Rancilio S26 width reduction
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Port Hope-Rod
- Posts: 2
- Joined: 1 year ago
I've had this S26 for about 35 years now. I bought it from a defunct restaurant that had purchased it from Hamid Morales at Morales Trading in Ottawa. He has serviced as needed and nothin serious has ever gone wrong with it.
We moved and the new coffee area is too small for the S26. Its just too bulky. So I decided to take 4" out of the middle of it.
I basically cut it open with a zip saw and carefully cut the four inches out of all the frame and stainless bits. Obviously I had to rearrange all the parts inside but since the boiler connects to the brew head, I just had to make sure that the brew head was aligned as before but without so much real estate on either side of it. The water and steam valves remained unchanged as did the pressure gauge and the two little lights on the dash board. It got all new wires. None of the copper lines fitted anymore and I couldn't re-bend them to fit the new configuration so I replaced them all with 1/2" braided high pressure lines from McMaster Carr. Connecting those to the metric boiler fittings meant having a transition piece (1/2 UNF 20 on one end and the metric female on the other. Kupke Metal Works in Cobourg made six of them for me. The black box that has the spring loaded pressure switch in it could not be accommodated within the frame of the machine, so it sits outside at the back of the stainless cup heating tray. There is a bit of a bump out at the back where something sticks out a but but its all pretty civilized looking. Sides and other plastic trim pieces all go back on as before because I didn't modify anything but 4" down the middle. The finished machine is now pretty close to 19 1/2 high by 19 1/2 deep but only 11" wide.
QUESTIONS: has anyone ever done this before? Does anyone know anything about connecting an after market PID to an S26? Does anyone have any other advice about raising the brew temp. The boiler was descaled by Morales Trading just before I took on this project so that isn't the problem My brew water is about 165F and should be about 190 or95 I think.
We moved and the new coffee area is too small for the S26. Its just too bulky. So I decided to take 4" out of the middle of it.
I basically cut it open with a zip saw and carefully cut the four inches out of all the frame and stainless bits. Obviously I had to rearrange all the parts inside but since the boiler connects to the brew head, I just had to make sure that the brew head was aligned as before but without so much real estate on either side of it. The water and steam valves remained unchanged as did the pressure gauge and the two little lights on the dash board. It got all new wires. None of the copper lines fitted anymore and I couldn't re-bend them to fit the new configuration so I replaced them all with 1/2" braided high pressure lines from McMaster Carr. Connecting those to the metric boiler fittings meant having a transition piece (1/2 UNF 20 on one end and the metric female on the other. Kupke Metal Works in Cobourg made six of them for me. The black box that has the spring loaded pressure switch in it could not be accommodated within the frame of the machine, so it sits outside at the back of the stainless cup heating tray. There is a bit of a bump out at the back where something sticks out a but but its all pretty civilized looking. Sides and other plastic trim pieces all go back on as before because I didn't modify anything but 4" down the middle. The finished machine is now pretty close to 19 1/2 high by 19 1/2 deep but only 11" wide.
QUESTIONS: has anyone ever done this before? Does anyone know anything about connecting an after market PID to an S26? Does anyone have any other advice about raising the brew temp. The boiler was descaled by Morales Trading just before I took on this project so that isn't the problem My brew water is about 165F and should be about 190 or95 I think.
