ladalet wrote:Michael, just to clarify that I am not misunderstanding. The picture of the Cremina with the wood mods by Thor is actually a picture of your personal machine??? You are the Olympia owner that Thor just finished the work for referred to in Steve's thread??? If this is indeed so, what an amazing coincidence.

Lance,

Yes, that's my Cremina "pimped" with parts by Les of Thor Tampers.

Coincidence? How many forums do we lever folks have? How many places can we custom order our unique parts? I think the amazing part of the coincidence is in the timing. Me going 20 plus years and suddenly a few months ago deciding to customize; Les just finishing my tamper, handles, and knobs. Steve deciding to acquire and restore a Cremina, then deciding to accessorize in the same time frame. If we all met anyplace else - that would be an amazing coincidence.

ladalet wrote:If it is really your machine, could you please share how much the wood parts cost so the rest of us can start saving now?

Thanks in advance,
Lance

I'm going to defer to Les for pricing information. AFAIK there are so many variable factors involved - type of wood, intricacy of design, (whether his stash of greens needs replenishing ) that you should deal directly with him. I was very well treated and would be happy to do business with him in the future.



MichaelB

Remember that the design of an espresso machine, much like a car, reflects a certain worldview. Although The Rarity Factor is understood, to me this would be like attaching spinners to a 57 Corvette.

Not to say using custom wood handles is wrong, I would have opted for something more muted when using such an introverted machine.

and if you're going to custom turn some wooden handles, why not give them a classic shape:



The bubble style handles are common from the glory days of levers, and shortly after. You find them on vintage Faemas, etc...

OR

because of the geometrical nature of the cremina, a geometrical shape, such as slightly rounded square, or octogonal. at least from the design side of things, it would be more harmonious.


</rant>

Jimmy, I have a horrible case of jetlag, having just gotten into Bangalore, so I will try and be polite with my response.

I am going to build this machine the way that I want to build it. This is always an active discussion in car clubs as the debate begins around keeping a car stock or modifying it and I think I have grown to find the simple answer is it should be whatever the guy paying the bills wants it to be.

In this machine's case, I saved it from the junkyard...this was no museum piece that I tore apart.....in doing so I want to highlight not only the craftsmanship of the original manufacturer but also the work of some very small American craftsmen that have real passion about what they do. Also if I was going to spend hours on this machine, I wanted one that would be unique with me, have a few stories around it.

In looking at the Cremina, I wanted to shoot for a look that made it come across as an elegant, expensive machine. The black gloss was chosen to reflect the image of grand pianos, Japanese laquerware, Vertu phones. The chrome and steel work was obvious, but I toyed with going with a brushed look for that.

With regards to the wood handles, I feel that I am tipping my hat to the classics. Pavoni offered wooden handles for years and still does. All of the Elektra's from the 80 offered wood handle options and I really started going in this direction with the burled bakelite on the A3 that we tested. I am not a big fan of bakelite. I am on my 4th handle on the pavoni and they just don't stand up to the heat and the stress that these non spring machines require. I was also motivated by what other designers had done with using wood with high tech work. Look at a new Carerra GT from Porsche and tell me what the shift knob is make out of? Most high end stereo equipment still offer wooden side panels, and my favorite speaker manufacturer, Meadowlark Audio will build one of the best US made product today in a wide range of exotic woods. I have also tried those knobby handles and they just don't work for the way I pull. I push hard down...with the palm of my hand, not down with my fingers.

So keeping in the purist view that you have I assume that you are still using the plastic tampers that came with both of your machines....wait, let me check your website...no you have upgraded to a Reg....and what is this...Maplewood handle? The design purists must be turning over in their grave. (Sorry about that last line, meant as a joke).

espressobsessed wrote:Not to say using custom wood handles is wrong, I would have opted for something more muted when using such an introverted machine.

Introverted? Not a thought that comes to my mind when looking at a Cremina. Perhaps formal, boxy, classy, square, and many others? But what is your rationale for calling it introverted?



MichaelB

MichaelB, thanks for joining the thread and your post just lead me to believe in the theory of 6 degrees of separation really hold true. When I started chatting with Les, all I had seen was the work that he had done on Elektras and was quite surprised when he passed along some Olympia shots back to me. Please share some more photos and it looks like we'll expand our Olympia ownership club here quite a bit.

You have a great looking machine and it seems you and I think alike on wanting to do a bit of personalization of these babies. If you have not picked up a LMWDP number please put a blurb under rollcall and grant yourself a number.

"Introverted" in design language is from the earliest modern designer, Adolf Loos, who wrote a lot of influential ideas in the early 20th century. Word choice for introversion: it's an inward design, which places values not on frills, but on material heft, craftsmanship, etc. It's not a design that is going to please the williams-sonoma crowd, which is sorta why I like it. Its very austerity gives me a sense that Mies van der Rohe might have approved.

Actually, Steve, being a purist, and a follower of Luigi, I don't tamp at all.

grins

CAUTION: Sunglasses may be needed for viewing the following pictures in this post.

Well I am finally back in the states and ready to get this thread going again. I feel that there is nothing that cures jet lag better than a box of parts waiting for you when you get back. Steve at Metro Plating in Maryland had exchanged a few emails with me while I was gone and last weekend he let me know that he was finishing up my chroming and stainless steel polishing.


Now you saw some of the pics that I did after my own polishing and I tried to pick a couple shots to minimize the scratches, so I was about to relegate myself to a machine that would look better but not quite like a full restoration. Fortunately Steve asked me to get all the bright work up to him and he promised not to return it until it was perfect. I think this is one post where the pics do speak more than my commentary. So with a quick mock-up of the machine...here is what I got back from him:



Detail shot




And one more glamour shot:




Now to see if I can get it put back together without screwing up this great work.

Just a friendly reminder that the next couple posts are for entertainment and personal interest. These steps are not a replacement for professional service on these machines.

Well enough shiny shots. Time to start putting the Olympia back together. I am still waiting for a few pieces from the factory and Les is still working on my handles so, it's time to jump into the putting new gaskets on the boiler.

Now from my early shots, this machine came to me with a real hack job of a main boiler seal. This is the first one that I wanted to replace so that I could get the home-job off my workbench.



Very straightforward positioning and then the tightening of all the allen bolts and the main seal looks like a factory job again.



With the bottom gasket in place, it was time to clean up the water level tube and get its new gaskets in place. Now being 22 years old the glass had quite a bit of gunk in it. So I had to fabricate an Olympia custom sight-glass cleaning tool that I will start to resell to all the Olympia owners here on the forum. Now while it may look like two Q-Tips taped together, let me assure you that it is made of the virgin down of Swiss mountain goats fused to a cardboard shaft made from the recycled statements of Swiss bank accounts during the .com boom and held together with Rolex binding tape. (Now with that description I should get $200 a pop for them to help me pay for these parts....)



With site glass now clean, time to mount it. It is pretty interesting to see how you hold a glass tube in place so that it not only is water tight, but also can hold up to pressure. The system is made up of these larger green gaskets with a flat brass washer on top. The sight glass is then inserted and a brass retaining ring is then screwed in both at the top and the bottom which applies pressure to the brass washer, thus forcing the green gasket to form a seal for the tube with no metal to glass contact.



Now at the top boiler sight glass mount is where the pressure safety release valve goes. Now if you take one of these apart, please remind yourself to keep all the parts together...in the right order...you want it to work if you need it.



Now in this set of parts there is one tiny clear urethane plug to replace



And then you can put the valve back together. You want to make sure that when this is under higher pressure that the plug can rise up on the spring and allow the steam to blow through the holes in the valve. I will be rigging up a pressure gauge to this to make sure I have it dialed in correctly since you can manually adjust the spring pressure. With one additional brass washer it goes right on top.



Now the last two connections to get the boiler complete are to connect the boiler to he steam wand:



And finally connect the pressure regulator off the sight glass mount. For both of these steps this is simply connecting pressure fittings. I decided not to use Teflon tape since the quality of these connections are so high., but I may go back after I fire it up if there are leaks.



So that is stage one on getting it back together. Next step will be the group head rebuild.