I decided to purchase a used ebay super jolly. It arrived in fully used condition, with chipped paint, a doser that had been beat with a portafilter, and enough buildup of coffee oil that it may have never been cleaned.

It looks to have been rebranded for Illy, and I had found one prior thread where a very similar grinder was pictured. I am guessing it is more than 10 years old.

In regards to the choice of polished aluminum, i really wanted to have the grinder fit in with the adjacent Silvia, although I never would have thought it would come out so well if not for the work done by the OP in the "Mazzer Major refurbishing" thread.

Of course, disassembly was performed as directed by:
http://www.monkeyfaq.com/mazzer/index.html

thanks to phaelon56 for providing the new feet and grinder burrs for my SJ!!

Since I could not have completed my project without the threads posted in the past, I thought it would be nice to add one more for future mazzer restorers

The grinder as it arrived:





The base cover appears to be cast iron:

And inside the base:

Once the grinder was disassembled (the motor stayed in place), the parts were cleaned with warm water and joe glo and set aside.



For the main body, I had hoped to get down to smooth aluminum, but prior comments about imperfections in the cast aluminum made me think I would probably have to paint.

Ready to sand:


Since I already had sandpaper, i chose that method (rather than stripper) to remove the paint. I started with 60 grit on a Dewalt random orbit power sander, followed by 120 and 220. for the areas the power sander could not get to, I went with hand sanding, although stripper may have been a better option here (spent 2 hours sanding paint off 1% of the grinder)

Power sanding in process:



Power sanding complete and hand sanding started at 180 grit.



I sanded down the doser as well to match (the older doser seemed to be aluminum as well), here it is after a brief consideration to stop at 60 grit for a brushed aluminum finish:

I look forward to more. I actually started doing this identical thing to a similar SJ, but as is usual for me got side tracked.

After 180 grit, I went with wet sanding at 400, 600, and 800 grit, which really started to bring out the shine in the aluminum (please excuse the ruptured burrito).



For the finish, i picked up some mother's aluminum polish ($5) at the local car shop and put on a coat. I was surprised at how much better it looked afterwards! I chose this rather than a clear coat or other option as it seemed easier, there were decent reviews online for it (but not for espresso grinders obviously), and I had already gotten my burrs in and was ready to try it out



Next, the requisite tape mod of the doser



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And FINALLY a nice picture of my reassembled SJ in place next to the Silvia

Wow that looks really great!

My first grinder was an old(older then this one), beat up Mazzer Major. Those who remember it will know what I mean when I said it could've used a coat of paint or two. Im not a huge fan of the way they look with the older body style and the aluminum doser, and I know how much of a pain it is to get it down to bare metal. So I want to congratulate you on a job VERY well done. Looks great man!

Mazzer should offer "Raw" as a color option for their grinders. Or, maybe they do.. Do they offer their other models in Polished or is it just the mini?

Looks good. If you want a mirror finish, wet sand it through 2000 grit then buff it with that Mother or MAAS.

I'm glad my instructions helped!

And it looks absolutely great!

JmanEspresso wrote:Wow that looks really great!

My first grinder was an old(older then this one), beat up Mazzer Major. Those who remember it will know what I mean when I said it could've used a coat of paint or two. Im not a huge fan of the way they look with the older body style and the aluminum doser, and I know how much of a pain it is to get it down to bare metal. So I want to congratulate you on a job VERY well done. Looks great man!

Mazzer should offer "Raw" as a color option for their grinders. Or, maybe they do.. Do they offer their other models in Polished or is it just the mini?

Thanks for the comments!

the color options are listed on the mazzer website, and include polished aluminum (alluminio lucidato) like the mini P, but i have only seen black and silver paint available recently for the SJ

cannonfodder wrote:Looks good. If you want a mirror finish, wet sand it through 2000 grit then buff it with that Mother or MAAS.

thanks, I was happy with how the grinder looked at 800 so i just stopped.

continuing on to 2000 would definitely look really nice, but would have required a lot more work on my part, so that the minor imprefections that were left would not have been so obvious.

it looks like LGB probably went further along than I did with the sandpaper, as he posted a later pic with a really nice shine (below)
.

The link for the disassembly does not seem to work. Is there some updated website where I can learn on how to take apart my super jolly? I have a lot of work to do ahead of me.