Hey everyone,
I was able to pick up a couple of Cremina's recently, (a '70 and a '76) and thought I'd share a couple of pics and pose a couple of questions.
First of all, the insulation on the '70 is interesting - it appears to be a rubber based foam of some sort.
I've poked and prodded it and it looks like the whole coating will peel off cleanly if I chose to remove it.
I'm leaning towards stripping it off, simply because it looks a little gross. Anyone out there think this is a bad idea? I can't help but think that if I want to insulate the machine I can just pick up a kit from OE that will likely do a better job anyway...



On to the electrical, this Cremina has an interesting recessed plug fitting (see below):



It's got a ground wire connected to the frame, but looks to only accept an ungrounded power cord (it didn't come with a cord, I've gotta source something). Can someone shed some light on this set up for me?
I was thinking I could swap in a standard 3 prong receiver (like those found on the back of LCD monitors/DVD players/etc.,.), provided I can find one with the correct fit. Am I being over reactive? Will this machine be grounded if I just dropped in a 2 prong power cable?
Thoughts, suggestions and opinions are (as always) welcome.
Thanks everyone,
-GB.

The original power plug had the ground contact made by metal strips on the sides of the plug contacting the metal in the inside of the socket.

Ahhh,
I thought that might be the case, though I wasn't sure.
Thanks Doug/Barb.
Anyone know if vintage power cords are available anywhere? All of my searches have delivered nothing but results on how to convert my home wiring from 2 prong to 3...
If not, I'd love to hear thoughts on the best way to hack this (I can think of a few ways, though I'm sure HB'ers can come up with something more elegant).
Thanks everyone,

-GB

Well I might start with something like McMaster Carr online to see if I could find a recepticle that was of similar size and shape to fit into the frame. Three prong would probably be the best solution. Also there are a number of differing sized and shaped fitting for electrical cords that go through frames with varying sized holes that are sold through catalogues for manufacturing such as Graingers or McMaster Carr.

I just wanted to write a quick update for this post.
Barb from OE dropped me a line last night to let me know that they're having some Cremina pistons made, so for any of you in the same boat as me - OE is once more (obviously) the place to go.
As for the electrical side of things, I'm thinking of dropping in one of these:



Thoughts?

Oops - I just realized I must have mentioned my missing piston on another thread.
Suffice it to say, I recently bought two Cremina's (one pictured above) and one was missing a piston.
Oh, and the insulation peeled right off (it appeared to be some sort of latex), leaving behind a pristine boiler.