Can I play?

Started my coffee journey only few years ago. Took a few classes in Australia along the way. Not much interesting to say but I am now using a Decent. One day I saw a restored Conti lever on ebay and made my way here to see many restoration threads, so I told myself I would like to do one too. One thing led to another and now I am building one from scratch, only keeping the groups, boiler and heating element...

Conti PMS Evolution Restoration

Wow!

Where do I start. My coffee journey started when I bought a entry level espresso machine for my parents (which they quickly upgraded, winning) while I was living at home. After learning the ropes at home I was professionally trained as a barista for a surprisingly good service station cafe (which didn't work out for other reasons but I enjoyed making coffee there while it lasted).
When I moved out I bought a second hand entry level machine but as a poor student I could only afford inferior beans which led me to cold brew. I developed a love of cold brew even after uni all the way to getting a N2 keg.
My wife however reignited the espresso beast. Prior to this she would tolerate cold brew with milk heated in a Breville frother but I was also sent on many errands to get "decent coffee".
When my wife suggest we get an espresso machine I set about researching the best bang for our miniscule buck. I immediately wanted the Flair but I don't think that would ever fly. She got the Breville Duo Temp Pro. After a few months of getting hit and miss decent espresso I eventually got the Flair Signature Pro 2 for myself. After months of longing when I did order it ended up on back order but it has finally arrived.
I can say the quality of my shots has improved dramatically.

When I was a child my mother let me drink coffee with her. Nobody else in the family liked it, but I did. Of course as a child I liked it with cream and sugar. Later when I moved away I went and got my own coffee gear of course. At some point I got into the idea of espresso and picked up a small steam machine. Not knowing that I was going about making coffee all wrong I continued on for years, occasionally upgrading but never being completely satisfied.

Even later, after a divorce I was forced to get new gear. But I was still unsatisfied with my results, so I started doing some real research for once. As luck would have it I found a couple of websites where many of my questions were answered and my eyes were opened to new possibilities. So I learned how to make coffee all over again. Found he right equipment, purchased fresh beans, and ground them with care. I practiced until I was satisfied and enjoyed what I brewed.

Then one day I saw the little old steam machine sitting forlornly on a shelf. Suddenly I found myself researching again. This time I was out to conquer espresso; plain coffee was no longer enough. While I was interested in the lever machines, due to a number of reasons I ended up with a Bezzera BZ-07 and a used Super Jolly. That was in 2011 and while I have tweaked the BZ and fiddled with the SJ I was never quite satisfied. Somewhere in the back of my head the desire for a lever still lingered. So for the last year or so I have been looking at levers. Reading about what people like about one or another. Then finally coming to the point where I had to just go ahead and pull the trigger. Today I took my new lever out of it's box, and set it next to the old one on the new counter required by the bigger machine. Hopefully this one will keep me happy for the next few years and the bug doesn't bite again too soon...lol

I'm an old hand in the world of espresso, having started long ago with consumer Krups and Braun pump & steam toy machines, and working my way up to Silvia & Rocky, through a Salvatore HX, through Duetto II DB, and eventually going full automatic with a Cimbali M21 when I found a barely used one at a great price. But hearing about the virtues of lever espresso have always appealed to me. Still, I had my fears and hesitations about the knowledge required and challenges levers could present, plus that fear of "what if I screw up" and the safety implications for either myself or my cups, and decided to always stick with the tried & true standards of pumps. After year after year with difficult or frustrating to access repairs on the Duetto, every year, it would break down, and I'd get the itch for a simpler machine. I'd eye the levers that seemed so mechanically simple, and then get discouraged by their sheer size and weight, let alone the worries about the force of the lever itself, the countertops, and fear over if I'd get burned out on using the heavy-force-required machines and go back to repairing my Duetto for anther year of crossed fingers and the comfort of a pump.

This time, the failure was just difficult enough to get to with just senseless enough design of aspects of the machine, that I finally was able to convince myself to go with simplicity and do the lever. After an agonizing 6 months or so of choosing a machine, I finally went with the Quick Mill Achille. I'm only a few days into having it up and running now, but so far I'm impressed on an overwhelming scale. The thing is HUGE, but it's a joy to use, and I don't think the lever will ever get tiresome to pull. And most of all, the coffee is phenomenal! It makes me wonder why I messed with pumps for so long. I still love the Cimbali for it's own reasons but it's truly hard to go back once you've had a taste of lever espresso! Upgrade-itis is now done for me, and this machine shall be running for as long as replacement parts can be had!

Alright well, I guess I'd want to join the LMWDP.

I'm hooked. I always wanted to try out a spring lever and managed to pick up an 1971 Elektra MCAL for a really really good price. Bought all the parts for it and a pretty brass bottomless PF and intitally I just wanted to flip it and make a profit but I recently just put in a new pressure stat and mechanically it's running perfectly. I dialed in a NP Panama Elida and wow I was blown away. So gentle, fruity, clear, yummy. This is now my go-to machine for some S.O. espresso.

It had to happen eventually:


An HB member who is moving soon, and looking to simplify the move, offered me among other things (story to eventually appear on my website), a good price on this LP Europiccola from 1973 according to the heating element stamp as well as the serial number on the group. It is hard to see the plug, but it is a 220 model. No worries, the step-up transformer will be in the mail shortly.

The machine was purchased a number of years ago by the seller from Francesco Ceccarelli who had restored it. Since then it has seen nearly no use.

Randy G. wrote:It had to happen eventually:

This is remarkable! Looking forward to hearing how you like it once you've mastered it. Cheers!!

Congratulations, Randy! That's a wonderful, classic Europiccola.

Last week, I brought home a La Pavoni Europiccola. It had been sitting for 10-15 years without use. While I had never attempted a shot with a lever machine before, and it took me a while to figure out the grind, it worked admirably as a backup while I was repairing my e61.

The date on the base is 12/98. It leaks a little from the grouphead, and I'm sure the machine could use a good recondition. There's a little bit of rust that I can see on the base. But overall, it doesn't seem too bad yet. I'm looking forward to the project, and I'll be sure to use all of the resources here as I go!