Hello all. I became suddenly obsessed with espresso about a month or two ago and recently upgraded my old Mellitta "steam toy" to a pre-millenium Europiccola, used of course. It cleaned up nicely and after four weeks of trial and error and pouring a lot of espresso down the sink, I am pulling what I consider to be drinkable shots, in large part thanks to these forums. Obviously I have a long way to go but my progress has nevertheless been encouraging. At least I can drink the results now and most of my shots have been pretty attractive lately, in my inexperienced view.

Over the time that I've had my machine, the lower front part of the plastic shield that wraps around the sight glass has partly melted to the metal cleat underneath. This was a little bit crudded up from the beginning, but I couldn't get the shield off when I disassembled the rest of the machine for restoration. It gradually got worse and I was able to successfully pry it off this morning, when it was still warm, and this is when I found the partial meltation described above. I was able to polish the chrome underneath back to a decent shine (toothpaste works nicely for this) but the plastic is burnt and discolored.

I'd like to leave the shield off for various aesthetic reasons, but I know there was a reason it was put there. So what is your opinion of the chances that the sight glass will explode in my face and Freddy Kreugerize me at some point? Good? Or excellent?

Thanks for this and for all the other expertise I have gathered from this community while lurking here over the past month or so.

My guess is that it is just there to protect the glass from breaking. It isn't a tight seal on mine - for example, if I run the machine under water the water can get under the shield. Given that, my guess is that it is there to protect the sight glass from you and not to protect you from it.

That is my guess, but I'd be interested if anyone else has actual knowledge.

Hugh

ps you can get a new one from places like

http://www.espressoparts.com/category/03.02.lapavoni.lapavonipagetwo/

and they call it a "Plastic Sight glass protector." It looks like they are out of stock right now
but it might be worth calling (plus I'm not sure if this one is the match for your machine or if
they differ from one make of Pavoni to another).

Thanks for the link - I'll check that out. A little bit of water did indeed get under the shield when I was first cleaning up the machine, and while it quickly dried or boiled off, the toothpaste residue remained.

After thinking about it some more I wonder if the melting is a sign that my machine is somehow getting too hot. I am not sure how the temperature is regulated on the Europiccola but I do know my pressure release valve is working fine. Sometimes I leave it on for extended periods before I pull, while I am working on something else - cooking usually - but I didn't think there was any harm in that. I put the second switch on 'II' just until the valve starts hissing and then I set it back to 'I' for awhile before pulling the shot.

It is only for protection
however clean all the glue from the factory or it will look like that again
you will not need any glue to put it in place it will snap on.