Sonne´s Coffee Spot: Londinium I

FAEMA Lambro, Vintage Lever, 1960

Restoration project

Enjoy the pictures of this fabulous machine !!

Boiler heating source was gas only but prepared for electrical heating element. See below

Replaced single safety valve with Mater pressurestat, safety- and vacuum breaker valves.

Installed a 2400W FAEMA heating element from FAEMA Compact instead of the 1500W standard issue. It had to be turned 180 degrees for not to touch the bottom of the boiler. The trade off is that the water level must be set higher. I made a minimum mark on the sight glass measured 7 cm from top of the drip tray.

Testing the wiring setup

Final wirering

The old gas burner regulator under removal

With these closed boiler systems you tend to get stale water quickly so I added a ball valve to the sight glass fitting to be able to empty the boiler into the drain box. It works like a charm.

New lever head, spring, piston and seals.

The Lambro is finished

You might have noticed that I changed the original steam valve/wand to a ball joint type. The steam/water valve can be purchased as sparepart. Look for Faema Replica steam valve. These can also be seen on VMB/Vibiemme espresso machines as well.

Makes one hell of a cup......

Yummi,,,,,,,

It's been a while and time for updating this page has been limited. Enjoying wonderful syrupy espresso's however has not stopped - on the contrary! I'm now enjoying wonderful espresso drinks from my recently acquired LONDINIUM I lever espresso machine.

I have sold the La Marzocco GS/3 the short story being that however fantastic the GS/3 is, I was really missing a more "hands on" feeling. Getting great shots from the GS/3 is just - a bit too easy! So I sold it but without any plans on where to go from there. For a period I was really in to black coffee (still am) an enjoyed lots of different brew methods (Hario filter brew, Aeropress, Chemex, French press etc). I didn't leave espresso brewing entirely as a good friend was good enough to lend me a nice little E61 HX machine - The La Valentina Junior. Really a good and nice looking machine with a small footprint for those interested.

Knowing that I couldn't be without an espresso machine I started looking and by coincidence I saw the pictures of a late 50's Faema Lambro Lever machine for sale in Germany at what I believed to be a reasonable price. It was of course sold before I got to respond and the next one as well. These were fully functional machines but needed a bit of restoration. Not easy to come by and fully restored Faema Lambro's, President's and Urania's cost on the wrong side of Euro 2,500. I love the simplicity and silence of the vintage lever machines but unless you restore one yourself, it simply is not worth the price tag (my opinion).

My Lambro adventure lead me to the Londinium I project in England headed up by Reiss Gunson and his Londinium Espresso company. A truly exiting project of which you can read much more about on: http://londiniumespresso.com/

A long story short: I added a Londinium I to the shopping basket back in July 2013 and received delivery late August 2013.

The L1 came in two boxes - a big one with the machine and second smaller box with the upper part of the group. Veeeery nice packaging - kudos to the Londinium Espresso team!
Enjoy the unboxing pictures which were made with my mobile phone out of sheer impatience!