Thank you Paul for posting it here, too

This is the only design I know of with the group being attached to the boiler lid!
That must put some serious stress on the soiler lid studs... I wonder, if this results in problems...

I also wonder, if the Eterna group was something a previous owner exchanged a while ago - I've seen this machine before with a different, older conti group:

leozava wrote:That group looks very similar to the one on my eterna

Well spotted.

Sansibar99 wrote:I also wonder, if the Eterna group was something a previous owner exchanged a while ago - I've seen this machine before with a different, older conti group

The results of my investigation will be revealed in due course.

A few more photos.









It's a mess. When I took it apart there was every indication that it was an original machine that had not been worked on in 60 years. The boiler plate took some time to remove, the group came off fairly easily.

Unfortunately I do not have any original condition photos of the boiler plate side that faces into the boiler but those 4 group studs, and the 4 bolts that are plugging the heating element holes were all a disaster. The group studs were in fact just steel bolts, the head of the bolts were inside the boiler and lead solder was used to seal them against the boiler plate. They were of course all rusty and all had to be drilled out.

The frame that holds the boiler to the main base was partially rusted away and required rebuilding. Here is the frame part and the boiler plate after the holes had been drilled out and it had all been sandblasted.



New section being fitted up.

I never passed on this machine Paul, if the mentioned Pascal is me

Holy crap, Paul, is that going to be a VA Supervat dejavu?

Your skillset and toolpark are like magic

zeb wrote:I never passed on this machine Paul, if the mentioned Pascal is me

I thought you said you did because it came from......and you know they are always bad!

The bottom section of the machine is stainless steel and full of dents. Here it is after I removed all the scratches and dents and before final polishing.



And here is the boiler mounting bracket that was repaired with new metal and powder coated.



The boiler was a complete mess, all the bolts were drilled and then repaired with helicoils.



I cut a new gasket from teflon, new studs for the group were brazed into the boiler plate, the sight glass surround was powder coated, new custom sight glass tube was made, new heating elements etc.. The elements are just standard 1/4 bsp sized mounts, these new ones are from a La Marzocco machine. The previous wisdom about Conti heating elements has been to use La Spaziale group heaters, unfortunately I ordered them over a month ago and Ascaso are still messing around. So I used these instead.



And that brings the machine up to date.



The lower frame was polished and I made some new aluminium feet.



I dropped the chrome off a few days ago, but the main body will be chromed by a different company as I need more time to repair it.

Beautiful work, Paul! Thanks for the updates.

Paul,
Your workmanship is superb. Will be following this to its' conclusion.