.
Think we could start a new show "Ristretto Reconstruction"!

I can also offer to host a "garage day" out at my place at some point if there is interest...

I can at least offer sandblasting and powder coating for the frame...


ciao

lino

[srobinson]

Well dear reader, as we left this thread we were in the perils of a damaged case, bent head and awaiting a mutual agreement from the seller that would help me afford the needed repairs on this machine.

What a difference a day makes. With a few quick emails to the prior owner we were able to strike a deal that was fair to both parties, which not only confirmed my faith in the coffee gods, but also my faith in fellow EBAYers that all can be put right in the world. So with the means now to complete a first class restoration on the machine without depleting the LMWDP war chest. Thus, our story continues.

The first order of the day was to get case back in shape without having to purchase a new cover from Olympia. As I mentioned above, these machines are extremely well made, so I thought I would give it a shot and block out the case and give it a few licks with my plastic body hammer. I first attacked the stainless steel top followed by trying to rebend the case.

After a few trial fits, I felt I had a respectable fit and short of a few surface dings had a case that could be brought back to life with a good powder coating. Here are a few shots to show the machine before the real work begins:






Look hard at those beautiful browns....may be the last time you see them before the repaint. And finally a full frontal:



So the steps began to see if I could get this machine fully apart and down to its base frame. The first step was to remove the Olympia badge from the back and the manufacturing plate from the side. In my case I found these held on with close to what you see holding on trim pieces on autos. The trick to do this quickly and without damaging the case by trying to pry it off is to pull a piece of dental floss between the pieces to get them to remove. Once this is completed the remaining residue can be removed with 3M adhesive remover.



Now the real deconstruction. What impressed me the most on this machine is the fact that a lot of thought went not only into the construction of the machine, but also a lot of thought went into how to take them apart.

The main case comes of by removing a single threaded washer at the throat of the boiler neck and the top and back case come right off.



And what do we find inside....A stainless steel boiler, commercial fittings and all stainless steel piping. All electrical wires have blade connectors which simplifies the disconnections. The order I removed things on the front were to disconnect the steam arm and tubing, removed the switches, four allen bolts and the head comes off and you have the front free.



To fully get the machine apart, the next work is to remove the pressure regulator and carefully take off the glass site glass. This is the trickiest part since metal and glass together are not a good mix for me. After a bit struggle to remove the rubber feet and finish up the electrical, everything was apart. Quite a few pieces but it does show some progress and gets us to the next stage in the build.

[KarlSchneider]

Steve,

I can see where this thread is going to lead me. Do you have any thoughts about the differences you anticipate between the Olympia and the Elektra and Pavoni? I am probably more interested in taste differences than in technological ones although the latter are hardly insignificant.

[cannonfodder]

During the entire deconstruction, that diet Pepsi did not move.

[srobinson]

Ad placement. Pepsi is underwriting the project
The truth is that you can see how often I clean off my workbench. Chuck, we will get into some comparisons soon and when totally together I will do some side by side testing. Right now I am just working through the problems to get it in shape to compete with the newer machines...one step at a time.

[srobinson]

Another one of my favorite shows is Monster House, where a team is given a set of impossible tasks to complete with a big timer staring them in the face to add additional pressure to the work. Well the wife and daughter were off to shop for school clothes and I had a good three hours to try and get the group head ready for chroming. Tasks facing this monster build included:

1) Remove petrified boiler gasket
2) Remove petrified head gasket
3) Remove lever piston gaskets
4) Try and true up the piston sleeve
5) Clean the dispersion screen

All of these tasks are difficult and with just a few wild stabs on how to accomplish them, I dug in....roll MacGyver music....

Job 1: Boiler gasket

To start with, please let me reiterate that this is an old machine....so old in fact that the gaskets are not just brittle; they are really petrified and fused to the metal. All hopes of quickly popping them off were quickly dashed when techniques used on other machines yielded no results.

What did work was to use a dremel cutting blade to get an initial hole cut in the gaskets.



Which after careful work would give you this:



Then utilizing a handy 90 degree scribe pick like this



Job one was completed in record pace with all fingers in place on only minimal bleeding.

Job 2: Petrified Head Gasket

With process now successfully patented for gasket removal, I was able to quickly drill, pick and pull the head gasket out in similar fashion.



It is really hard to believe that the gasket was once pliable rubber, so those of you with lever machines, please take my advice and do maintenance on your machines to avoid drills, cutting bits and metal picks on your expensive machines.

Job 3: Remove Lever Piston Gaskets

Now for the next job look at the picture above and take a glance at that rusted spring clip around the small hole. Wonder why it is rusted? This is one of the gaskets that I have rarely seen replaced, because it takes a special tool to remove this style of fastener. Now most garage mechanics think that anything can be fixed with a hammer, flat bladed screwdriver and a hand drill, but this is one of the times that the right tool will make the world of difference. A simple set of spring clip pliers like the ones below:



make this a simple task and for me the easiest of the day.



Clip pops out, and the washer and gasket easily come out from behind it. . Job 3 complete and now the fun begins.

Job 4: True-up the piston sleeve

As you could see from my second post, I had a bad problem where one of the original owners has deformed the lip of the piston sleeve by prying on the dispersion screen to get it off. After a long discussion with one of my car buddies, we came up with an unorthodox way to try and fix this short of sending it to Lino who was willing to use his big hammer approach. The idea was hatched to try and see if I could get something the size of the piston to shape the interior wall and then something on the outside of the wall to shape the outer edge of the lip. . While using wood was our initial thought. We came up with the idea to see if PVC pipe could be used. It is easy to cut, solid density and by cutting it down the side, it should be able to create a perfect fit. What the hell, let's give it a try.

The first step was to cut a piece and stretch it out to fit the outer circumference.



With that in place I then cut another piece and notched out a bit more so that it could fit inside the sleeve.



And now to make the magic happen, I applied a hose clamp and wrenched it down.



The end result was fairly impressive from where I had started and I think I now have something that is workable.



With Job 4 complete, time to pop a beer to thank the coffee gods for not allowing me to screw up the group head. With time still remaining on the clock I thought I would get an early finish, so on to the next job.

Job 5, Cleaning the Dispersion Screen

For those of you thinking that my morning went smoothly, let me tell you a little secret: "The Coffee Gods have a nasty sense of humor". Fresh from a string of good luck with the group head, I started to clean the silly little dispersion screen. Tried scrubbing, tried cleaner, tried straight dishwashing detergent, tried toothbrushes, tried scrub bushes...none would work. What was lodged into every little machined hole of Swiss Miss' dispersion screen was the equivalent of petrified black tar. The only way I could get it out was to use a sewing needle and work each hole.



My 5 minute job resulted in being the longest task of the day taking over one hour to complete. Had I been on Monster House, I would not be leaving with the Makita tool kit or welder. But, on the bright side the group head is completely apart, usable and now ready for rechroming.

[Jepy]

Just curious, if you get time to take a pic of how the dispersion screen is held in I'd like to see. Clip, or maybe part of the PF gasket?

[srobinson]

Jepy, here you go. It simply clips on the end of the grouphead. This is unlike the way it works on a Pavoni or Elektra where it is held in place with the head gasket. You can see the dispersion screen has the spring edges on the lip.

[srobinson]

Well the next step in the rebuild gets into some of the boring parts. That is cleaning up the stainless steel. On the Olympia the primary steel parts are the top, the boiler recess, the front face, the drip tray and the drip tray screen.

All of these parts were showing their age and I was close to sending them out for refinishing, but I wanted to see if I could keep the cost of this rebuild realistic. So instead of the easy way out, I buffed.

The miracle product that I used in this exercise was Wenol, which is an outstanding German metal polish that comes in two flavors. Red for general polish and then Blue for a high gloss finish.



I still have a couple passes to go on the pieces, but they are starting to show real promise from where they started from. The top and tray look almost brand new and the only frustration I am having is trying to get the swirl marks out the front plate. This is always very difficult to do since if you use a more aggressive compound you risk scratching it more or you just live with them. Light is a little harsh in this pic, but you will get the idea on how they now look.



Case was dropped off at the powder coater today, so in a week we will be saying goodbye to the 70s harvest brown and hello to gloss black. Now if I can just find a decent chrome plater for the grouphead. Looks like all the local shops will only do commercial work or have been shut down by the EPA....more calls to make.

[Jepy]

Jepy, here you go. It simply clips on the end of the grouphead. This is unlike the way it works on a Pavoni or Elektra where it is held in place with the head gasket. You can see the dispersion screen has the spring edges on the lip.

Thanks for the detail. How often, and how difficult is it to remove this screen for cleaning?

[srobinson]

Well that remains to be seen since I don't have this machine working yet. The proper way to remove it is to unbolt the grouphead and press down on the piston to pop it out....this is the suggested method on the Pavoni. It looks like Olympia took the clip-on route to allow for more frequent cleaning. The downside is that you risk bending the lip if inward pressure is applied to pry it off. I will have to play around a bit once I have the machine further along to see what an optimal approach may be. One of the downsides of dealing with a machine of such limited quantities is that there are very few people to ask on how they do it.

[Jepy]

Thanks again Steve.

[srobinson]

Since I am traveling today, I thought I would get a restoration post in with no pictures. I had an interesting day spending it on the phone trying to find a chrome shop that would take my shiny bits and make them shinier. I have to take a step back and just ask what the world is coming to when it is easier to get a Harley chromed over an espresso machine?

My first try of the day was to try Surtronics, which is know as one of the best metal plating firms in the US. The nice thing about them is that they are only a couple miles from the house and I had envisioned a quick drop off and pickup with the size of their operations. I was quickly put in my place when I was told that they only did commercial traffic and did not accept walk-in business. Even the offer of free advertising and mention on HB could not sway them over, but they did give me a lead to Chrome Right in Fayetteville, NC.

Calling Chrome Right, we find that their specialty is motorcycle parts. When I mentioned that I wanted to have coffee machine parts plated their first question is whether it was going to be for use or display...huh? It turns out that they primarily do decorative chroming and due to insurance liability cannot chrome any products that will come in contact with food. They stated that they continuously turned away business from Ft. Bragg, where soldiers are requesting spent shells be turned into shot glasses.... (Please add your own mental image here).

At this point I realized that I would be relegated to shipping my parts out of state. At this point I was getting desperate just to find someone to take the project and I had a great call with Steve from Metro Plating in Kensington, Maryland. He was happy to take a look at what I needed and suggested a nickel plate for food contact and added the fact that they were very experienced in this area.

So the parts were packed up and they began their two week transformation to the north. So at this point, I have my powder coat work underway and hopefully a good connection on my bright ware which will start bringing this project together. Now on to cleaning the boiler.....

[srobinson]

When you open up a vintage machine you dread opening up the boiler. The black gunk at the boiler cap gives you a hint, but it is not until you pull the heating element off that you fully see what you are up against. This is HB and not Fear Factor, so I will spare everyone from the unpleasant pictures of what I started with....but without a doubt a firm cleaning was in order.

I started with a traditional cleaning which got the surface gunk to a manageable point. At this point I started what I thought was an aggressive scrubbing with scotch bright pads and straight dishwashing detergent. One can barely fit their hand down the throat of the boiler and the bottom rim has a very sharp edge to it. Let's just say that I have found out the threshold of flesh when scrubbing in a very tight cylinder with caustic soap and the risk of trying to withdraw your hand rapidly. Dan can verify that I was sporting a few of my daughter's Hello Kitty Band-aids the next day.

After this step, I was still not happy with the condition of the boiler. It still had a hard petrified scale inside and I was questioning whether I would need to sand-blast it. As with all rebuilding issues, follow the advice of my good friends who tackle much more than I ever will who say "when you can't make progress on a problem, simply walk away...cool off and then come back".

This is what I did and my next angle of attack was to try this weapon:

That is a 5 inch brass wire brush on an 18" drill bit extender attached to my portable drill. Now we are talking....this thing did the trick. It was a tight fit but once I got the RPMs spinning, the black abyss of my boiler quickly turned into this.

Now when all this was done, I did find that was going to have to go back and revise my comment where I stated that the boiler of this Olympia was made out of stainless steel like the new Cremina 2002s. While bright silver on the outside, mine is marine brass...and now a shiny marine brass at that.

Millertime.

[IronBarista]

Beautiful job so far. I like the PVC thing, very innovative. So far, this is one of my favorite threads. I look forward to more postings.

[Paul L]

Hi everybody, this is my 'hello' thread so forgive me if it looks like hijacking.

As a relatively newbie (3 months with a Gaggia Cubika, Macap 4 and fresh although not home roasted beans) I was delighted to find a lever thread on HB. I have quickly started following it as I am growing out of the Cubika quickly and find myself drawn to levers rather than the usual E61 suspects that many (no doubt deservedly) choose.

Anyhow, I just wanted to say Steve how enjoyable the thread is. I don't know that I will ever move to a Cremina but who knows. You received a bit of negative comment earlier in the thread about it being technical and not taste oriented but actually it's what makes this tick for me. A real look behind the shiny front that is not usually seen.

If I parallel with the world of audio for a second there are literally hundreds of shiny audio cases and a bewildering menu of prices and claims about superiority for one reason or another. Some sound good but an awful lot fall well short of less-shiny and popular brand names (at different prices). Once you really get behind the shop fronts (and panel fronts) you start to separate the marketing and fashions from the engineering and understand the dna that you personally appreciate. So, in espresso terms I've spent the past 4 or 5 months reading hundreds of reviews on espresso machines both pro and consumer reviews as I am sure we all do when we take those first steps. For me Steve, your thread is one of very few where a consumer such as myself can appreciate a machine from the ground up rather than brand, badge, edification of a particular grouphead or all sorts of technical comment that to me only goes to show how complex (and potentially troublesome) a particular machine is.

I look forward to following progress of this with interest and have no doubt that you'll get to the raison d'etre in good time. I suspect I'm going to lean towards an Elektra Micro Casa btw, I'm seeing a La Pavoni in action this weekend for the first time but the engineering differences between the two is sinking in - picked up in this HB forum area of course, a nice differentiator as far as I can see from other forums out there.

[srobinson]

Paul, thanks for the kind words. I really do appreciate it. It is very hard to hold a candle to Team HB, so I try to contribute where I can...and that is mainly tearing things apart and trying to figure out how and why they work the way they do. There is just something about these silly little machines that jazz me up as well.

I have really gotten positive responses on this thread, and I would not take Chuck's comments as negative, he just wants to get to the good stuff about how well this thing makes coffee. He and I have been talking a lot on the backchannel on lever shots and I am dying to try some of his home roast on this baby. He has offered to send me some Yemeni for its inaugural shot.

Well it looks like you have the lever itch as well. Keep us in the loop on your purchase progress and when I can send out your LMWDP number and add you to the masses.....

[srobinson]

Just a few more things to take care of before pieces start to come back and I start putting the Olympia back together. As you can see from the posts, every step has had some interesting twists and turns.

One of the next things that I wanted to tackle was to see if I could restore the original handles on the machine. They were covered in grunge and even after cleaning, the bakelite was heavily pitted, all the gloss was gone and both the boiler and the steam cap had some serious wear marks on them.



So as I pondered whether to save these or order up a new set, I read back through this thread and saw that I had mentioned several television shows that had influenced me doing this build and I saw that one was missing. How could I have forgotten to tie in one of my favorite guilty pleasures, MTV's Pimp My Ride.

So as I contemplated the sad state of my handles, I asked myself...What would Xibit, its host, do? Would he order up a plain old set of black plastic at overvalued euro rates?...hell no...he would put the equivalent of 22" spinners on this baby.

So with this thought in my head, I called upon the gods...the God of Thunder and Forge, that is, Thor....more specifically, Les Albjerg, the artist behind Thor Tampers. http://www.thortamper.com

Les does outstanding work as can be seen in some of the other threads in this forum and he really tempted me with this recent set that he had just finished for an Olympia owner:



This set is in New Guinea ebony which got us talking about whether I could go with pure black ebony to keep with the original theme of the Cremina. Les' advice was not to go this route since the black ebony is quite brittle and would not stand up to the constant heat of the machine.

The Japanese have a great word that mortals use when dealing with true artisans and it is a phrase that I have used many times at great sushi bars and that is Okamase which roughly translated means: to leave yourself to the hands of the master....So I did that with Les.

I feel that his suggestion will push this build completely over the top. We will be going with Desert Ironwood handles with an inlay of Amboyna Burl.

In staying with the rarity of this machine, the wood will match perfectly. From Les' site:

Desert Ironwood is one of the hardest woods. It is so heavy it sinks. It is found only in the Sonora Desert in S. California, Arizona and Northern Mexico. It is no longer being cut as live trees and you need a permit to harvest the dead trees that are found in the desert. Legal Desert Ironwood is harvested by permit in all three areas. I have a working relationship with one of the permits holders in Mexico.

So yet another piece of this build is in the capable hands of a master craftsman. Now if I can just get that video pulled together to be a candidate for Pimp My Ride and get MTV to permanently install the Cremina in my old Porsche with a couple plasma TVs, then I will really be stylin'....