Nearly a year ago I purchased a rather well maintained brass La Pavoni Europiccola made just before the Millenium model. I was impressed at what a beautiful thing it was except for some, what I thought, were really ugly plastic parts. The drip tray of this model is plastic, but, to me plastic is the best material for this because it is water resistant. The boiler knob is plastic, and a bit ugly, but high grade plastic is probably the ideal material for this, because having it plastic makes it far less likely to destroy the threads on top of the boiler. The handles on the portafilter and group seem to be made of plastic just to be ugly. The same goes for the steam control knob.

In addition to being ugly, the group handle is too light, so it moves up when a vacuum forms in the reservoir on cool down. I have metal working machines in my garage, and one day I took a piece of 25mm brass bar stock, cut off a piece of it 10 cm long. I put it in my little metal lathe and faced the ends and then rounded off the ends. I cut a decorative groove on both ends, and bored and tapped one end so I could screw it on to the machine in place of the ugly plastic handle. I turned the piece down a bit to remove the imperfections on the metal surface and then I polished it and put it on the machine. I had planned to make an identical handle for the portafilter. When I put this brass handle on the portafilter it was too hot. Brass was out!

Now I work with metal. I had a chunk of 4 cm square gabon ebony I had gotten several years earlier for a project that never materialised. Ebony is amazingly hard. I cut off a piece of it about 12 cm long and put in the 4 jaw chuck on the metal lathe. I first turned it down to 32 mm. Ebony is so hard that it is a lot like machining brass! One MUST take shallow cuts, however, and go slow because heating it can cause it to crack! I tapered one end and bored and tapped the metal itself. Again ebony is so hard that one can cut good threads in it. I took a wood saw and sawed off the square end and then put it into a 3 jaw chuck and rounded that end. I sanded it carefully and put it on the machine. It looked beautiful. I immediately made multiple coats of tung oil to the piece to protect the wood. After a week I sanded it with very fine sandpaper. It has been in place for about 6 months. It looks beautiful. I was careful to remove all the wood swarf from the lathe, as people tell me wood chips on metal lathes can cause serious corrosion. (I guess they call wood swarf sawdust.)

I made a replacement brass steam knob. Brass is almost too good a conductor of heat, but it is not unreasonably hot, so I prefer my knew knob.

I painted the ugly steam knob with high quality brass metallic paint. I may someday try to make an ebony one. Any suggestions about how to do this.

Ebony is beautiful with brass. It is also fiercely expensive, but it does not take much.

Nice work. A few years back I turned wood handles and knobs for my La Pavoni and I like it much better with the aftermarket handles...

You can see my attempt here...

Turning your own wooden handles for la pavoni