Paint your Pavoni!

Unfortunately most La Pavoni's suffer from rust on the mild steel bases. Both painted and chrome bases are affected, due in no small part to the humid environment inside the base and the effect of the coffee getting into small scratches especially under the drip tray and not being wiped away. I have found that powder coating although quite expensive provides an extremely durable finish. In fact I have one which is now been in constant use for more than four years with no deterioration whatsoever. This certainly cannot be said of the original finishes. Can do this on an exchange basis for £32.50 or £36.99 fitted (plus gaskets). Sounds a lot? Well to buy a new chrome base would be £65 plus gaskets and fitting which would end up at around £100 at a shop repairer. As far as I am aware I am the only person in the UK to offer this service specifically for La Pavoni machines.

The base can be rusted but I'm afraid additional work and therefore cost will be incurred if badly perforated, if in fact it can be repaired at all. If you want a special colour click on the Lever machine base. Send me either the base or the complete machine. Turn round is about a week (unless it's a none standard colour and they don't have the powder in stock). Don't forget you need to budget for a new gaskets for above and below the base/boiler as well as a boiler/element gasket. The Pavoni ones are so expensive I have had some made locally £3.50 ea. Additionally the gasket for the older brass base is obsolete so I had that made as well £3.50 ea

One for the girls

 Don't let the base get so bad that it needs lots of repair or even rust penetration. Get it powder coated! Here is a base before and after media blasting

It is always worse than you think......

I really can't fix this.................................

Here are some bases after powder coat

If you want to send just the base you need to remove it. There is a screw in the centre of the drip tray depression. Remove the black underbase. Important - take a few photos of the wiring and then remove the wires connected to the base of the heating element. Remove the three allen bolts (hex bolts in older models) and take off the heating element and keep safe. There is a brass ring holding the boiler to the base. Take a piece of hard wood and place it on the projections on the brass ring and tap it round (anticlockwise) to loosen it, you should then be able to unscrew it by hand. If it is stiff or will not free put some WD40 or penetrating spray on the threads of the boiler and walk away for a while and then try again.

There was a period when Pavoni used a plastic rather than brass boiler fixing ring. Here the bottom gasket is glued to the base and plastic fixing ring making almost impossible to screw off. Technique here is to turn the base not the ring while holding the boiler. Once you have loosened the boiler thread, the glue joint should break and you will be able to remove the ring. La Pavoni eventually went back to brass fixing rings as I believe too many boilers became loose on the bases despite being glued

It's dirty work but someone has to do it

Here is a base after media blasting. the rust damage on this one has been filled with Quiksteel metal reinforced epoxy, and ground to shape. The chrome ones do not appear to offer much more protection to rusting (Hmmm...) There is more often than not, a lot of rust INSIDE the base, so do check every so often. We were able to save this example below by media blast, quicksteel conductive epoxy filler and powder coat.

If your base only shows light rust inside, you can treat the rust with phosphoric acid and brush or spray paint to finish.

Here is a Pavoni pump machine stripped ready for media blasting and powder coat. Unfortunately they are prone to rust on the base and behind the drip tray. Again do it early before the rust takes hold.  Strip, powder coat, rebuild and test £39.99