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One reason why I only use water/distilled water to clean.
How often do you deep clean your machine?
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Good advice but i’ve never cleaned this case with anything other than a wipe over of warm water and, more recently given that it looks like a dogs breakfast to me anyway, a stainless weinman wipe, and now a slosh of Method cleaner. Nothing has helped and its looking like i’ll have to live with it. I suppose what i’m asking, does this sound normal to be tarnishing (?) up on only the front plate? Are other LE fronts as spick and span as the rest of the bodywork? May just be my paranoia eh. I’m going to give it a good old chrome clean soon, in for a penny ….
I use window cleaner and a niche brush to agitate before wiping off with a microfibre. Window cleaner seems to be an excellent coffee solvent and doesnt leave a residue.
skylark does this sound normal to be tarnishing (?) up on only the front plate
To put your mind at rest, even on my machine (Elizabeth) which never saw anything other than water or 75% alcohol gel at times (used once, but makes no difference really), the front plate seems to be different from the rest of machine. Water cleans everything else spotless. But the front panel does look different, tarnished as you say.
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Well I managed a photo of my front and it doesn’t do justice to its poor condition. Surely something will polish this back to good ….
That’s it AFTER a clean. It looked like rust beforehand! Just a nice ‘cloud effect’ happening now …
It’s almost as though a lacquer is delaminating 🤔
skylark That looks to me like the SS is lacquer coated and the coating is flaking off. I had a cheap SS water bottle that had a similar lacquer type coating that started to come off in very similar patterns. If that’s the case not much you can do to make it look any better - more cleaning will simply remove more lacquer and make it look worse.
skylark Not sure if you are saying “it isn’t flaking lacquer” or “disappointing that the lacquer is flaking so soon.”
If the former - looks like it from the photo but you have the machine in front of you - you’ll know better than me.
If the latter - still entirely possible, likely caused by poor surface prep, likely oil remnants from the brushing process prior to spraying the lacquer. Clearly shouldn’t have happened and it’s a defect that warrants return for remedy.
Mine looks like this:
Never used specific cleaning products though - just alcohol gel a couple of times.
It’s just the splash panel that is like this. The other parts of the machine are impeccable. Wondering if a weak solution of Puly might do the trick (assuming that’s coffee oils, as I can’t think of being anything else).
App baby oil is good on ss
But I’ve had good experiences with baby wipes filled by microfiber cloth immediately after it
Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -
There is NO actual peeling lacquer. It has just started to look like this. Initially it looked like a sprayer shot had erupted all over the front but that’s not the case. I think the use of water followed by a drying down has allowed the top coating to be breached and what i was seeing looked just like rust. I have raised a query with BB as it can only get worse in my opinion. Let’s see what they say.
Could be worth a try. That’s exactly how it looked but as i say it wasn’t the case.
I say this tentatively as I don’t want to make matters worse, but the e-cloth I have at a specific side for brushed SS which is more textured than the polished SS side. Also, other products I have used in the past on SS (not on a coffee machine, but still SS) to good effect are Bar Keepers Friend and Peek.
Maybe do some research into those?
A light Puly solution followed by a wet cloth might do the trick for removing coffee oils.
I just did it this morning, Remember, it’s a splash back panel after all. It will get dirty again in no time.
The other parts of the machine are only cleaned with water.
Well now. Raised the issue with BB alongwith that photo and they said they couldnt identify the problem from sight of it. Fair enough i thought so i have asked if a replacement panel is an available spare part which could assist in resolving any potential for dispute. After all, it looks bad now, its not going to get any better and if i ever choose to pass the machine on i would settle for a ‘spare’ panel able to be swapped in. Accept that its a splash panel and going to get dirty but there’s ‘dirt’ and there’s ‘tarnish’ possibly due to a faulted back panel. I think i’m being reasonable with my request to resolve it amicably, the machine is two months old on the 3rd Sept. Anyone think i’m being unreasonable? Lets see what they say …
Being thick here they don’t ship in a really thin plastic film?
Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -
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Yours looks streets ahead of mine although that front panel is definitely an inferior finish to the rest of the shiny case, for exactly the reason you highlight …. it gets dirty. Notwithstanding that, mine’s a lemon in the splashback stakes.
BB are going to check on availability of spares with Lelit although they ‘no longer stock or sell the Elizabeth’. Sounds like the eath knell for LE if BB themselves aren’t carrying it anymore Maybe a spares stock for existing owners is called for soon.
skylark - Yeah. The spalshback panel is certainly not clean as the rest, but it’s clearly visible that the area often covered by the PF is still spotless :-) - So it must be just coffee oils/stains (in my case at least).
And I agree with you… It doesn’t seem to be the same finish as the rest of the machine.