'Mincer' we call 'em in Aus. 'Ground beef' they call it in USA so I suppose they'd call them 'grinders'.

Anyway I mean the hand operated type. I've got pics I can post if it seems desirable.

The way it operates it has a thick circular plate pierced by numerous holes about 5mm diameter.

A star shaped - four limbs - cutter rotates on that plate, flush up against it.

The pressure from behind forces the meat against the plate. The cutter cuts through it and little bit of meat passes through.

Okay.

But it seems too hard to me.

Maybe they just always were hard to operate. If anyone knows and that's where it's at then okay.

But I have to clamp it to the kitchen table to operate it and forcing the handle round at times lifts the whole table... quite a nuisance... and that's soft good beef, nothing especially hard or difficult.

And I notice the plate gets clogged with fine strands of tissue - a fatty tissue I think or connective tissue. Anyway it doesn't get cut.

And the thing seems badly designed (though I imagine I'm wrong there, they'd surely know what they were doing) inasmuch as behind the plate there's about 30mm of space where stuff just accumulates in a solid core around the shaft and never gets pushed through, never gets ground up and is a set amount of waste for every use of the thing.

So it seems to me it needs the 'star' shaped cutting blades need sharpening and I wonder how and am here asking.

And it seems to me maybe the flat plate needs milling to a true flat surface and I'm here enquiring on that.

And lastly I'm thinking of putting a motor on it and driving it that way so I wonder if anyone has any experience or applicable technical knowledge regarding that? Feasible or not? What speeds of rotation?


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