Drunkard's Walk Forums

So a bit of backstory: I'm the proud owner of a 1980s vintage Oster Regency Kitchen Center; y'know, the one that starts as a standing mixer, but you can swap the mixer head for all sorts of other bits like a blender, ice cream maker, and in our particular case, a food shredder. I bought it and the attachments second hand, knowing that it's effectively a tank I'd have to work at deliberately to kill, and it's a pretty good jack of all trades.

A couple of months back, the pin in the food shredder that pushes the center of the blade hub down into the motor gear hub - basically the SAFETY to keep one from operating it with the lid off -  snapped off. I finally repaired it last week by running basically a metal pin through the broken area to rejoin the plastic pin with the upper housing it snapped off of.

I could buy another food processor/shredder attachment for the setup, but I'm also acknowledging this: the replacement would likely also be in the range of 35 years old, with the usual problem that comes with the plastics attending in terms of the pin may be weakened with age and use. But we also do shred a fair amount of cheese in this house (I don't care for the things the added cellulose does to pre-shredded cheese). And I like my automated methods a little too much.

So, I suppose the recommendations I'm looking for is something (and it can be a dedicated unit, rather than the jack of all trades master of a few, since it is a regular use item) to replace the shredder/processor that's a dedicated unit, brand new, and built like a tank so that I don't have to worry about purchasing a replacement for 30+ years.

Quote:And I like my automated methods a little too much.

Is that a deal-breaker? Because if you're willing to go with something that needs a bit of muscle power, I'd recommend one of these.

(Yes, it's a wood rasp - but it's made of stainless steel. No rust on the cheese, as long as you keep it clean.)

We've actually got a rasp for hard cheeses. What I'm looking for is more for softer cheeses like Jack and Cheddar. And we do have a manual grater/knuckle biter for those as a back-up, but the cheeses we use here tend to get all bendy when I use it, even the bigger blocks, because they're just soft enough.

Can you not just jump the safety switch or something?

(07-27-2018, 04:55 PM)Dartz Wrote: [ -> ]Can you not just jump the safety switch or something?

It's a physical pin that presses the physical hub of the food processor against the physical gear of the motor. There isn't a safety switch other than a buried spring involved. Basically, without the pin, the hub doesn't make contact with the gear, and the spring isn't removable without destructive disassembly. It's engineering beauty in the simplicity.