“This is a beautiful machined brass part, but I did take a few minutes to precision deburr a few places before assembly and smoothed and polished the potrafilter entry notches. I guess I`m a little OCD because I was a journeyman toolmaker and machinist and I love my Sylvia. I`m also used to working to very precise tolerances with machined parts and I have a lot of tools.
I had a leaking 15 year old Sylvia V2 group head to boiler seal. This replacement group head was a direct fit replacement for the old V2 group head that suffered from peeling copper plating on the interior and in the O-ring groove where the seal failed. I was happy to see the copper plating is no longer applied on the new group head, insuring an even longer life span.
My upgrade included a new stainless flex water supply line, 90 degree stainless pump fitting and boiler insulation. This resulted in a significant performance improvement and I believe my Sylvia now has more brewing and steaming pressure than when it was new. I was careful with the old stainless steel brew head trim ring and was able to re-use this no-longer-available part because the 2 mounting tabs are still cast on the top of the new brew head. I`m very impressed with how Rancilio does really smart and backwards compatible engineering upgrades to their designs.”
“Replacement for a 17 year old worn V1 unit. The latest I found is made of lead free brass so is not copper plated as the V1's and also can be set up for espresso pods if desired. The water entry into the brew screen area is now baffled so less concentrated on one side of brew screen. I'm not sure this is meaningful, but seems to be a good idea.”
