After 3 years with my restored Lambro...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/62855722@ ... 595503543/
....I thought it was time to do an upgrade.
Last year I already got Peter @ Kafko.nl to create an autofill. Which works great.

To do list for this summer:
1.-Installing a PID. I want an easier way to adjust the brew temperature. Also, when I have the Pstat set to 1.3 bar to switch off, it will switch on again when the pressure dropped to 1 bar. With that pressure I dont get a good pre-infusion. I often wait till the Pstat switches off again to get a 1.3 bar pre-infusion. That is pretty annoying. With the PID I hope to keep the pressure more constant.

2.- New water. I have thrown out the Brita Purity after all the corrosion I got that was caused by the low ph of the water. I am now going to use half tap water and half demineralized water pumped with a Shurflo Whisper King from a tank. With that mix I will have a good TDS, ph and Ca/Mg concentration.

3.- Minimize the contact of the water with copper. I am pretty convinced that copper flavors the brewing water. My boiler is getting a high phosphorus electroless nickel plating. This is a fully food grade plating that is highly corrosion resistant and seals the copper perfectly. Also the pipes and the piston are getting this same treatment.

4. Hard chrome plating of the cylinder wall. Same reason as 3. But also the cylinder wall got damaged in the past 40-50 years. To repair the damage and improve the surface, I first had the cylinder honed, then the cylinder was hard chrome plated and after that it was honed again to get back to the original 50mm.

original damaged cylinder:

honed brass:

with finished hard chrome plating


More to come!

Great work! I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this done on the forums. I am interested to see how it all turns out and if you can notice a difference.

That chrome plating looks amazing! Congrats on that. If the boiler looks anything like it, it will be the nicest boiler in the universe.

Just as a question, where does one acquire a lambro, or a vintage lever to begin with. I can't find many via the usual internet sources.

Wow, I seriously have cylinder wall envy. That looks incredible.

bostonbuzz wrote:That chrome plating looks amazing! Congrats on that. If the boiler looks anything like it, it will be the nicest boiler in the universe.

Just as a question, where does one acquire a lambro, or a vintage lever to begin with. I can't find many via the usual internet sources.

There is one on Ebay now, missing the Lambro badge of course! Where do they go?



Amazing job on the group with the hard chrome.

bostonbuzz wrote:
Just as a question, where does one acquire a lambro, or a vintage lever to begin with. I can't find many via the usual internet sources.

There is one on the Italian market site where I found mine:
http://www.subito.it/arredamento-casali ... 929610.htm
With batch!

I had mine picked up by UPS. I paid the lady with Paypal. People said I was crazy to trust an Italian and that the box would contain a couple of bricks. But everything went well. I guess I was lucky!

bostonbuzz wrote:If the boiler looks anything like it, it will be the nicest boiler in the universe.

The hard chrome builds up as an amorphous, random grid.
(this is how unfinished hard chrome looks like)


It's the machining (honing) that makes the surface smooth.

The nickel plating is a different story. The plating follows the original surface perfectly. So every dent or scratch will show.

This is it:

TomC wrote:Wow, I seriously have cylinder wall envy. That looks incredible.

NelisB wrote:There is one on the Italian market site where I found mine:
http://www.subito.it/arredamento-casali ... 929610.htm
With batch!

I had mine picked up by UPS. I paid the lady with Paypal. People said I was crazy to trust an Italian and that the box would contain a couple of bricks. But everything went well. I guess I was lucky!

Sorry for the OT, but in this exact add the seller uses pics with a timestamp from 2009. And I've seen exactly those pics on one or two other subito-adds before...
I have found some adds on subito or quoka or kijiji in the past months, where the seller uses pictures of past ebay auctions, e.g. , and they were all very nice and serious when contacted by mail - but they just never were able to send me new pictures of the details I ask them to make for me.

Don't get me wrong, I got my Lambro from subito.it, too - but the sellers name was Maltoni

So if some newbie is looking for machines on online-adds: be careful, get proof of existance, and try to buy from sellers with a reputation (a good one ...).
Last not least: The bargain, that looks too good to be true - it IS most likely too good to be true

Back on topic:
Seriously a terrific job!
Would you mind to share a number with us?
I've seen those nickel plated boilers before, one on kaffee-netz.de, the other one here on hb at the single group Urania that went from Australia to Dubai...

Sansibar99 wrote:Sorry for the OT, ...

No, please don't feel sorry! The information you're sharing is very important!

Sansibar99 wrote: Would you mind to share a number with us?

Which numbers do you mean?