# Pimp my Rossi RR45



## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

Having perused the price of mazzer second hand I thought I would find something more affordable in the Rossi grinder range







As you can see most Rossi look the business but have compromised themselves artistically and are a little rough around the edges.

Anyhow I landed a better Rossi (sold as seen -Untested, no returns!) from fleabay with the help of auction sniper (it bids in the last 5 seconds automatically for you) a Rossi for £42.56p inc postsage.







no idea why sideways - ho hum-

first job plug it in and see if it is kaput / lethal - step forward - super pat test repair man (I'm still working on a costume)







all good - its not going to kill me yet

and I switch it on and it runs - I had suspected it would as it requires the hopper to be in place with its comedy magnets to enable it to operate







Getting flashbacks to junior school here

so the strip down begins, first by working out why the adjustment collar wont move and why does the chamber look like an NHS toilet

to be continued below in a bit probably


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

warning contains strong and disturbing images,









I was particularly impressed by the level of adhesion that coffee gum and oil has, and the new swear words I learnt such as Echlefeckin.


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

I wont bore you with the full disassembly but suffice to say its quite straight forward









Ive got burrs on order from a French site (claims to be original curved cut not straight cut )

in the mean time I'm prepping for a respray and possibly loosing the hopper - not sure yet


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

Burr carrier mod - during disassembly the various traps for stale coffee became apparent, the lower burr carrier in particular looked like this









on closer inspection the rough casting had a sharp lip on it all the way around - seen here -









ho hum the answer is to complete the job for Mr Rossi ( expect his concentration was on writing another dire hit like "Margareta time")







filing in progress


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## h1udd (Sep 1, 2015)

I love a naked grinder. I want a second hand project .... Loving your work dude !!!


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## h1udd (Sep 1, 2015)

Just googled "naked grinder" for inspirational images ... Don't do this at work !!!! Massive porn mistake


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## 4515 (Jan 30, 2013)

h1udd said:


> Just googled "naked grinder" for inspirational images ... Don't do this at work !!!! Massive porn mistake


In the same way that I was googling how to repair a table top video game from the 80's

This was in the days of 56K modems and slow downloads - Mrs WD walked in just as the wrong page was downloading from my search for "space invaders"

Great work on the grinder - looking forward to the next installment


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## GCGlasgow (Jul 27, 2014)

Nice project, look forward to seeing it up and running again


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

h1udd said:


> Just googled "naked grinder" for inspirational images ... Don't do this at work !!!! Massive porn mistake


Laughing my ass off - If only I had a job I would be so tempted


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## grumpydaddy (Oct 20, 2014)

First image, first post, made in 1949.

Not surprised it is rough round the edges....









Seriously though, 336VA under no load conditions. What does the plate say?


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## Jacko112 (Oct 29, 2015)

h1udd said:


> Just googled "naked grinder" for inspirational images ... Don't do this at work !!!! Massive porn mistake


Love this - biggest laught I've had this week!!


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

grumpydaddy said:


> First image, first post, made in 1949.
> 
> Not surprised it is rough round the edges....
> 
> ...


no rating plate as such! - I think Italian engineering has generally surpassed the need to meet European standards


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

working dog said:


> In the same way that I was googling how to repair a table top video game from the 80's
> 
> This was in the days of 56K modems and slow downloads - Mrs WD walked in just as the wrong page was downloading from my search for "space invaders"
> 
> Great work on the grinder - looking forward to the next installment


I just googled space invaders - for research purposes and all I got was space invaders - did Mrs WD believe you!









now if she finds the grinder app on your phone you can tell her it just another space invader mistake, and someone on the forum said to download it


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

One of the things I wanted to find out was how so much coffee had found its way inside "Terry the grinder"!, - ive named it in tribute to Terry Thomas - looks flash but is a bit of a bounder underneath, if it was a mazzer I would probably of gone with - Lesley Philips - a bit smoother and more refined.

The top of the grinder was letting in coffee somehow but why?









It was dropping coffee on the motor and the relay board! on closer inspection of the inside of the body casting the cause was now visible - a number of paint drips creating a gap between the body and the motor mounts, besides removing these drips I will add some silicon to seal off the area.









Mr Rossi and his factory staff must be absolute bounders........


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

"Terry the grinder" takes some acid Step1

Repainting items has come up here a lot so I thought I would share my less than perfect process -

1 Rub down item with 600grit wet and dry to give the paint a surface it can hold onto

2 Wipe over item with panel wipe - or alcohol / meths - remove grease and other contaminates on the surface

3 Hang up in garage on a piece of wire

4 Spray with etch primer - such as Upol Acid 8 - this is able to bond with not just the paint but also any exposed metal.









5 Spray with standard acrylic undercoat - builds surface and helps with top coat compatability

6 Spray with silver acrylic - 1st of 4 coats









step 7 apply 3 coats of clear acrylic topcoat


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## 4515 (Jan 30, 2013)

jimbojohn55 said:


> I just googled space invaders - for research purposes and all I got was space invaders - did Mrs WD believe you!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You cant have searched hard enough .... think I got away with it at the time


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

Doser reassembly- quick strip down, soak in puleycaf , re-grease the spring and spindle,









The centre of the dosing chamber has an adjustable spindle which with each 1/2 turn increases or decreases the size of the dose by 1/2 gram - will check this is the case when its back together.

the other thing ive noticed that seems to vary on these grinders is that some have a 40 steped grind adjustment while others have 80 - fortunately for me this is an 80 step one


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

reassembly and more mods

One of the "safety" features is a doser lid which contains both a magnetic switch operated by the large magnets in the hopper and a pressure switch in case a numpty leaves the grinder on and forgets to turn it off, so once the doser is full the grinder turns off................. nah - give me simplicity - so all I needed to do was short the sensor wires at the relay board.

this left me with a hole to fill where the curly phone cord sensor wire came through - fixed with a very large rawplug and a car trim button clip thing from Halfords


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## timmyjj21 (May 10, 2015)

Nice posts! A good read and laugh on my way to work


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

Terry has an accident ! - Ok up to now everything is going fine but the hopper obviously is not designed to fit in a domestic kitchen and its way too big, so its time to cut it down to size - hmmm - lets take the easy route, fire up the bandsaw Jeeves -







I don't recommend this method, but if like me you have made it to almost 50 with all your fingers ..... then go for it

this left me with a jagged edge - hmmm Ok lets sort that out with the big sanding disk on my lathe - 123 hey its working 456 Bang! hopper flys across the room







"I saaaay , bad show old boy" - or words to that effect

the result of this was a couple of hairline cracks to the lip of the cut down hopper - not really visible but it bothers me (if anyone has a spare mazzer or rossi or brazilia hopper suitable for cutting down -let me know)

The cut down hopper works and fits as is even looks of from a distance and fits under the cupboards - huzzah


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## Missy (Mar 9, 2016)

That's a novel solution! Didn't fancy a lens hood hopper?


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

Missy said:


> That's a novel solution! Didn't fancy a lens hood hopper?


Hi Missy, I would have but I wanted to be able to see when the beans were getting low, I think I can get 250g in it still as well, - as its under a cupboard It would be a bit of pain to drag it in and out to refill it all the time.

Having said this the hoppers base is exactly 50mm and there are lots of 50mm acrylic tubes on fleabay, so I'm tempted to have a go at something else!


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

The lens hood didn't seem to work so great when i had one of these, it helps a bit but nothing like it does on the Mazzer. My guess was that the throat and grind chamber doesn't have a decent air seal


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

Terry the grinder makes it onto the worktop. The new burrs arrived - were they curved cut like the originals.........nahh straight cut - some cheese eating surrender monkey, website now has £27 of my money, still they are well made and seem to be doing the business,,, bounders!

so there are still some more mods to be made - doserless - yet to come, but for the moment it has taken the place of my MC2 - which is on standby.

Here is the before and after shots


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## pips (Aug 3, 2012)

My OCD was oall over the place seeing the picture of the caked in oily bean grinds..

Loving the end product jimbojoh!!!


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## Ian. (Mar 6, 2016)

Wonderful stuff. I've got a RR 45, which is in need of renovation. I was tempted to just buy a lesser grinder, but reading this thread it's inspired me to work on mine.


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

I think the RR45 is a bit of a bargain as its solid as a rock- admittedly I'm in the process of pimping a super jolly (the doser on the SJ is not as good at sweeping out the grinds as the RR45) well not yet ! But the RR45 is very capable with a few tweeks - I would recommend putting a couple of turns of PTFE tape around the burr carrier threads to aid solid adjustment and remove any movement.


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## haz_pro (Apr 4, 2013)

Did you get around to a doserless mod?

Edit: just seen your other thread, did you ever go back to doserless after the static problem?


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