I found this beauty in a Spanish antique shop in a city called LEON. nice people and honest, they warned me twice, "this machine is not working", I told them I would not have it any other way. One of the levers was jammed solid but from the outside the machine looked great AND it did not cost a whole lot, they even organized the shipping to my home in The Netherlands.

Did they speak the truth? soon after the machine arrived I started off with the jammed lever, two corroded flange-studs snapped off immediately, when I tried to removed the piston it was evident this thing had not been used or even touched for years, eventually it came out in a cloud of rusty dust.
During the removal of the boiler out of the chassis it sounded as if the boiler was filled with gravel.

From then on things went smoothly, the boiler flange bolts came loose nicely, but when I tipped the boiler over, about a pound of brown shale and mud came sliding out. Both heating elements are dirty and have the same stuff stuck to them, but my Multi-meter tells me they're not cooked.

The mechanics of both groups seems o.k. I don't expect any problems there, but we will see when I open them up to renew the lever spring, for which I have a handy tool fabricated.

This looks like it will be a nice project; we'll start off with the broken flange studs, have to be careful but I have done it before, drilling out the old studs and re-tapping.

Parts are on order, Barb and Doug from "orphanespresso" told me it may take a while, but parts are still available for this beauty.

As someone told me a while back; "If it is not fun, stop till you are ready to have it be fun again." That is the secret to successful restorations. If you get into "gotta do its" and "get done-itis," things can and do go wrong.
Congratulations on a really great haul!
-Richard

What a find! I love doing restoration like that. Would love to come across such a machine. Congratulations!

You're planning on putting two group commercial Spanish machines in every room of your house?

Great find. It took me around two months to get an old machine running but it was well worth it. Been using it ever since. I remember the scale inside the boiler, could not believe my eyes. Good luck with the restoration.

Thank you all for your support and advice, I will do my best to deliver a first class job. I am not really in a hurry.
My intention was to dissemble this machine completely to allow me to order all the required parts, but NOT to complete the job until after the Swallow season...
Perhaps I better elaborate; for the past 15 years a bunch of (farm-yard) Swallows make their home in my garage.
They arrive each year around the end of March and leave again to fly back to Africa about mid September.
So there you have it.

@Bluecold: you know me, I am fascinated by steam generating machinery and have an uncontrollable urge to collect them, of course with a preference for the ones that produce coffee...

Aaah that's a beautiful thing (the swallows and the machine), most considerate of you!

I'd love to have a project machine like that to work on. Used equipment of any sort is pretty rare in this area, and it's usually overpriced anyway.

What nice fat swallows you have there. You obviously have much good luck to have them again and again and all of the generations must like you very much. We have had a small flock for about 15 years as well, though ours are tree swallows with white breasts and black tuxedos and they do not nest so inconveniently as yours. But when they return you likely feel good as it is a sign that spring has come. And if they did not return you would likely miss them! I know we would.
Doug