dabbler
17th November 2012, 04:55 PM
It's been a year for "firsts" for me, probably because I got off my butt and explored a bit.
Over the last year I've done a few of these for a number of machine types and in varying designs but this one is different because I got paid to do it (yay). Friends and rellies own much of the stuff I produced and usually it's bowl, platters, lidded boxes and more recently, pens.
Before you, are the handles and knobs for an Izzo Pompeii espresso machine in Tas Myrtle. For the uninitiated, the Pompeii is a lever machine where you manipulate the flow/pressure of hot water passing from the boiler and through the ground coffee beans with a largish overhead lever. It's intended to be a slip fit over the existing metal lever, replacing the original plastic jobbie which is held in place by a nut.
The other two beaded handles with the nice shiny metal bits are the portafilters or groups that hold the baskets that hold the coffee grinds. The tiddly ones are for steam and hot water control and are threaded internally. The top one is a coffee tamper (used to compress coffee grinds in the portafilter baskets) and is not part of the commission but from the same lump of timber so I decided to include it in the pic.
The geometry proved a challenge for back-of-the-envelope calculations and I had to resort to my technical drawing and measurement skills for manage the right taper for the beads given the length of each piece.
The client requested something similar in style to earlier Gaggia handles (google it). I received an email after he had fitted them - he's very happy and so am I for that matter.
Over the last year I've done a few of these for a number of machine types and in varying designs but this one is different because I got paid to do it (yay). Friends and rellies own much of the stuff I produced and usually it's bowl, platters, lidded boxes and more recently, pens.
Before you, are the handles and knobs for an Izzo Pompeii espresso machine in Tas Myrtle. For the uninitiated, the Pompeii is a lever machine where you manipulate the flow/pressure of hot water passing from the boiler and through the ground coffee beans with a largish overhead lever. It's intended to be a slip fit over the existing metal lever, replacing the original plastic jobbie which is held in place by a nut.
The other two beaded handles with the nice shiny metal bits are the portafilters or groups that hold the baskets that hold the coffee grinds. The tiddly ones are for steam and hot water control and are threaded internally. The top one is a coffee tamper (used to compress coffee grinds in the portafilter baskets) and is not part of the commission but from the same lump of timber so I decided to include it in the pic.
The geometry proved a challenge for back-of-the-envelope calculations and I had to resort to my technical drawing and measurement skills for manage the right taper for the beads given the length of each piece.
The client requested something similar in style to earlier Gaggia handles (google it). I received an email after he had fitted them - he's very happy and so am I for that matter.