so, i have had the coffee bug for years, and i am a metal-worker, so it only seems natural that i would get into coffee machines....
i just got myself the simplest and most gorgeous of them all - the little arrarex caravel. of course, not content with one, i bought two. don't ask why....



i have to say that i was very impressed with how well they were made. the fact that they are stainless wherever the water and coffee goes, that completely hooked me. i bought the red one, fell in love with its sweet 50's styling, and then got one in my favourite colour, orange, but too late - you cannot go past your first love. so i put new seals in the orange one and am about to put it up on ebay.
the red one is slightly older - some parts like the lever and the top cap are a little nicer made, but i think that the newer piston on the orange one (with the seals in the piston body) is more reliable. the piston on the red one has a weird mix of a u-cup seal and an o-ring - it is impossible to find the right height u-cup, so i will eventually have to make up a thin spacer and use the ones from orphanespresso. for now it seals well with the old seal. i replaced the group seal and the inner piston o-ring and gave it a little clean. lovely....





it pulls a glorious coffee - short sharp and creamy. i was interested to see what the difference between the two machines was, pulling side by side, but i could not tell much between the piston styles - both were lip-smackingly good.



there are two other projects i have that are a little more complex. the first is a microcimbali lever machine - dirty, corroded and quite an ugly beast, but i wanted to see what sort of coffees it would pull with that spring lever. it will need new seals everywhere i think - there is aluminium corrosion all over the place. maybe i am deluded, but i always believed the spring lever was the best way. though after my morning caravel comparison, i am not so sure i need it!



when i get to pulling it apart i will post it up and show what it does. and once that is done, i can get back to an older project of putting back together an old astoria commercial machine - yikes. it is all together with plumbing, after having de-scaled the boiler and all parts, completely dismantled and repainted the frame, re-wiring it, new seals everywhere.... just need to get the pump and motor on, assemble a few bits, and consider what to do with the burgundy body panels - they have rust at the corners, not that it matters. here it is all apart on my workbench....



it will look like this when together, though it is mechanical clockwork timing, not electric - very cute - tiny plastic timing gears in each head to time the pull....



one day i would like to make my own machine - full stainless, lever spring, a cross between the caravel and the microcimbali. i think the astoria is way too big for home use, but excess is a virtue and shows your true passions (or expires them in the effort....)

old machines are great - they are simple and made to be repaired and maintained - go get one!!!

Welcome to the forums. Great first post. Those little Caravels are beautiful.

Ah yes,,, A man after my own heart! Multiple espresso makers! You can never have too many! I love the microcimbali, I would like to find one someday... Good luck with the Astoria, Looks like you have your hands Er, ah, work bench full!

Nice post! I would never ask why you got more than one of the same machine; it's more like, "why wouldn't you!?"

thanks all - it is nice to know that there is a community of like-minded fools also obsessed with lovely old things, and pulling them apart. the coffee just tastes so much better when you know the machine so intimately!
i am about to pull apart the microcimbali, starting today, so i will start another thread with how that goes....

nice Caravels... don't sell the orange one- keep it. Put it away for your retirement. I am sure they will be worth an absolute fortune in 30 years from today.

I just got a Microcimbali- great machine. the pressure is a little low for good frothing but the espresso seems to work fine.

Does yours have a hole on the side of the frothing nozzle? It seems they are designed to work in a different fashion than normal frothers perhaps to cope with the lower than normal boiler pressure.

thanks sorrentinacoffee, but i just want the caravel to go out there and make coffee somewhere for someone - it seems a waste to have two caravels sitting here - i only have one mouth to drink with (though you wouldn't know from the growing list of other machines and more on the wish-list....)
my microcimbali has a 3-hole steaming wand end - seems soldered on and then chromed after - no extra side hole anywhere.... mine seems to be a very early example though - no hot water, and no bolts to keep the group piston in (having troubles getting it out right now - just about to post a help request for that....)