ronan08

I'm in Dublin in a few weeks if your willing to travel I'll pay for your petrol😊

bottomless portafilter time 😀

@allikat thanks for advice the mdf is well a bit troublesome so the dosing lever has snapped and I dont fancy paying for a new piece so I've removed the spring mechanism and spin in by hand really not that pleasant but on the upside the grind is consistently good It will be something I'll be looking to upgrade in future (not much left in my pocket at the moment) I'm not a huge fan of the doser to be honest

Update Mr Shades PID installed 100% recommend (Don't even know how I made good coffee without it) the outside is nearly there and the PID is almost set up, so I think that's the project finished for a while (after I get bolts) love to know hear any advice on PID settings currently in auto also is it ok after steaming to turn on pump to lower temp? thanks!

Update: What a nightmare, so my seals steam wand etc came and i started tearing it down all went petty ok I got wires off boiler out all going well. I split open the boiler some build up (as expected) took off solenoid pretty decent shape to be fair. So I put the upper half aside soaking in some descaler and moved on to the lower half (this is where the fun began) Got the shower plate removed easily thanks to yesterdays work and began trying to free the shower plate holder and try and try and try. So brought it down shed into the vice (protected by wood) and managed to get one bolt out (pulled a muscle in my hand while doing so), moved onto the next and after an hour stripped the threads (using pretty decent tools). Onto drilling it out so I would drill down a bit and then try tapping it out done this many times until it was obvious and clear the bolt head was gone, so i started rely beating on it and nothing. I went inside had a think and said duck it whats the worst that can happen, got the blow torch and went to town heating that little sucker up. About 10 mins later and one final blow the battle was one and the state of the group head was revealed (like just honestly how?). So got it back together, without that one bolt, and works better but i think thermostats are bad but MrShades should fix that so Monday hopefully nice little parcel will arrive 😀

thanks for your advice had seen that deal but decided on another one (on blue star coffee) which included a full set of seals I'll defiantly look into those bolts though

Ya I cant wait to see the boiler

😂 If only you could smell it

So I finally bought a Classic along with and MDF and base for 150 euro. The machine is one owner who bought it new in 2006 and this poor thing has never had a service (at least not in a long time ).It came in the post today and along with the original milk jug is had the bloody manual from 2006. I plan to fully descale it and replace all the seals along with some upgrades Mr Shades PID, brass shower plate holder, bottomless portafilter and rancilio steam wand. I started today by removing shower plate (just about) and well lets say no more coffee grinds could fit in that space, I also took a quick peek inside and all seems untouched (see photos) So I look forward to more fun messing with it and would love some thoughts and ideas.

🤣omg love this already

Oh ok I'll get onto those rules

so sorry please point out my mistake

🤣😄

I was searching for a bottomless portafilter for a barista express and stumbled across the forum

lurked for like 5 mins before joining😊