Have found 12"x12" sheet Teflon gasket material in three thicknesses at :
HERE Top of page #3375
Luck to you!
-Richard

Oh, well, I know a shop that custom makes heating elements, so that's no problem either, but they only come in 220V-380V versions, they can be expensive, and you would have to order them from Finland. ^^

The broken fitting shouldn't be much of a problem, just take your machine's boiler down to a machine shop that knows brass, and have them make a fitting and braze it on there.

There, problems solved, took me about a minute and a half...

Brazing on new fittings is a possible solution. Sorry, but it is not as simple as one might think. There are important technical issues that need to be taken into consideration to avoid ruining the boiler:

1. The choice of the brass alloy is important if not critical for success and safety. Many brasses contain lead which is toxic. Also these brasses should not be used for brazing because the lead can evaporate during brazing making it difficult if not impossible. Or at best leaving a porous joint.

2. The choice of the brazing alloy is critical because they also can contain toxic materials like cadmium etc. In addition the choice of its melting or eutectic range is critical otherwise the boiler could suffer from excess annealing or softness, and/or cause the joint to fail during use.

3. The joint design and preparation of both the fitting and the boiler is also critical to achieve a good joint and one that is appropriate for use at elevated pressures and temperatures.

4. Brazing is a manual operation in which the experience and skill of the craftsman is critical to success.

I hope this helps
Geoffrey

Therefore, go to a professional who knows what he's doing. It might take a while to find one, but it's far from impossible. And the joints aren't that critical on these machines since they never see pressures above approx. 1 bar over atmospheric pressure.

Thanks for the advice everyone -- very inspiring. But no punting man, I don't give up that easily. Like your new President says, yes we can.

I'm just back from another business trip and, bottle of wine firmly in hand, much more optimistic about these three little problems. I think I'll probably do the right thing and get some teflon and gasket paper, blow the money, and make some proper gaskets. If anyone is in need, let me know, I'll make copies insofar as materials permit, and send 'em to you, gratis. Going to add a couple of weeks to the refurb, but, a job done properly. The guy I'm going to give the Riviera to is patient friend, and as a favour, he recent brought me back a La Peppina from France for the *next* refurb. Very cool. Comes around, goes around.

The real kickers are the leads on the heat element and the snafu'd steam pipe. The leads I'm optimistic about. I'm going to clean the element first and then take it out to a shop and see if I can't get them to fix me some new leads, properly insulated. I'm keen to try and fix the element instead of investigate alternatives.

The thread issue is more complex. Not sure if I explained it properly. The hole in the boiler is now filled with bits of thread that seem fused in. So the boiler threads need cleaning somehow. I'm going to get a small brass brush tomorrow and do my best, but the threads are so corroded/fused to parts of the original fitting that snapped off, I reckon I may need a machine shop to re-drill the threads (however you phrase that). Then, I'll need a fitting that fits the threads, because the one that held in the steam tube is fused fused fused to the steam tube now, it came off in one piece. Maybe a shop can remove it and make me a new one. In that case, it might be good to get a new pipe too. All of this cutting into the refurb budget now, but, well, we'll see. If I can avoid a new heating element I'll consider it a victory.

Going to spend tomorrow morning visiting some local machine shops to do some due diligence on the possibilities. (Any suggestions for Toronto?) I'll take the notes on the brass issues, temperature issues, and materials issues sent to me by the HBers, thanks for those tips. Will let folks know what I find out this weekend.

Meanwhile, some nicer news: with the boiler on hold, I've been polishing up all the other parts of the machine, and they're coming up really nicely. The grouphead is clean and bright, the steam gauge, lever, steam wand, all coming out very nicely. I'll post some pics. What I've been finding is that standard metal cleaners are not helping much (I've tried about four), and the most effective cleaner is "Brasso", if you can believe it, but it is an incredibly laborious procedure. Any suggestions for improvements on metal/brass cleaners?

Second, any suggestions for de-scaling the heating element? Should I approach this by hand/brush or a chemical bath?

But first, second glass of wine and a rare night out with friends. More soon.

espressme wrote:Have found 12"x12" sheet Teflon gasket material in three thicknesses at :
HERE Top of page #3375
Luck to you!
-Richard

Thanks Richard, very helpful. Will get to it this weekend.

The time of year has interrupted my flow with this refurb, and of course, the two main problems with the boiler element leads and the boiler re-drilling that is required. I hope to get some of that addressed this weekend and somewhat in concert with Garth Breaks' parallel problems.

One thing I did find out which made me chuckle: I wrote to McMaster to source some teflon sheets in several thicknesses to make some custom gaskets and heat breaks -- maybe even make some for other machines that I'm working on (more on that later: on the horizon a seal/gasket replacement on the Peppina and a La Pav Carina which I'm going to use exclusively at work, and then a full take-down of a total rust-bucket Enrico Italianstyle) -- but McMaster Carr wrote me back, and politely, apologetically, informed me that export laws prohibit them from sending me teflon sheets in Canada.

I cannot for the life of me imagine why, but there it is. I'm actually versed in basics of trade law (I'm a lawyer) and a friend works here in the gov't trade law department (DFAIT) so in exchange for a pound of his fave grind I've got him asking odd questions around DFAIT about teflon export rules. Yes, it's pretty silly, but you know, makes for a change from the usual.

Meanwhile, I'll have to make, um, informal arrangements to get my mitts on some teflon.

While I'm held up by the boiler and the element, I've pushed on with other parts of the refurb, which I'll post on soon. The polishing proceeds apace and the piston clean and rebuild is next.

I've also noticed two or three Rivieras pass along ebay recently, wondering what sort of homes they are going to.

One quick update I'd forgotten to mention earlier. I had a lot of scale/build-up of calcium, etc. on the heating element itself. I was wary of taking a brush to it given how tightly wound the element is.

So I tried a metal cleaner, and it worked like magic. "3M Stainless Steel Cleaner and Polish", pressurized spray, for use on food plant and other industrial use. XN-1015-5591-2. $6.99 Canadian for 600g.

It is pretty so-so as a stainless steel polish (Wenol is bettah) but it was entirely effective on the element. One coat and a rinse under cold water and the element was clean-like-new, and no brushing or scrubbing at all: a 2 1/2 minute job instead of an hour in front of the TV.