Scaling up

This blog post was started in 2020 to show our progress as we worked on developing the 9Barista machine, from creating the first metal castings all the way through to shipping the first orders. It’s a nice record of how we’ve grown, so we hope you enjoy it!

8th July 2020

We’ve been casting a lot of brass in Birmingham this week. Here’s one of the portafilters as is looks right out of the die-casting mould. After casting, the excess metal sections are removed and recycled, and the part then goes on to be vibro-barrelled, machined, hand polished, and finally electroless nickel plated.

20th July 2020

This week we’ve started to receive the machined castings which when combined make up the high pressure twin-boiler system. These parts are now going through our quality control process, after which we will begin joining the coil heat exchanger, and apply the electroless nickel plating.

13th August 2020

It’s been a while since our last update – please accept our apologies for not updating you sooner.

Change to Shipping Dates

Some machines have already shipped inline with the original delivery plan, however we are having to slightly alter the estimated shipping date for many of you, as two of our suppliers have been unable to supply us with their components on time. 

We are currently out of stock of fitted 9B boxes. We were expecting to receive a large batch of them at the beginning of the week, but we have been advised that they are running behind schedule. We do not yet have a firm rescheduled delivery date, but we will share this with you once we have it. We expect the delay to be not more than one or two weeks.

We have also experienced a delay from our supplier of springs. We currently have a low stock of the springs which form part of the 9 Bar valve assembly. We have enough stock to produce machines for orders up to order number 2473. A large batch of new springs is due for delivery on the 28th August, after which we will be able to continue delivering machines to you.

We have updated the delivery date estimates at the top of the page to reflect these changes. We’re sorry for the delay, but we’re quite sure the wait will be worth it!

9B Assembly Room Mk.2

We’ve been a little quiet recently as we’ve been swiftly moving the 9Barista operation out of the garage and into a commercial industrial unit. We’ve needed to make this move now, so that we have enough space and resources to meet the demand for the machine that we’ve been seeing. 

We’re very excited about moving into this space, as it’s going to allow us to become much more productive, and it’s also allowing us to bring more of the manufacturing process in-house – which allows us to keep a tighter control over quality.

Nickel Plating Improvements

We have recently changed our High Phosphorus Electroless Nickel plating supplier. Our new supplier is able to plate castings at a faster rate, whilst with a greater thickness. They’re also able to accurately control the plating thickness using X-ray based measurement techniques. This is allowing us to produce parts of even higher quality.

28th August 2020

The 9B boxes have arrived & shipments resume

The first delivery of the new 9B box design has arrived. They took a while longer than expected to produce, but they look fantastic! We now have stock of all components, and can continue shipping machines out.

Here are some of the machines heading out today. We can’t wait for you to try them out!

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21st September 2020

Hello everyone.

Just another quick update to say that machines are still flowing out the door at a good rate.

We’ve figured out a few ways of making our production processes more efficient, and as a result the production rate keeps climbing up.

Thank you to everyone in the delivery queue – it’ll be worth the wait 🙂

6th November 2020

We’ve introduced a slight improvement to the way we produce the internal heat exchanger in 9Barista. We now use a vapour honing process to treat the brass body that houses the heat exchanger coil. If you haven’t received your machine yet, then your machine will have this treatment applied!

The vapour honing process gives an improved surface finish to the part, improving the aesthetics and also increasing the surface hardness of the metal, which makes it more scratch resistant and less susceptible to tarnishing. In this process, very small glass beads are fired at the metal along with water and compresses air at high speeds. The glass beads impact the surface of the brass leading to advantageous changes in the metal properties.