Forged From Fire

Jason

Oct 10, 2008

Early in our machine development we addressed the functional & mechanical aspects of the espresso machine and later we moved onto the aesthetics and ergonomics. It was important to us that the machine enable the barista to expand their coffee making skills and that the coffee they made was excellent, but we also wanted the machine to be a part of the theater of espresso preparation.

Too often machines are simply assembled from Italian ‘off the shelf’ parts and wrapped in a new plastic body…and called NEW. We wanted nothing to do with that and set out designing almost every part from scratch – then found teams of craftsmen and experts in their individual trade to craft these parts for us, thus ensuring a true industrial craft espresso machine.

A ‘craft’ is defined as: An occupation, trade or pursuit requiring manual dexterity or the application of artistic skill. To make or produce with care, skill, or ingenuity.

The other day, Slayer went on a field trip to the metal foundry who is casting our stainless steel brew handles and group caps. Check out the vid and watch these guys working with 2800 degree molten stainless steel.

We’ve chosen to use investment castings on these pieces as we wanted a highly polished finish with a high degree of accuracy. Plus these pieces are highly decorative & curved and machining them from stock turned out to be highly expensive (group caps) and virtually impossible with the brew handle.This video ends with the metal being poured, it then takes around 8 hours for the stainless to cool before it can be removed from the ceramic moulds.Stay tuned for more updates & field trip videosCheersJason