Author Topic: Show Off your Espresso Machine  (Read 63868 times)

Roasting Realtor

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #45 on: October 02, 2007, 07:38:23 PM »
Yes, wide angle lens. Can you say supercalifagilisticexpealidocious?

Spelled it wrong. 

Posted by Jeffo, on peter's computer.


Not to hijack the thread, but I believe it's high time some GCBC merchandise came out.

We had a logo contest and Hananonn won.  Are we going to put it to use?  Hananonn, are you going to make us license your logo for use on coffee mugs and t-shirts?

Offline irunbird

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #46 on: October 03, 2007, 08:43:04 AM »
Now don't laugh, but I couldn't take the stock look of most e61 machines and had this beast electro-plated with copper and gold (gold didn't cost that much more than brass, and it's very temp stable/food safe)... The old chrome just clashed with the brick wall.  The Kony is next!

How did you do this? Did you buy it this way or did you electroplate everything?

Joe

Hey, Joe- yes, I took it completely apart and had all of the cabinet, group, hardware, nuts/bolts all electroplated.  There is a company in Tucson that mostly does antique car parts (a bunch of old farts like to chrome plate nearly everything under the hood), and they offer plating in copper, brass, gold and chrome.  The hard part was figuring out a way to clear coat the copper, since I wanted the mirror-finished version (copper is very reactive- even if you place a copper sheet outside and put your hand between it and the sun, you'll get a permanent shadow after just a few minutes).  Eventually the powder coater (different guy than the electroplating co.) had to bake it in the oven at just a little over 120 deg F.  After 3 tries baking at more extreme temps (first was something like 400 deg F) he settled on that 120, buffing out the rainbow hues after each attempt... rather frustrating, and he eventually decided to not charge me.  It's turned out well, and rather bomb-proof- no scratches anywhere other than a few on the drip tray, and it's been almost 3 yrs.  The gold plating done to the group and hardware sticking out of the front of the machine turned out just awesome, and no clear-coating was required as it's temp-stable and food-safe.

Offline Joe

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #47 on: October 03, 2007, 08:52:12 AM »
Now don't laugh, but I couldn't take the stock look of most e61 machines and had this beast electro-plated with copper and gold (gold didn't cost that much more than brass, and it's very temp stable/food safe)... The old chrome just clashed with the brick wall.  The Kony is next!

How did you do this? Did you buy it this way or did you electroplate everything?

Joe

Hey, Joe- yes, I took it completely apart and had all of the cabinet, group, hardware, nuts/bolts all electroplated.  There is a company in Tucson that mostly does antique car parts (a bunch of old farts like to chrome plate nearly everything under the hood), and they offer plating in copper, brass, gold and chrome.  The hard part was figuring out a way to clear coat the copper, since I wanted the mirror-finished version (copper is very reactive- even if you place a copper sheet outside and put your hand between it and the sun, you'll get a permanent shadow after just a few minutes).  Eventually the powder coater (different guy than the electroplating co.) had to bake it in the oven at just a little over 120 deg F.  After 3 tries baking at more extreme temps (first was something like 400 deg F) he settled on that 120, buffing out the rainbow hues after each attempt... rather frustrating, and he eventually decided to not charge me.  It's turned out well, and rather bomb-proof- no scratches anywhere other than a few on the drip tray, and it's been almost 3 yrs.  The gold plating done to the group and hardware sticking out of the front of the machine turned out just awesome, and no clear-coating was required as it's temp-stable and food-safe.

How much did that cost?
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Offline Chris

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #48 on: October 03, 2007, 08:58:24 AM »
No offense, but that gold/copper thing is waaaaayyyyyy gaudy for me.   :o

But it is the few weirdos out there that makes up the spice of life.  ::)

Offline Joe

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #49 on: October 03, 2007, 09:02:33 AM »
No offense, but that gold/copper thing is waaaaayyyyyy gaudy for me.   :o

But it is the few weirdos out there that makes up the spice of life.  ::)

I'm spicy like Salsa.
 :P
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zapty

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #50 on: October 03, 2007, 09:33:04 AM »
Here's a link to some of my stuff:

http://picasaweb.google.com/raver171/NewAlbum6907921


I'm drooling over your Probat 3 barrel sample roaster!!!


The Probat is great, finished getting it back in shape not too long ago, picked it up for less then the price of a GeneCafe and spent maybe about USD 600,- in total (Probat plus parts needed) getting it going.

zapty

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #51 on: October 03, 2007, 09:38:59 AM »
Here's a link to some of my stuff:

http://picasaweb.google.com/raver171/NewAlbum6907921




Where are you at?

That is quite a bit of coffee and roasting equipment - is it all for personal use?  ???


I'm way over in The Netherlands...and yes, it is all for personal use, with more on the way soon (Blue Batak for instance)
If any of you guys ever make it over to the Europe or Amsterdam, come and visit us and stay a couple days....and we'll do a few roasts

Offline irunbird

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #52 on: October 03, 2007, 12:31:30 PM »
How much did that cost?

600 smackeroos... and in defense of my "gaudiness"- when I got the machine, my wife wanted me to stow it below the counter between uses.. could you imagine hefting 70 lbs of machine each time you wanted to make some brew??  all I had to do was make it "pretty" so it could live in front of that brick wall.. she likes it, so I'm happy.  $600 bucks wasn't all that much, but the wait nearly killed me!
« Last Edit: October 03, 2007, 04:20:10 PM by irunbird »

dan

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #53 on: October 06, 2007, 08:56:55 AM »
I'd like to put my bid in for both the 'Ugliest' and 'Screwballiest' categories. My grinder is a Ditting I got from craigslist and cleaned up. I have to use the WDT for all my shots. My machine is an Astoria lever I also craigslisted and cleaned up. I made a PIC microcontroller to read a pressure transducer and control the heating element. I originally had it using a PID algorithm then scrapped that for pure fuzzy logic. In my typical half-assed but functional manner I have it just hanging on the side from some magnets. Hey, all that soldering made me too tired to put it in a nice little project box! On the left you can see the dump bucket I feed a tube to from the drip tray. Thankfully my dog hasn't aquired a taste for sink shots. I also mounted some LED's you can see in the 2nd picture. The Astoria has that huge overhang and it was near impossible to see the shots, so I bought some LED's and threw together a couple parts from an old computer's power supply for that.

Now I can be the "at least I'm not that guy" guy when you think you've gone over the edge.

dan

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #54 on: October 06, 2007, 09:01:46 AM »
Oh, and as a sad postscript to all of that I should add that I'm way more into drip coffee than espresso. I probably use each of my french press, vacuum pot, and aeropress more than my espresso machine.  :-\

Offline Chris

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #55 on: October 06, 2007, 09:47:03 AM »
Here are some questions:

1. How hard/easy is it to get a good shot, and how do they taste?
2. What was your total cost?

dan

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #56 on: October 06, 2007, 09:56:35 AM »
Here are some questions:

1. How hard/easy is it to get a good shot, and how do they taste?
2. What was your total cost?

Haha, Joe just asked me nearly the same questions in a pm.

1. Shots for me are much easier on this than on a pump machine. I have my first shot of the day right after I walk my dog, so before we walk I run a little water through the group. When I get back it's up to temp and I don't really have to think about temp. I think the preinfusion and gentler pressure profile are more forgiving of my distribution skills so that's mostly why I prefer this lever to the pump machines I've used. I think I'm used to the machine enough that the taste is more dependent on how badly I screwed up the roast - basically I feel comfortable that the machine is out of the equation so I can focus on other aspects of getting good coffee.

2. Adding in replacement parts and all I think I got it all for under $1k. I only buy stuff off cl if it's a slam dunk bargain and the machines both were.

Offline irunbird

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #57 on: October 06, 2007, 10:33:47 AM »
Now I can be the "at least I'm not that guy" guy when you think you've gone over the edge.

Dan- thanks for taking the heat off of me!
Awesome work- If I had half the electronic know-how of most coffeegeeks, I wouldn't have had to spring for the Brewtus... I'm fairly skilled at taking mechanical things apart, but I'd rather leave the soldering, pid'g, etc.. to others. :-[

Ray

dan

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #58 on: October 06, 2007, 02:14:50 PM »
Now I can be the "at least I'm not that guy" guy when you think you've gone over the edge.

Dan- thanks for taking the heat off of me!
Awesome work- If I had half the electronic know-how of most coffeegeeks, I wouldn't have had to spring for the Brewtus... I'm fairly skilled at taking mechanical things apart, but I'd rather leave the soldering, pid'g, etc.. to others. :-[

Ray

Thanks Ray, I think we'll both remain "that guy" since our respective deep ends we went off are probably at different pools. I actually didn't know much about electronics going into the project - just tried to pick it up as I went along. Now that I've got the basics figured out it's more tedious than anything.

Hananonn

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Re: Show Off your espresso Machine Here.
« Reply #59 on: October 08, 2007, 07:42:44 PM »
Yes, wide angle lens. Can you say supercalifagilisticexpealidocious?

Spelled it wrong. 

Posted by Jeffo, on peter's computer.


Not to hijack the thread, but I believe it's high time some GCBC merchandise came out.

We had a logo contest and Hananonn won.  Are we going to put it to use?  Hananonn, are you going to make us license your logo for use on coffee mugs and t-shirts?
Oh,
 finally someone is asking the right questions?..there was a contest.
 There is a beaner  winner. There is no logo posted.  It?s ok.
I did not want to bug the whoever was to post it on ?I hoped it will come from someone else.
However,  although  we had fun  doing it, spending so much time and effort  got to have some  material results. Aka being posted.
Its up to papa Chris.
For a life time membership guaranteed I will let the club have full licensing- Am I nice or what?
Actually It was part of the contest rules: the club can assume full ownership of that logo.

 :'(