Portafilter Handle Repair

The portafilter handle for my ROK Espresso maker cracked from me being a bit overzealous with the knock box so I thought I'd just make a new one, a bit more fancy though : )

I used my lathe to shape the handle because it was quick and easy but you can use anything you like to carve out the handle. A jigsaw, bandsaw, carving knife or any type of sander will work just as well.

Using these methods or similar you can repair the handle on almost everything!

I have a bunch of scraps laying around the workshop so for this job I picked out some leftover ply that was cutout from the inside of a bandsaw box drawer I had made recently.

Basically the first step was to square up the timber close to size so that it fit in my lathe chuck. My table-saw and drop-saw made short work of this.

Shaping the handle on the lathe is pretty easy, I just made sure I took light cuts to reduce any tear out. I didn't really have a plan for the shape so kinda worked it out as I went along.

As mentioned earlier you can use anything you like to shape the handle. As long as it cuts wood it will work!

I then sanded the handle through grits of 80/120/180/240/320/500/1200. Finally I used some cut and polish to really give it a shine.

Because I used the lathe chuck to hold the wood I still had a square part on the bottom of the handle that was inside the chuck jaws. (see step 4 for pic) This was perfect to use as a level base to hold the handle straight when drilling a hole for the filter holder. I firstly drilled a pilot hole then then the bigger hole, very carefully of course!

My portafilter had a key on the filter basket that fit into the original handle and because I didn't need it I simply ground it off using my big grinder. I used my small rotary tool grinder to clean it up.

After test fitting the handle everything looked good so I then sanded off the square base using my disc sander.

For the base of the handle I found a neat looking drawer pull at my local hardware store that matched perfectly. I just drilled a hole in the base of the handle so that the top off the pull sits flush against the handle.

Once I was happy with the fit I gave the handle a few coats of poly then glued it all together. For this one the glue I used CA glue but I usually use epoxy.

And here it is, much cooler than the original i think!