ademello72 wrote:Hi Simon,
Good Luck with the heating element fix - I have a similar need - While I was away last week, the machine was used, left on or the water was too low or something (still getting the details) but anyway, the heating element is done, multiple splits all along the coil - I'd be interested to see if you have found a way / come across other Riviera users who have successfully replaced / fixed their heating elements to get their machines working again.

I' just looked back at the photos you previously posted, and I see your pstat is a little different from mine - I'll post pictures when I am home again.

Also, on the cleaning / polishing of the brass and copper, what did you use? It looks really really nice - The colour of the level looks a little different, and mine is also showing a slight colour difference. Do you also have any clear coating on the machine, and how did you remove it before polishing?

Sorry for all the questions, it looks like I may have some time on my hand looking after the "cosmetic" aspects of the machine, as I search for a replacement heating element

Will post pictures soon
Thanks
Anthony

For all the technical glitches and saves, Anthony asks the question about the #1 time waster on this kind of refurb, and that is how to polish that much BRASS. Even though I'm replying 3 months later, it's worth replying to (sorry Anthony). My forearms are now twice the size and my squash game has improved. If I can find a better way next time I'll use it, but here is what happened.

1. I was warned against bathing the group and other parts in citric acid or rubbing with lemon juice and salt, because it would colour the part differently than the other brass parts (more orange than gold/yellow?). So I didnt use citric for this one, although I'd be very tempted to try on the next one, and if you have copper/brass materials on different parts of your machine, might be worth a try -- because the thing will be "two tone" anyway.

2. I used a version of a tarnish remover (Tarnex) for the "first pass" as each major part -- boiler, group, base -- to get off the green oxidized mess and just get it to a more or less uniform dull brown brass. Check out the early posts for how it was out of the box. I used about 30 rags up in the process, a plastic scrub brush for really sticky parts, and my trusty brass brush (ever so lightly) for the really touchy parts and corners. If I knew of one, I'd use an even stronger tarnish remover. The basic method with that stuff is to wipe it on, let it sit briefly, and wash it off in warm water, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

3. For all internal cleaning and de-calcification and "under the hood" scraping and scratching, wire brushes, usually the circular ones that can be attached to my hand drill. There are some really funky attachments you can get now that permit drilling at angles and lots of brush shapes and sizes, and not too expensive (5 or 10 bucks), and they save a lot of time. A couple of really useful hand brushes as well, as I have been saying.

4. Once the initial de-tarnishing is done, I used brasso to bring it up to a shine. Yep, brasso. I know it sounds insane, but that's what I did. Each little brass piece in the group and on the exterior I "brassoed" to a respectable level of cleanliness. For things that went under the hood, I didn't need perfect shine, but I needed completely free of grime or anything that would wear or jam the machine. For anything external, you need bling-level of polish. I actually found that it was not physically hard, as much as time-consuming, so I spent a few evenings on the couch with my rags and brasso watching hockey. The main thing about brasso is that it brings grime off pretty good, but it very quickly uses up a rag which then needs cleaning -- so it can only clean off one part, and then needs cleaning itself, in order to be really effective. You'll see what I mean if you try it. So, lots of bleached laundry. All of this added a new dimension to my primary relationships, that is, wife and daughter, who now have several IOUs stashed away. I figure, you pay either way.

5. Once the brass parts get to a near-bling polish, they get finger-printy pretty easly and dull down pretty quickly, but can be brought back up easily with a quick polish. It is maintenance, another reason why I'm so pleased to be giving this machine a deserving home that is not mine. But I suppose it is worth it to have the wow factor when the buddies come over and see this bad boy sitting at the end of the counter or wherever you keep it.

That is how this one got polished. I need a better method for next time, but for posterity, there it is.

A very wonderful thread!!! Thank you!
Just for another clean/ polish method, I find that "Wrights Brass Polish"
http://www.idealtruevalue.com/servlet/the-137688/Detail
http://www.jawright.com/polishing/brass2.asp
I like it better than "Brasso" due to milder smell and a rinse off that really works. That means that I don't have to wash the piece after I use the cleaner/polish. It is pretty much food safe also. I use it on my "Espressme" products.
Cheers!
-Richard

I am really not going to get a lot of billing done today, but here for a quick reference post are some key links you'll need if you have a Rivieria and you're doing a diagnostic.

First, the current incarnation of the manufacturer: http://www.zacconi.net/en/products_en.html

Second, Doug and Barb who have a cleaning service, parts and all the advice you'll ever need: http://www.orphanespresso.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=6_14

Third, sourcing some hardware, parts, replacement stuff (in my case, making my own teflon heat breaks): http://www.mcmaster.com/#

Fourth, another source of gauges: http://www.omega.com/prodinfo/PressureGauges.html

Fifth, the basic (not patent) schematics of this machine in fairly decent resolution: http://www.home-barista.com/images/riviera_schematic1.jpg

and

http://www.home-barista.com/images/riviera_schematic2.jpg

Sixth: Anthony's work on his machine, which is useful for reference and pix: http://sites.google.com/site/antsespressomachines/Home

Also see Anthony's Genasco find, with their "King": http://www.gensaco.com/Cap_SITE.html

Seventh: if you're in the US, Christopher at Thomas Cara Inc will be your friend for these machines, and others. No website, but snail mail addy: Thomas Cara, Ltd. 517 Pacific St. San Francisco, CA 94133 (415) 781-0383. Next time I'm in the city, I'm going by.

I'll edit/add to this post as I remember more. It would be really helpful to me if anyone with pictures of the Riviera (the "Eagle" model) would link to or post them in here. I find the visuals very helpful in thinking about options for these machines.

I finished the final assembly of this machine. The last problem was irksome - the cup-shaped head that holds the closing seal not easily attached to the steam valve assembly. I ended up using a solder solution (suggested by Doug) that I'm sure will not be a permanent fix, but at least it works for now. I am still curious as to how this particular piece is assembled at the manufacturer if anyone finds out or happens to know. Next time I'm in SF, I'll visit Mr. Cara.

However, it will make steam for now. So, here are some shots of the final assembled machine. It needs a final buff to bring it to a blisteringly blingy shine, but it's working now and I hate the fingerprint-on-the-new-machine-after-all-that-effort feeling. I'm playing squash with its new owner tonight and then we'll come back for some test trials, while I'll post about. (For those who are curious, note that the portafilter size is 45mm, the same as the La Peppina, so tampers are interchangeable).

...and as promised, a few pull shots from last night, after Dennis killed me on the squash court 3-0 and 3-2. Ouch.

A few initial notes for use. We used Black Cat from Monday's roast, ground just under "1" and just over "1" on my Rocky. Just under 1 is what I use for the Oly, and it is about six notches above zero. I set the pressurestat to 1.0 (which oddly is the lowest part of the "green" on the gauge - it seems to expect you will be using a higher pressure setting) and just eyeballing it, the variance in the cycle over about six or eight doubles was not bad, maybe 0.1-0.2 bar. We refilled a few times just to put the machine through a lot of work in one sesh.

We found right away that the spring lever on the Riviera did not have the same strength as a manual pull on the Oly -- the spring is fairly strong but but strong enough to push through a full double basked tamped in 20 seconds -- it came through in about 45 sec or so, little crema, fairly strong shot. No decent mouse-tail, more like a string and drips. Damn.

We knew we would have to do some dialing in, so we played around with the grind mostly, a little with the tamp, and finally the dose.

It is a narrow (45mm) deep basket, which at first we thought might accentuate a hard tamp, but the tamp didn't make a huge difference (unless it was just a weak non-tamp). Layered tamping helped control it a little better, but in order to keep a reasonable puck we needed to keep tamp strength.

We found we did not want to loosen up the grind much - it quickly led to fast extraction and too much blonding. We could play around with that a little more but the right thing seemed to be to play with dose initially.

We ended up reducing the dose somewhat -- I didn't measure, we were just eyeballing it, so maybe 3 g less than a normal 14g double -- and this seemed to produce a decent balance between grind/tamp and acceptable flow-through on the shots, although there was no good crema production yet. Passable, but not what I'm used to on the Oly. I didn't try increasing the temperature, but we thought we'd try that next, maybe set it at 1.1-1.2 and see if that helps. The money shots for what they're worth.







The machine is now off at Dennis' house and he's a hand-grinder kind of guy, so he'll have to test out some parameters and report back so I can make suggestions. One thing I thought right away is that Hedley Lamar is right, a mod on this model would be to find a spring with greater resistance to see if we could generate greater pressure in the group. It's coincidence that I'm just taking down a Peppina right now, and a smaller, more delicate machine has a bigger spring and although I did not compare their strengths, I'd bet the Peppina is stronger. Here is a pictoral comparison of both springs. The first spring is the Riveria and the second the Peppina.





On to the next one, but meanwhile, happy pulls.

I never would have expected that large a spring from the La Peppina. But I have never torn into the base of it.

-Cecil

I'm having a hard time visualizing what Hedley is describing here...and it seems like important info for us Riviera folks in order to keep our machines running. Can someone supply photos or more description of what he is saying?

Hedley wrote:First you will need your old brass collar/element. Remove/cut off the element, leaving just the brass collar. You are going to bore a hole in the collar to the dimension of the outside circumference of your old element lead dimension to accept a copper water heater fitting which accepts a approx 8" 110v water heater element. I believe this is a 1.25" NPT thread adapter. Just head to a plumbing supply or big box store and find a small screw in water heater element and then find the copper fitting which accepts this. The boring of the hole into your old brass element collar is a simple process. A lathe is required or drill press with proper hole bit. Once the hole is bored the copper water heater fitting is brazed into the your newly bored brass collar element. This could sound complex but is actually very simple. Please use non chromium containing brazing rod. I have written Mr. Penny about this modification and the question arises concerning the length of the water heater element verses the original element? Yes the water heater element is longer but when coupled with the new fitting the protrusion from the base of the boiler supplies a added head space and allows the attachment of the base bottom cover. If you fill your boiler to a level just below the steam wand pickup opening you are still able to pull 3+ double shots in succession before exposing the top of the element. It sounds complex but does work very well. The added benefit is the large savings in cost and availability of elements for machine replacement. When shopping for the modification pieces pickup a cheapo water heater element wrench they are $5.00 or so. If you happen to run your machine dry and burn out the element the fix/replacement is a quick repair. Usually 10 minutes at most.

RioCruz:

There are pics of the cuff and element in this thread, but I've never tried (or seen) the repair Hedley proposes. Do you need a new element? I may be able to get you one -- people wrote me with suggestions when I did this refurb and I may have a lead on a couple still. Let me know if you want me to ask around.

I'm also interested in a spring modification (as Hedley suggested) to be able to up the pressure in the spring of the same dimensions. I'm innocent of the physics of springs or the metallurgy that may be required. Any suggestions for research are welcome.

simonarcher wrote:RioCruz: Do you need a new element?

Not yet...thank goodness!!! Whilst descaling my machine I unhappily allowed all the water to boil out. When I finally discovered what I had done, the heating element was glowing red hot and the whole machine was hotter than a $2 pistol. FORTUNATELY...because the Coffee Gods love me ...the element didn't burn out!!! So I very happily continue to play with the machine and can pull a pretty decent shot with it...notwithstanding the spring drive. I have decided to keep it as is for the time being rather than convert it to a direct drive.

Nevertheless...if the Headley technique is viable, could be a valuable thing to know about at some point. Unfortunately, I really don't understand his instructions very well. But maybe, if I ever have to actually do the repair, it will all be clearer...