for sale

1973 gaggia orione, fully restored

reasonable offers will be entertained

the first shot

i didn't plumb in the machine. i just remove the safety valve on top of the boiler and fill it with bottled water. that will suffice until the machine finds a permanent place.

now it's grinding, filling, grooming, tamping and slamming the portafilter back on the grouphead. then the strong pull on the lever all the way down till the catch latches in. preinfusion for 5-7 seconds, then releasing the lever. watching it going up and observing the sweet stream of delicious coffee coming out of the portafilter for the next 25 seconds.

solid, mon!!!!

pressure

i needed a tamper and couldn't get any here in t

town. so whipped one out on the lathe. i also fired the machine up before the final installation of the bodywork to check on leaks. pressure rising to 1.2 bars, adjustment of the pressurestat followed later. one small dripping at the lower sightglass fitting. carefully tightened the nut, leak became history. otherwise all is nice and dandy!

costomizing and cleaning

the portafilter got a new handle out of walnut which i turned on my lathe where also the portafilter got some machining done. yeah, open it up, man!! you can have the nicest, the best, the most expensive machine in the world, but ... without a very good grinder it's pretty much worthless. actually the grinder is more of value to get a good espresso than the machine itself. super nice shannon of farm:table is so gracious and is lending me their backup grinder. to make up for that i took the mazzer super jolly apart, cleaned it, greased it and adjusted it. it's like new again...

almost there!

the grouphead is back! sergio kept his promise! 8 day turnaround time, wow! it's fairly heavy as you can see. now the reassembly is almost done. the bodywork received a precise fitting. it's really like installing hood and fenders on a car. consistent gap line and so on. it's loosening bolts here, tightening there, wiggling that part, pushing that panel... it takes some time. and don't scratch the fresh paint!

taking shape

reassembling with ss fasteners. wiring with heat resistant wire with a new switch schematic. it's off; off; 750W; 1300W; 2050W.

it's wired for 120V, so the maximum load is 17 amps. one could easily modify it to 240V by wiring the heating elements in line instead of parallel. of course there'd be only off/2050W.

pressurestat got a new ss bracket, before it just hang on the copper tubing (?) .

from espresso parts i got new knobs. unfortunately the quality is just not the same as on the old ones.

for the refill valve i reworked a regular valve knob so the bottom panel is symmetrical (not on this photo yet). originaly it had only a plastic disc. the left valve is refill, the right one the hot water spout.

fast progress...

the boiler is complete, the valves too. all the plumbing descaled, cleaned, polished and clearcoated.

now the grouphead... well, no progress on that front. the espresso machine repair shop here in sf is superbusy, works solely on conventional pump machines (who has a lever here in town anyway besides Blue Bottle?) and doesn't have any clue regarding lever machines. no problem if they would let you know right away...

anyway, doing some more research i found a company down in so-cal which was the distributor and customizer of gaggias in the 70's and 80's. they marketed as ABC back then. the company is still in business. and so is their repair shop. i talked with sergio whose response was 'no problem. send in the grouphead and you'll have it back in a week'. what??? seriously?