Your restoration is looking great.

A trick with punching gaskets is to punch them into the end grain of a piece of wood. Grab and old 2X4 cut it off perpendicular with the grain and if the cut is a really rough plane it smooth otherwise do not bother. Using your punch, um, cartridge I love that part, punch thru the gasket into the exposed end on wood fibers which will act like a mating die to the punch shearing the gasket material perfectly. Oh, you will need to move to a fresh piece of end grain for each punch.

Good luck
Geoffrey

The Teflon coated wire seems thinner gauge than it actually is. You can likely get away with 14 through most of it. 12 can do the whole machine with few worries but for the big elements 2kw or more 10 is better. Nice gasket...have you put water in it?

I think i'll take Garth up on his offer and go with something a bit beefier. Good idea using the end of a piece of wood. The oak board I was using was a bit unforgiving. I've filled the boiler with no sign of leaks from the bottom gasket, but the real test comes when I get the element wired and add some pressure.

One can also use a cheap white plastic cutting board as a punch mat..lasts forever.

I finally got around to finishing up the Eurobar. I replaced all the wiring with 16 AWG teflon coated (thanks Garth Breaks).

The boiler gasket worked perfectly without leaks (its been cycling at 1.0 bar for a few hours now). I've pulled a few shots of 49th Epic and am amazed at how temperature stable the Eurobar is compared to the Europiccola with the same group. I love the convenience of warm cups up top and water tap for americanos.

I just need to get my hands on the original drip tray - please let me know if you happen to know of one.

That's a lovely job there, James. You must be as pleased as punch!

Enjoy............

Great job on the restoration. It's crazy how many Eurobar's are in the GTA.