Has anyone thought of how to reproduce the rubber bases for the old La Pavoni's?

I have several La Pavoni's and I am missing one base and some others are older and have cracking. I have seen the glue technique with the weather strip and rubber base but I was looking for something more original that can stand up to being removed. I think silicone might work but wonder if anyone else has bounced this idea off the wall?

I don't know the first thing about what is involved in rubber molding btw.

I have no connection with the company at all and have never used their services that said..

http://i.materialise.com/materials/rubber-like

I wonder if 3D printing the base vs creating a mold and heating up rubber would be a lot easier and cheaper.

Just a thought.

Ken

Here's something from a couple weeks ago:

Possible mods or improvements to the La Pavoni base plate?

I saw that thread Bill. I am looking to reproduce the rubber base. I don't want to make it heavier or out of wood. Identical rubber base would be nice. One that is new would cling to the sides better to keep the water from going underneath. At the moment my choices is to silicone caulk it along the base to keep water out or remove it when I am done.

That 3d printing looks interesting. There is a plastics place nearby I could check out that might know more. I was hoping someone was a crazy as I am thinking in this day of injection molding, etc we could make some of these for not much trouble.

If you have a base it wouldn't be too hard to use it as a form for a plaster mold. Then you could use silicone caulk/corn starch casting medium to make it. You can put black acrylic paint into the silicone to color it, or you may be able to find black silicone caulk. Just be sure to use the acetoxy silicone (silicone 1 by GE is an example). The version that I've made ends up like a putty (something like Sugru), but i remember reading about a pourable recipe.

I will have a look, it is something I thought about a few months ago. The only issue will be the upfront tooling costs which will be quite high, plus also how to bluff a manufacturer into doing a small run!

If you think of something related to Europiccola maintenance, it means that Francesco already did it.
http://www.francescoceccarelli.eu/La_Pa ... ma_eng.htm
Is that what you mentioned at the beginning ?

Yes, I did look at this one, I was wondering how it would hold up? I think the two sided strip that runs around would be a pain to put on. Not ruling it out. I was watching Mike Rowe's Somebody's Gotta Do It episode on bobble heads got me thinking about it again as they made a bobble head mold out of silicone I think, did some vacuum on it and off they went.

Rubber I think would be expensive but maybe silicone could be doable.

Pourable silicone sounds like the best bet for a low number DIY, solution, yet you'll have to do some testing to find the most suitable hardness which might be somewhat of a lengthy process unless you can find someone with experience with the product and moulding.

But, did anyone ever contact la pavoni to see if they would be willing/able to supply something like replacement Bases at any point?

Paul_Pratt wrote:I will have a look, it is something I thought about a few months ago. The only issue will be the upfront tooling costs which will be quite high, plus also how to bluff a manufacturer into doing a small run!

It was about 4-5 k tooling cost for the molds here then not so bad on the base, but you'd have to have a market to sell 100-200 of them to break even I think.