Hey Dominick, it's all stainless steel on mine.

dominico wrote:Pascal did you do the chrome plating on Vlad's Lambro?

Paul_Pratt wrote:Yes probably not the shop's fault but the manufacturer has used the wrong element, it is all too common I'm afraid.

Thanks for confirming what I thought. However, Ira is right - I got the 2500W that I ordered plus a spare element for free.

These oldschool levers are amazing. How do they perform in terms of espresso, caps, etc against modern espresso machines? I'm thinking of the Strega or a la marzocco.

It's probably not on me to answer as mine is still in pieces... ...and to give an update - the pieces are now with Pascal in Marseille for rechroming. I'll pick up the thread when I have all those shiny bits back, hopefully around October.

It's been a long time - I finally picked up the parts from Marseille this week. Seeing all these parts shiny as new is just amazing.
Thanks Pascal for a great job.

leverista wrote:It's been a long time - I finally picked up the parts from Marseille this week. Seeing all these parts shiny as new is just amazing.
Thanks Pascal for a great job.

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Oh wow, those came out gorgeous!

leverista wrote: Thanks Pascal for a great job.

Your pleasure is my pleasure Til, it was nice to meet you

Very nice, gives me something to strive for with my Urania project. Still on the fence about what to chrome and what to leave as is, starting a non-machine specific thread to get some feedback.

Here's that thread.

I struggled a bit mounting the springs in the group, here's what I learned:

First tried compressing the spring and locking it with cable binders which has worked well on my Conti. The spring of the Faema is much stronger and would rip apart even large binders, so decided this wasn't safe.

Next, I tried with a modified C-clamp.




The spring has quite some force and there was no way to get the required stability to screw the piston on the rod. As the piston comes out to the side the spring snaps back. This may work for a spring with less force but didn't feel safe either.

What finally worked was a threaded bolt with two wooden disks to compress, then locking it with tension belts.

Warning: I cannot guarantee this is safe, do not rely on my post and take your own precautions.

As per my calculation, the spring should have a maximum 160KG of force (based on a max of 8bar and 50mm piston diameter).
Each belt can stand 500kg but there is models with up to 2000kg.





Didn't mount and test the group yet, hope I don't have to take it apart again...