I'm posting in hopes that I can get some input from fellow hobby machinists on how our community could get a small number of baskets run for a group buy. I know it has been mentioned in the past, but with careful use of calipers and SolidWorks I've came up with an accurate model that should give all the necessary information to fabricate this. The only thing it's missing is the small tabs on the side to lock the basket into the portafilter. I consider these fairly trivial and somewhat unnecessary, but could be added in (I also couldn't figure out how to model them and gave up!...ok so this is more the reason than the first one).

Hopefully this can generate some discussion on how this could be done at a reasonable price, and how many would have to be ordered.

Download the SolidWorks file. (Apparently only 10 people can download it from that site, any ideas on where else to host it for a while?)

I plan to also model out a bottomless portafilter, which would hopefully be easier to machine out of brass or bronze since it wouldn't contact coffee.

What size basket are you planning? I would certainly be interested.

Hi Gang,
Watch the Orphan Espresso pages. I hear that prototypes of doubles are done and they will be ordering soon.
They may do Bottomless PFs if the interest is there.
-Richard

This is excellent news. I personally would be happy not to have the bumps. I find them more trouble than they're worth. I'd like another PF too.

Speaking of Orphan, anyone else having trouble accessing their website?

http://www.orphanespresso.com/

I've been getting "can't open the page "http://www.orphanespresso.com/" because the server where this page is located isn't responding" messages for a couple of days now . . . .

zin1953 wrote:Speaking of Orphan, anyone else having trouble accessing their website?

http://www.orphanespresso.com/

I've been getting "can't open the page "http://www.orphanespresso.com/" because the server where this page is located isn't responding" messages for a couple of days now . . . .

Clicking on your link, it worked fine for me. I'm on a mac using Safari 3.2.1.

espressme wrote:Hi Gang,
Watch the Orphan Espresso pages. I hear that prototypes of doubles are done and they will be ordering soon.
They may do Bottomless PFs if the interest is there.
-Richard

Sounds good, thanks for the info Richard.

I'm interested in just a simple functional bottomless PF. Really just a ring with a handle stuck on it. I'm not even sure how useful it would be because of the small basket geometry at the bottom, but it should still be a worthwhile experiment.

shouldn't be too hard to punch the dimples in post manufacture?

I was wondering if it would be possible to bash a Ponte vecchio 45mm basket into some kind of die to make it 43mm?

But Now we hear talk that OE has come to the rescue. when will they be ready?

i just picked up another Caravel and it only came with the rare tiny single basket- so I would be on the list to grab a big double ASAP. Did OE make them themselves? Or manage to source them from italy? There is one supplier in Italy who has over 2500 different baskets apparently- only trouble is they are impossible to contact directly from my experience.

A friend of mine just got a caravel as well, hopefully as they gain a bit more popularity parts like this will grow. Of course I believe most everything will have to be custom because of sizing that's chosen. Even the seals appear to be somewhat of an odd size.