Vintage 1930 Pasta Machine 'Bürk' Restoration - Perfect Result and perfect pasta!

There's nothing like homemade pasta! I found this old pasta machine on Ebay. It comes from a Swabian manufacturer who was famous for his heavy, stable and long lasting pasta machines. 'Bürk' was told to be the 'Mercedes of pasta machines'. Modern pasta machines are usually made of thin sheet metal. This one is made of solid iron and weighs 5 kilograms!

I don't know exactly how old it is. But it is marked 'DRGM'. This is a reference to a German patent that was used from 1891 to 1945. As the machine is almost lavishly built of heavy metal, I believe it was built before 1939. After the outbreak of war, I'm sure they wouldn't have provided that much metal for a kitchen machine. So it is at least 80 years old.

Because of the solid construction, everything was also very well preserved. Nothing was broken. Nothing had to be rebuilt. Only rust had affected the machine. And the old nickel coating was quite damaged. Actually, it just needed to be cleaned and polished and given a new nickel coating. I removed the old nickel coating chemically. I didn't want to have toxic nickel dust in the workshop. Some parts I actually wanted to plate with copper first and polish before I nickel plated them. But that didn't work well. Even with an alkaline electrolyte, the copper layer didn't hold well. So I had to accept that some small scratches remained that could not be sanded out.

I did not re-plating the knives with nickel. Food should not have too much contact with nickel. Instead, the brass rollers turned out very nicely. The paint was specially mixed according to the original and matches the old paint very well. I am very happy with the result. And especially with the homemade pasta!