Boron Elgar
Product: Waring Pro FS150 Food Slicer Cost : Just under $100
The unit looks and operates like a miniature version of a commercial deli-style slicer. It has the same geometry and basic components. Since (over) using this one it has since been replaced it with a commercial hobart slicer, about $500 USD used.
Here's a list of the Waring's good and bad points.
Good points ===========
- It works well enough, considering
The slice thickness is adjustable from 1-32 to 1-2 inch (the specs say 9-10 inch maximum but after measuring I believe that's incorrect) With a little practice it produces slices thin enough to read a newspaper through. This is partly due to the very solid thickness adjustment mechanism. That part is all metal and well designed so the feeder mechanism doesn't shift at all when slicing.
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- It has a fairly small footprint
Dimension: 17-1-4 x 10-13-16 x 11-1-4 Weight: 15.15 lbs
- It's easy to clean
I've seen reviews complaining about the fact that it's hard to clean. Whoever wrote that review has never used a commercial meat slicer. This is much easier to clean by comparison.
- It's cheap
At under $100 it's the cheapest deli-type slicer I could find
Bad points ==========
- It's under powered
The 130 watt motor is single speed and rotates at a fairly low RPM. Very dense material will slow the blade rotation to a crawl. The specs recommend a maximum of 10 minutes usage at a time, but I found that this is not a hard and fast rule. It depends on what what you're slicing. It will slice enough meat for several party trays at once with no problem. I've never had any overheating of the motor, but I can easily see it happening with heavy enough use.
- It's part plastic
The feeder buttembly is almost all plastic. That doesn't present a big problem when slicing things because it's quite sturdy, but it does limit it's durability. Don't drop it, for instance.
- It doesn't handle large pieces
Given the fact that the blade has 6 inches of exposed surface and the feeder buttembly has 7 inches of travel, the largest piece you can cut is around 6 inches in diameter. I get around this by cutting the meat into smaller pieces where necessary. In other situations this could be a real limitation, like with very large blocks of cheese.
- It takes some getting used to
Because of it's construction and lack of power it's not as easy and idiot proof as a commercial slicer. However, if you have any knife skills at all you'll find yourself to producing good results right away.
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