# Newbie gets a lever!



## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

Woohoo!!! I just got me a Pavoni on ebay! - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/332307790618

My first lever and first espresso machine! Complete noob to espresso really, but I had to give it a try and I love the engineering simplicity and heritage of the Pavoni levers. And the fact that they can make fantastic espresso in the right hands... hopefully mine too eventually!

Think this is an 80s machine, no idea what shape it's going to be in so it was a bit of a punt really, but will be happy to strip it down and rebuild as a project if needed. There have been some great threads here lately from @christos_geo and @owain which inspired me to go for the Europiccola so thanks to you guys














I'm sure the great info there will come in handy. Will be just as happy if I can start pulling that lever and making espressos as soon as I get it home, but the engineer in me really wants to get it in pieces anyway! Hopefully picking up in a couple of days... excited!


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## Nopapercup (Nov 6, 2016)

Well done and welcome to the club. I was looking at that machine as I'm thinking of getting a second one but Ealing was too much of a trek. It does look nice and I'm sure you'll enjoy it.


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

Nopapercup said:


> Well done and welcome to the club. I was looking at that machine as I'm thinking of getting a second one but Ealing was too much of a trek. It does look nice and I'm sure you'll enjoy it.


Thanks!







Glad you think it looks ok. Before I bid on this I nearly pulled the trigger on a Stradivari SPL demo unit this morning at Coffee Italia going for just over half their normal price. Seemed like a great buy but when I checked this am it had gone! I had read the larger boiler was probably not ideal for my kind of use, but thought perhaps you dont need to fill it full (could be wrong so was going to ask about that) so at that price who cares. But its someone elses bargain now, I'm sure this will be more fun.


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## christos_geo (Feb 9, 2016)

You got yourself quite a bargain! Good job! Persist with it and you shall be rewarded, don't give up, there are a number of excellent threads on here from @jimbojohn55 and @fatboyslim who have mastered it and can really help you in your journey. It still would be worth having a luck at all rubber gaskets and perhaps replacing, easily done. One question though, what grinder are you planning on using alongside it?


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

Really well done good price, I stripped my pre-millennium, fitted new seals, massive descale and adjusted the pressure stat, the coffee was ropey prior to stripping but it worked perfect afterwards


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

christos_geo said:


> You got yourself quite a bargain! Good job! Persist with it and you shall be rewarded, don't give up, there are a number of excellent threads on here from @jimbojohn55 and @fatboyslim who have mastered it and can really help you in your journey. It still would be worth having a luck at all rubber gaskets and perhaps replacing, easily done. One question though, what grinder are you planning on using alongside it?


Thanks! Yes I will certainly be reading up on the wise words from the above mentioned lever gurus too, where would we be without gurus eh?! Good on you guys! I expect I will be ordering up a gasket kit (not sure if all gaskets for the pre millenium will fit an 80s machine?) and maybe more, so will probably wait till I have had a good look at it. Likely will need grease among other things so will get 4x6g sachets of Molykote 111 from ebay I think, if that is recommended. I have a big tub of citric acid so will give it a good descale - would appreciate if someone could suggest what strength or dose to use though, as I'm not 100% on that. Maybe something like cafiza or pulycaf is also useful?

Grinder-wise I will be using the Feldgrind. Think it works well for espresso, although maybe a handheld is not ideal for multiple attempts at getting the hang of all things lever, granted! Will see how it goes...


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

owain said:


> Really well done good price, I stripped my pre-millennium, fitted new seals, massive descale and adjusted the pressure stat, the coffee was ropey prior to stripping but it worked perfect afterwards


Thanks! Glad you think so and hope you're right, could be a right mess but that's the chance you take with ebay. Anyway I think I might be looking forwards more to getting it in pieces than making coffee to be honest! I dont think the older machines have an adjustable pressure stat, could be wrong.. one less think to go wrong I suppose is one way to look at it, although I guess the newer machines had it added for a good reason! It looks like I might need some new wrenches or sockets to get everything apart though like the boiler, we'll see..

Still waiting to hear back from the seller re pickup, looks like some of my emails have gone astray (thank you eBay nice one).. hope to still pick it up in the next couple of days..


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## christos_geo (Feb 9, 2016)

You get some grease with the gasket kit and all gaskets should be the same for pre millennium models. If you want molykote specifically I can send you some of mine as I have a whole tube. You will only need a smidgen for the whole thing. 4x6g would be enough for your great grand kids to grease their respective coffee machines







as for wrenches, check the posts. I have mentioned most of the ones needed. Just to save you buying the wrong ones like I did!


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

Good to know and many thanks for the kind offer, in that case I'll probably just go with what comes with the kit, sounds like it doesn't need much (I also saw the super expensive Loxeal stuff from Londinium but somehow I don't think it's appropriate to spend that much on grease at this stage!). Will check your posts for wrenches etc, very useful, thanks.


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## bluebeardmcf (Nov 28, 2016)

Hey, you got a bargain there! Have fun, your coffee life is about to measurably improve.


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

First 2 pics are before refurb and the second 2 after refurb


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

Wow.. I just got the Pavoni home and the condition is just fantastic!







It's clearly had a very, very easy life. No rust, scratches or dings, the boiler looks pretty clean inside, and no sign of wear on the porta filter or group at all.. it just looks like new and I am completely over the moon! Really wasn't expecting this. The photos weren't that clear but I had a hunch it just might be a sleeper hiding under a nice protective layer of grime, and it really is. I think I'm in love with this thing already.. Hope it lasts!

Oh, and it's a 1996 model so was completely wrong about that.. Even better! I think I'll give it a quick descale while I check out some youtube vids to see how this thing actually works (might be a good idea!) then maybe give it a go.. Got me wondering now if it actually needs stripping down.. yeah probably does!


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

Looking good @owain. The crema looks much better after the refurb and like the metal tray with the dark base, looks really good. Mine looks almost the same as yours apart from the switch, what year is yours?


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## Jacko112 (Oct 29, 2015)

Nice looking machine, you got a real bargain there & the fact you've managed to pull a good looking shot so early too. It'll only get better as the learning curve goes on.

Best thing I ever did was to get a lever


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

slamm said:


> Looking good @owain. The crema looks much better after the refurb and like the metal tray with the dark base, looks really good. Mine looks almost the same as yours apart from the switch, what year is yours?


Mines December 1999 yours looks lovely, really well done on that purchase


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

I'm going to try and document this refurb here, hope it might be useful. I'm sure I'll make some mistakes as I have a tendency to jump in feet first and suffer the consequences, hopefully that should make it entertaining if nothing else!









Right, time to give this baby a flush I think.. so switch on and yes! a light comes on! Always a good start.. it's boiling away on the 'II' setting and after about 5 mins theres a dribble from the vent and and then lots of steam so I think this is where I switch it to the 'I' setting. Lifts lever all the way up and out comes.. yuck, glad I didn't try drinking anything from this yet..


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

On to the descale and this is where I came a bit unstuck. Looking around the forum I found various suggestions for citric acid dose. Per litre it seems to vary from 30-40g, 50g and 3 heaped tablespoons which works out to 80-90g, so that's a pretty wide range. Suggests to me that they would all get the job done, higher dosing for severe scaling and to get it done quicker. I went with 40g/l which worked fine for the moderate amount of scale. Turned on the boiler to heat it up a bit but not to boilng, and left it for about an hour.

Wasn't quite sure how far up to fill the boiler but went for nearly up to the brim to get as much cleaned as possible, even if it wouldn't come into contact with the water when in actual use. Having filled up with the acid I noticed that the lever was up so had a bit of a panic thinking that it would get into the group. I pulled the lever down and erring on the side of caution poured it all out again. Flushed it with water then refilled this time with the lever down.

After about an hour the activity died down, poured out the acid and could see quite a difference with nice clean copper visible but also mixed in with darker almost black patches. Some scale was still visible so decided to give it another quick go with the citric acid at a reduced dose, and this is where I came a little bit unstuck when I saw what looked like tiny bits of shiny metal floating around. Oh no, it looked like chrome. But where from? maybe the group? Had I killed my Pavoni already?!

Maybe it was when I left the lever up or perhaps there was already some flaking chrome somewhere. Perhaps these bits might have come off a small area on the group where it joins the boiler, seems to be an area of chrome missing with some copper or brass showing. Hope it's nothing to worry about too much...


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

Wohoo! Just pulled my first shot! Jumping the gun a bit sequence-wise.. but for such a momentous event had to







and it was er, interesting!

13g ground at 1.2 on the Feldgrind, flushed the group a bit to get up to temp, 15s at the top and incredibly hard to pull but after about 15 seconds of pressure some drops appeared (hooray!) then continued pulling all the way down with as much pressure as I dare. I think it took about a full minute to pull. I don't have a tamper yet so had to improvise with something, the first thing that came to hand was the base of the Feldgrind and what do you know it fits perfectly! if a bit snug, but was really rather chuffed with my first tamp.

Ok it looks rubbish I know and tasted 'interesting', (and I think there's too much?) but I'm happy with that. Tasted almost reasonable with milk too..


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

Looks like a bit of scum on the top of that shot, did you flush fully after your descale? Do you live in a hard water area? .. apart from that well done  perhaps go for a more corse grind if it's taken you a long time to pull and it feels extremely firm


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

owain said:


> Looks like a bit of scum on the top of that shot, did you flush fully after your descale? Do you live in a hard water area? .. apart from that well done  perhaps go for a more corse grind if it's taken you a long time to pull and it feels extremely firm


Scum?! I thought that was crema!







But what do I know, I've never even seen crema before never mind tasted it. It did look a bit thick and scummy though. Was using Volvic, fully flushed twice after the descale then stripping down the group and cleaning everything. Not used anything like cafiza yet to get rid of oils and the shower screen is still really bunged up. Can only see through half the holes despite cleaning but didn't try the citric acid on that yet. I expect that's the reason for the long pull. I've got a service kit on it's way from Espresso Shop but meanwhile couldn't resist putting it back together and giving it a go. That was fun but I know it still needs the shower sorting before its working properly. And the steam wand seems to have got blocked up now although it was working fine, haven't taken that apart yet.


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

Lol you definitely have some crema just where it's broken up it just looked a bit like hard water scum on the surface that's all, good call get the screen cleaned out just to make sure everything is nice and clean


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## Nopapercup (Nov 6, 2016)

Your grind is too fine. I would aim to get the pull between 20-30 seconds and you shouldn't be forcing it.


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

Nopapercup said:


> Your grind is too fine. I would aim to get the pull between 20-30 seconds and you shouldn't be forcing it.


I was thinking the bunged up shower screen caused the long pull, does the grind look too fine? I think I tamped it a bit hard too which I guess would have added to it. I pitched the grind half way in the recommended setting range for the Feldgrind of 1.0-1.4 so thought it should be about right.


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## Nopapercup (Nov 6, 2016)

slamm said:


> I was thinking the bunged up shower screen caused the long pull, does the grind look too fine? I think I tamped it a bit hard too which I guess would have added to it. I pitched the grind half way in the recommended setting range for the Feldgrind of 1.0-1.4 so thought it should be about right.


Potentially it's the shower screen. Once you've cleaned that try again.

The Pav's are very sensitive to grind setting and that can vary widely depending what bean you're using. I think we all do the same thing when we get our machine and that's grind too fine. I remember virtually hanging on mine trying to pull a shot in well over a minute. It took me a few weeks to realise it doesn't take brute force to make great espresso. Don't tamp too hard, get the grind right, a gentle pull and you'll get great results.


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

The service kit arrived today so I can get on with changing the gaskets etc, but first I wanted to ask about the dark deposits left in the boiler after descaling. The first image shows before and after descaling, on the left the two elements at the bottom are a different colour, after descale they are the same. It looks like whatever this deposit is has been evenly distributed during the descale covering them both. After 4 boil/flushes the water is still quite gray. A wipe with kitchen paper around the inside rim removes some of it so maybe it will come off with Cafiza when that arrives.

Any ideas what it is?

I've read that "Common feedwater contaminants that can form boiler deposits include calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, aluminum, silica" from this source https://www.gewater.com/handbook/boiler_water_systems/ch_12_boilerdeposits.jsp

- if they are the only candidates perhaps the most likely is aluminium? Whatever it is I want it out of there...


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

black copper oxide - its fine - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper(II)_oxide

might want to try a second descale if bothered - having said this I had a metallic taste for 2 weeks after a deeper descale.


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

jimbojohn55 said:


> black copper oxide - its fine - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper(II)_oxide


That's a relief, many thanks!







I really didn't want it to be aluminium.. I knew the green stuff is verdigris but thought that was an oxide of copper so discounted it. Will have a go at removing as much of it as I can one way or another when I take the boiler off. It looks like the copper oxide gets partially dispersed during the descale. Probably part of the reason machines take a while to settle down after refurb as what's left behind gets gradually flushed out each time it's used, perhaps along with the effect of any new grease in the group.


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

if this helps, here is a picture of mine after a second descale - having thought about this my descale was done with the boiler removed and the element off, just wondering if the copper is having some plating effect from the element, just a theory - but no real grounds for this, as it is far more likely that the darker area of the boiler relates to the boiler being heated up while 1/2 full.


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

@jimbojohn55 in your 'pimp' thread did you dunk the boiler and group in both citric acid and puly caf? You mention some pitting on the group cylinder wall, do you know what caused it?

I don't really know how the chemistry works but my guess is the copper oxide deposit was probably originally bound up with the scale, so when the scale is dissolved the copper oxide which doesn't get dissolved is released into the boiler. Some gets flushed away with the acid but some remains, clinging to the inside surface of the boiler and the heating elements, and gradually with use gets released into the water until all the relatively loose stuff has gone, or re-binds or gets covered with any new scale that might form.

I've done 5 flushes now with my very hard London tap water and it's already got a nice new layer of scale so will need another descale. I'm a bit wary about putting the whole boiler into citric acid after seeing those bits of chrome floating around and then discovered pitting in the chrome on the group junction (post #17 - just updated with a video of the flecks of chrome). It looks to me now like that sort of pitting could be characteristic of some kind of chemical attack, perhaps from previous descale with something stronger or maybe it was the citric acid, I don't know. Now that I've separated the element I can give it another descale and perhaps submerge the boiler, but with a lower dose of 25-30g/l.


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

Hi slamm - I just descaled with the element removed with the boiler inverted (group head still attached at that point - but a piece of freezer bag forming a temp gasket to block the hole preventing water passing into it) - one thing ive found made a difference was using hot water with the citric - not boiling but not far off - the whole thing was fizzing - the boiler was inverted and the citic added to the top edge - I did not immerse the whole boiler.







actually held the filler cap gently in a vice!







The group head was removed and just dunked in some caffiza or pullycaf for 10 mins (not citric)







any pitting was tiny and not caused by the cafizza - I don't know if the machine had been descaled in the past and citric pulled through the group head - I would put it down to just use - and it was below the seal movement of the piston so would not affect the seals - to be clear by pitting I mean tiny tiny it hadn't even got through the plating.


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## slamm (Nov 26, 2016)

Ah I see.. it was the Christmasy James Bond bit with the acid bath that threw me! I could see the foam so thought it was Puly Caff but as far as I can work out that doesn't contain acid so wondered if you did that separately (the contents of the various cleaners were a bit confusing to me.. but it seems Puly Caff and Cafiza2 are alkaline sodium salts, the original Cafiza has some sulphamic acid, and the Puly Cleaner in the service kit is a citric & tartaric acid descaler).

That upturned boiler filled with acid looks a bit precarious, one way to get it descaled up to rim I suppose! Probably a smart move blanking off the join to the group given my experience with the bits of chrome floating around in the citric acid, I'm not too worried about it now but it was a bit of a surprise and Cafiza/Cafiza2 is supposed to be fine with chrome etc. From your photos I'm pretty sure your group cylinder isn't chrome plated though? it looks the same as mine which is plain brass (different colour to the chrome on the outside).


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