Hello-

I just received my Bruni Brunella:



It seems to be in very good condition, but there is minor corrosion in places from sitting from what I presume to be many years of inactivity.

While taking things apart to clean them, I noticed a spacer behind the lever roller:



It stuck to the roller when I removed it. A whitish substance was left at the end of the roller track—I presume it was either glue or grease that had long ago hardened. It was stuck to the roller with a thin coat of grease, so my guess is that it was not stuck to the back when I got it.

This is the piece after being mostly cleaned:



This is how it looks in the cleaned assembly:



The effect of having this little piece of aluminum is that the lever stands slightly less vertical when parked. It also limits the downward travel of the piston shaft a few millimeters. My guess is that it was intended for the former purpose: Without that piece, the lever appears as though it will touch the reservoir lid, forcing it up a bit beyond sitting snugly on the base. When I got the machine, the lever stood just a few millimeters below the lid cutout. It looked nigh-on perfect.

Do any other Brunella owners have one of these aluminum spacers?

daniel,
interesting - looks a little dodgy. i have no input as yet, but i have a brunella coming from italy that i bought a week ago - it will be here in a week or so. i will keep an eye on this post and also take a pic of what i find when it gets here....
lovely machines....! your brunella looks in gorgeous condition aesthetically!

Hi danno,

I have worked on a Brunella few months ago and it also had the aluminium spacer.

I'm not familiar with these machines but before SiD replied I was going to say it almost looks like someone has replaced the roller with one too small so had to make a spacer. There certainly looks to be enough room for a bigger roller anyway.

Be interesting to make a bigger one to see if it does the same thing.

danno wrote:Hello-

I just received my Bruni Brunella

Wow, looks like kin next to the Caravel.

OO

daniel,

my brunella came today (lovely sunny yellow fella, though he needs some work and quite a few missing bits remade) - it has no such spacer, and the roller seems larger, as don suggested.... not sure, but the keyway on yours might be a little wider also? the diameter of the spacer on mine is 6.3mm internal, 9.4mm external (1/4" and just under 3/8") - fits snuggly in the keyway - maybe that can help.....



larger roller sounds like the best option.

cheers,
sean.

ps - is the paint job on yours as crappy as it is on mine??? i think i see paint drips....

Hey Daniel, forgot to mention how much I like your Caravel. My favorite colour too - and Sean, you have a red one. Very nice.

Thanks for the replies. After playing around with and without the spacer, I decided it belongs there. I used JB Weld and epoxied it in. A larger roller like Albert's is clearly the best solution, but finding one will probably be difficult. My smaller roller works fine for now.

And yes, Albert, my Brunella has paint drips. Luckily the black color hides most of them. They are most obvious below and behind the group, so one must look to find the blemishes.

I have used the Brunella a few times after taking what seemed forever to clear out residue left in the heating element chamber. That is the only fault with the design I can critique: Anything caught in the heater element chamber tends to stay there. It seems impossible to remove the entire heater element panel from underneath—that would make cleaning much easier! The rest of the design is very clever.

A question to Brunellisti about temperatures.

My Brunella was cycling the heating element at an indicated 183°F. My high-quality digital thermometer seems as accurate as always, and I have been putting the probe at the bottom of the main reservoir.

I bypassed the thermosensor and am running the element direct from AC power. I use a switched power strip to turn the Bruni on and off. When it gets above an indicated (in the reservoir bottom) 201°F, bubbles are rapidly coming from the top.

Does this seem right?

The first shots are not yet perfect (my fault, I am still learning) but they were good, so my guess is that my method for obtaining the right temperature is correct. Any insight into the situation? I do not want to over-heat the Bruni.

doubleOsoul wrote:Wow, looks like kin next to the Caravel.

Yeah, doesn't it? I did not realize how similar they were until I put them next to one another. They are fairly close in size, and there is something ineffably retro-Italian about them both. Almost a if the smae demented genius conceived the pair. And the black Bruni seems to go well with the yellow Caravel.

I intended to take the Bruni to work, but now I am thinking it needs to stay where it is...

daniel,
quite happy to make you a roller if you like - i am a jeweller and metalworker and have a lathe and welder etc etc - postage would be nothing, and it is a 5-minute job.... only if you want to try it.
and yes - caravels and brunellas have the same sort of childish over-caffeinated naive joy to them - especially a yellow brunella! i will be joining you shortly as i pull it apart and clean it up and restore it somewhat, but first my microcimbali is crying for help....
and i totally agree about the brunella boiler design fault. for all my looking around, the caravels are hard to beat for totally simple full design realisation, even if they do look like ice cream carts....