The Little Lambro is 99.9% complete. and been pulling shots for several weeks now.

The badge has been custom made from a photo of a mate's machine. Nice job the guy did.

Just a few before pics. The last one is the lever arm which was badly corroded.

great work Paul. Now I have to really get cracking! Did you paint the panels yourself? Are they still crackle finish? Where are you going to mount the power switch?

questions, questions . . .

ooph . . . wow

What did you end up doing to control the boiler pressure? Is it still completely manual?

Henry

Paul there is no on/off switch. Does yours have one? I was tempted but couldn't find a nice hidey place for it. The side panels are some crappy metal that wouldn't chrome or anodise. The plater guy sent me packing so I had to hammerite it. Looks really great and although the blue is a tad lighter than it was originally the crackle is spot-on.

Henry, I slapped in a CEME pressure switch. There was a spare fitting on the boiler from which to tee off from so I made a pipe. This time I purchased some proper ferrules (available from Nuova Ricambi) and brazed them onto the end of the pipes and made a really neat and tidy job.

There is also a proper safety valve on there as well and a safety thermostat.

I'm quite proud of the fact I squeezed a vacuum breaker in there as well. The machine has no autofill so I was a bit worried about leaving him on overnight in my office and that meant switching on everyday and then going back to release the false pressure. After a few days that became annoying so I managed to incorporate the VB into the tee fitting i used for the CEME switch. Rather nifty if I say so myself

I haven't had a chance to tidy up so there is the odd goop of liquid sealant around, go easy on me for that.

I've still got all the original parts (in case of selling it on) so if some die-hard purist wanted to blow themselves up I could easily whip out the the pressure switch and the safety valve.

IMAGINE ME BOWING DOWN REPEATEDLY.... beautiful job. Nicely done. Don't you just love the Hammerite paint? It sure looks great and the texture makes it so easy to do what looks like a perfect job. Any mistakes just fade away.

Great weekend

Stunning

Great job! I really like to see a machine where the parts 'under the hood' are in equal or better condition then the outside. You should be proud.
Can you answer some questions re the safety thermostat? That's a device these older commercial machines seem to be missing, and I'd like to add one to my Gaggia. I assume that's the white thing on top of the boiler. What temperature is it set at, and how's it fastened to the boiler?
Once more, you did a fine job with the rebuild.

I think the secret when using hammerite is the ambient air temp. Here in HK it's usually >25 deg c and the paint oozes on nicely and it settles very well. If it's a bit cold I will heat up the metal first with a blowtorch.

The safety reset thermostats are your last line of defence and I'd never use a machine without one. These are just off the shelf parts and they are set to pop around 135 deg c. You can buy ones with slightly different temps 125, 130 etc..and they have two fixing tabs. It's easy you just use some stainless steel wire and loop it around the boiler and thread it through the tabs to hold it in place.

I'll post some pics of the shots (it makes really great shots) next week.

Paul,
Thanks! I see the s.s. wire now. I assume yours is a manual reset? Is that what the red button is for? I'm going to order one Monday.
Mo, Grace would probably like one for Christmas, too.
Bill