What years were Faema President single-group lever machine made?

[realdoctor]

Will post this to alt.coffee as well.

I am looking at buying an old Faema President, single-group lever machine. Can anybody give me an idea what years that model was made? It is the type with a body shape like the e-61.

Any pictures of the interior mechanical details would be appreciated.

Thanks!

JR

[Paul]

without checking my books at home, I think the production dates are something like '58 to '62ish. Produced in a wide variety of mechanical configurations. Faema products around this time were not very consistent in terms of design. You might be lucky to find two machines built exactly the same .

One thing to be mindful of is that some presidents had an very unusual boiler. Here's an active auction in Austria as an example:

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.d...&item=140182619432

This kind of thing would be very challenging to restore. No boiler bits etc are available new.

Personally, I would look out for a machine with a conventional boiler (eg, other presidents, lambro, urania etc)

[ideor]

hello jr,


the earliest presidents were made with the piping for the taps and sight glass mounted on the outside of the firewall. this gives the machine a very distinctinve "nuts and bolts" appearance. have seen a restored two group of this type on display at the graffeo coffee roastery in san francisco.

there were also faema levers made fairly late that employed the body of the ariete.

nb. as paul states not all presidents with the eclipse body will have the same internals. when selecting a machine for restoration it would be well to get one of the "normal" ones. some were made with unique features that might prove a challenge to restore.

best wishes with the project if you elect to proceed.

ideor

[coffeefrog]

This sort of begs the question of what is normal. I have seen pictures of Presidents with upright boilers and with horizontal boilers. I have seen models with emission valves and some with pressurestats. I've never seen one with the pipes on the outside. I'm not sure what that would look like, there are so many variations of piping (including what looks like a thermosyphon arrangement one one of the Urania models).

I do get the feeling that the guys building the Uranias (a model which I do look at fairly closely) tended to start the day with a conversation like "where will we put the fill lever today? anyone got any new ideas?"

[realdoctor]

Thanks for the helpful information, everybody. I don't know much about the single-group President I'm going to see except that it has a horizontal boiler like the Lambro and the panels look good. Apparently has not been used for quite a number of years.

By the way, about how much will it end up weighing? I have to organize shipping, and I'm not exactly sure what I'm up against.

Thanks!

JR

[coffeefrog]

I'd guess 60 or 70 kilos.