Childhood memories... How to... ?

As a child, you probably asked yourself...

... How the holes were made in the Macaroni...
... How the toothpaste was put in the tube...
 and how are they making holes inside the cheese...

Me not!

I was quite happy to profit from these ingenious and humble workers who spent time punching holes in the pasta, spending hours pushing the toothpaste in the tube with their fingers and carving holes in the cheese with their small ice-scooper, making sure to close the surface so nobody realize they have been working...

So for me today, trying to explain you how Mr. Robbiati was manufacturing his machines... in a foreign language is like Mission Impossible.


When you look a roundhead of the Brevetti Robbiati business, you will realize 3 things:

1) It is made in single Piece of aluminum,
2) It is hollow,
3) There is an interior tube.

The fact that there is a hollow part in a enclosed structure indicates that there is something in the machine at some point which isn't there at the end...

The fact that the tube can't be introduced after it has been cast indicates that the tube is there from the start...

So here is the (simple) answer:

You need 2 casts!

One for the machine itself (Hurray!)...

and one for the core... with this i mean the part which you have to remove so that the hollow part remains.

The core is made out of sand and a kind-of-glue (sorry, but we don't learn machine engineering in english classes in french schools!)...

For our roundhead, the core has got to have a few properties:

It needs to resist heat and keep shape and not deform, in this case at the melting temperature of aluminum (around 700°C or 1300°F)...
It needs to be kept in place in the other mold while the aluminum is poured in...
and finally, the tube, which later transports water from the reservoir to the head, has to be put within.

(The tube needs to stick out of the sand core a few centimeters at the top)

I find it worth noticing that for each coffee machine...
... you need ONE CORE...


So before you even start making a coffee machine, you need to make the core... and your shelf might look like this:

Now, you place your core in the mold...

remember the tube is already inside and the metal parts (follow the red arrows) keep it in place inside the bigger mold.

The tube is enclosed in the aluminum body as the aluminum is poured in (remember the tube is sticking out of the sand core a few centimeters).
It is very important: that is what makes possible the division of the machine in 2 chambers:

Pour the aluminum...

Here, on this early construction diagram (mold have to be changed regularly... gives you the chance to improve the shape and function every time), you can see how little the wall was between the 2 chambers, so to verify if it was sealed, they were injecting water to make sure, the water was only coming through the tube and not anywhere else (Well, anyway, that's why Mr. Robbiati junior told me):

Plunge the coffee machine in a solvent, that way, the sand and the glue will separate and you can remove the core from inside the coffee machine by the front hole...
(the same front hole you can remove to clean the inside of the tube with a metal wire)

After this is done, the machine will look like this (Original unpolished machine!!!!):

The coffee machines without steam arm had the tube placed at the bottom of the water reservoir...
that means: the quantity of water you put in the machine is the same as the one you will have in the Jug.

To allow steam to be produced to foam milk, the tube was place a bit higher, so that after the coffee has brewed, there is still some water left for steam production.
Here is a picture of a round head cut in half.

The cast being made...

... you are not even close to make coffee with it...

... you need to insert the head piece and fix it in the head with external pins... drill the thread you can screw the bakelite knob, and the front plug too... make a hole in the tube ( that will allow the steam to hit the security valve in case of excessive pressure) , cast the bakelite handles and the filter holder... form the coffee filters and the filter plates (and punch the holes)... don't forget the badge, the rubber seals, the pieces requested to make a security valve (spring and screws), the steam arm, the screws... and the jug...

and polish the result!

For me, it is just overwhelming how much sweat goes in one machine.
Hard work.

So many little steps to something so streamline...

the shape makes you forget the hard work...

That's for me where the Magic is.

Mr. Robbiati make it look so easy...
and with the amount of employees in the Brevetti Robbiati factory, you can imagine the accomplishment!!!

Each piece is truly a unique object made by hand.
This is the way i feel when i have the chance to touch one.

Take care of yours, cherish it!

Behind this innocent and so self-evident shape, so simply streamlined and pleasing to the eye...
there is a Big Man: Mr. Robbiati, and a small team of employees (8 at the beginning, slightly increasing but so slightly, is it worth noticing?) building each machine step by step, yes, to borrow Mm. Notaras's words: In an Artisan manner, by hand.

No big factory, no mass production...
The fact that so many survived is not reflecting the big production number... but the fascination and love that these coffee machines have generated in their owners...

... and i am ever so humbly one of them.