After many searches through this forum and ordering various parts and lubricants from orphan espresso and beyond, my 1990 Cremina is up and running! Even though it was really in pretty decent shape and had obviously never been taken apart before, I chose to strip it down and clean everything and replace all seals (even the scary sight glass seals). I also went against the advice of this forum and soaked my entire boiler in citric acid, which stripped the plating. I suppose it might reduce the value of the machine, but it took care of some ugly black gunky stuff, and the copper colour is kind of nice:



I held my breath and fired it up, and after tightening the pressure release valve a few turns, no more leaking sounds were heard! My first shot was pretty abysmal, but the second one looked a lot prettier:



I am still trying to figure out the right grind. My shots are looking a little thin, but my beans are over 2 weeks old at this point so I think that's most of the problem. I'm also having to adjust my habits from my old 58mm portafilter - I can't dose directly into the 49mm basket from my Vario, so I'm having to spoon it in a bit at a time. Right now I'm sticking with 14 gram doses, as that seems to be a reasonable amount, but I do get rather soupy pucks so I might have to play around with grind some more.

I also am unsure if I have an Olympia double basket, as itt sticks slightly especially when cold, preventing the portafilter from locking in smoothly. I've sanded the edges a little bit but I think it just needs to get used - it's already better after a week of use.

As an aside, this thing is a steaming monster compared to my CC1. I'm actually having trouble getting non-frothy foam because it goes so fast. More to learn!

Finally, here's my little coffee corner:

Great work on that Cremina, somehow coffee always tastes a little bit better on a machine you restored yourself!

As far as dosing directly into the portafilter, I use one of these, they come in various sizes including 49mm

Are there after market steam tips that would fit a Cremina? Perhaps a single hole steam tip would solve the super frothy foam issue. After struggling for months with a monster steamer, I switched to a steam tip with less holes and it made a world of difference.

dominico wrote:Great work on that Cremina, somehow coffee always tastes a little bit better on a machine you restored yourself!

I fully agree! I haven't yet managed to get a shot as good as my best shot on my CC1, but I sure do enjoy trying. It would be great to be able to meet up with someone locally to see if the way my machine feels is normal. For example, I find it quite difficult to raise the lever at first, but then there's a sudden whoosh near the end and it goes up the rest of the way by itself. I'm also surprised at how easy it is to press down on the lever, which may well be a function of grind, but again, it would be nice to know how it should feel.

dominico wrote:As far as dosing directly into the portafilter, I use one of these, they come in various sizes including 49mm

Good idea - I've got not-very-effective yogurt container solution, but the funnel would be nice to try. I'll wait until I have other things to order though, shipping to Canada makes it ~50% more expensive.

dominico wrote:Are there after market steam tips that would fit a Cremina? Perhaps a single hole steam tip would solve the super frothy foam issue. After struggling for months with a monster steamer, I switched to a steam tip with less holes and it made a world of difference.

I believe there are. However, I don't think most people would characterize the Cremina as a monster steamer - I just had a rather scaled up CC1 that was getting slower by the day (have since installed a water softener), so I think I just need to get used to it. Maybe after a few months I can honestly say it's the machine's fault and not the operator's

Hi

Just scored myself a new lever to upgrade from my la pavoni.

This is an Brugnetti Aurora - not sure of year but looking at others I would say early to mid 1980s. It's an hx through the middle of the boiler. Got it for a good price - it's been in storage a while so will need new gaskets before I can fire it up. Fingers crossed.


[/img]

I'd say that's an upgrade. Congratulations!

A very nice upgrade it is!

Long time lurker, first time poster...

I bought this SAMA Export off of eBay not too long ago. It was advertised as not working, but having the potential of being a runner. I figured I'd buy it for a good price, fix it, play with it for a while and send it back into the world. After a bit of haggling, it got it for what seemed like a good price.

Upon receiving it, it of course needed a little more work than advertised and was missing a few pieces. I stripped it down, excavated the scale that was plugging the machine and hunted down all the missing or damaged pieces. I repainted the base and swapped out the seals.

I'm relatively new to the espresso game, having only been at it a little less than a year. I had slowly become one with my Pasquini Livietta and didn't see any machine coming along to kick it off the countertop any time soon. After all, I still needed a grinder upgrade to find it's true potential. However, a friend from the Landcruiser world (my other hobby), spressomon, warned me that I may take a liking to the Export and not to discount it's abilities.

Once it was up and running, I put both machines to the test, a battle to the death. Loser leave town. While I hesitate to say that the SAMA is "better", it for sure is different. I tasted new flavors from beans I thought I was familiar with.

In the end, the Export won me over. It swayed me with its sexy good looks, silent operation, newfound flavors, and most of all it was fun to use and a new challenge.

Here she is, ready for reassembly...



New queen of the countertop...

Great restoration and story, welcome to the LMWDP, #531 FJ60Cam.

In the end, the Export won me over. It swayed me with its sexy good looks, silent operation, newfound flavors, and most of all it was fun to use and a new challenge.

I hate to say "I told you so" (because I didn't), but I have told others. I'm still in love with my Export(s) after 10 years. Heck, it's small enough that you might be able to keep the Livietta too? Anyway, welcome to lever land - you can see a few vids/pics of Export shots here - maybe you can add to it:

Pulling shots with Ponte Vecchio and Sama lever espresso machines

Cheers
PC

feitz wrote:Hi, folks-
My latest addition prompted me to register for world domination. I started off with a Pavoni 20 yrs. ago but never liked it very much. My Cimbali M20L got me hooked 3 yrs ago and since then I've been collecting these beautiful lever machines. I especially like the French levers like Conti, Reneka and the like. I have not started a restauration yet but hopefully there will be some restauration threads in the future.
My latest acquisition is a beautiful Zenith Express Magic which will arrive shortly...
<image>
Let me take the opportunity and thank everyone for great reading and lots of insight...
Best regards from Munich
Claus

Nice Zenith!