Loose La Pavoni Fill Cap (Potential Hazard)

[DavinG]

I have a La Pavoni Professional millennium edition and the wooden fill cap has come loose from the threads. The fill cap is not one piece & it appears the wood cap has loosened off the threaded plastic part of the cap. I don't tighten the cap very much because then I have trouble removing it when I need to refill the tank with water. Has anyone else experienced this? What can be done to fix this separated/loose cap?

Moderator Note: I changed the title to indicate this product defect is a potential hazard. drgary

[rpavlis]

I did not realise that La Pavoni had gone the "cheap" route with the rather expensive wood top cap. I thought that they still used a brass base. The all plastic cap was one of the early things I discarded from my real all brass and copper La Pavoni Europiccola. One can make brass bases for them but it takes small machine shop equipment. The threads on the base need to be M32x2.0. I managed to find a die this size, and I mounted it in a 4 jaw lathe chuck instead of finding an expensive die stock for this huge die. The threads need to go for about 14mm. There is a substantial learning curve to making these things. I suspect it would be easy to attach such a base to an existing wood cap top after removing the plastic. Dies like this can be obtained from companies in China for about $25-$30.

You could also cut the threads with a lathe. Coarse deep threads like this can be difficult either with dies or lathes. Perhaps you could fill in the space between the plastic and the wooden top with a good polymer, epoxy resins might be a good option.

[DanoM]

I have a La Pavoni Professional millennium edition and the wooden fill cap has come loose from the threads. The fill cap is not one piece & it appears the wood cap has loosened off the threaded plastic part of the cap. I don't tighten the cap very much because then I have trouble removing it when I need to refill the tank with water. Has anyone else experienced this? What can be done to fix this separated/loose cap?

A quick photo might help show the issue?
Is that a factory original wooden accent cap or an aftermarket modification?

[DavinG (original poster)]

Here's a photo of the factory wooden cap. It's hard to see but the plastic threads have come loose from the wooden cap, sliding when tightening the cap.

[rpavlis]

Indeed they did go the cheap route with the wooden cap. Before about 1990 they all had brass bases. It is strange that the worthless plastic part does not just fall out of the wooden part. Perhaps you could pull the wood top off the plastic part when the plastic part was screwed into the boiler part? If you could get the top off the junk plastic, you could probably reattach the two pieces with good epoxy resin. If you should do that, you would need to be sure to allow plenty of time for the resin to cure after using it. Asnother alternative is to find an old discarded brass based plastic topped cap and throw away the junk plastic. As mentioned earlier, is also not too hard to make a brass cap base, but you need some machine shop equipment to do that.

[DavinG (original poster)]

Thanks for the advice!

[AZRich]

I see Stefanos sells the caps - bakelite for $40, or wood ones are a special order. If it was mine I think I would drill a hole up thru the bottom of the plastic into the wood and use a bolt to secure the two together being careful to not tighten too much. My 09 Pro has the bakelite cap, and I use a mold line on it to get it just barely snug to exactly the same place each time - it doesn't need to be very tight. Not as pretty as wood or brass, but I don't consider it a cheap part.
Rich

[wkmok1]

Davin,

If you are unable to separate the 2 parts, do you think you can squirt super glue into the crack between them?

Winston

[DavinG (original poster)]

Yeah, I could probably try to do that also. It's not that loose right now so I don't really want to totally separate them at this point. But if they loosen any more I will likely pull them apart and try gluing them back together.

[drgary]

I was just told me about one of those separating under pressure, launching itself past the guy's face and hitting the ceiling hard enough to dent it. I don't think he was aware of this thread. I wouldn't use your machine until you get a new cap or reliably fix that one.

Added: Imagine that you think you've got it screwed in but you've been turning the wood top on part. There aren't enough threads engaged. Your machine heats up. Hiss ... pop! (with a blast of steam).