I recently restored a meat slicer from around the 1940s made by Berkel.
I say restored but it was mainly cleaning and repairing a few odds and ends. I am missing the tray that rests on the side that catches the cut product but i am going to make one on the as well as a replacement pusher plate or pusher plate cover still working out a design that wont end up with it being put into the blades.
I bought the cutter for 150$ Canadian and oh boy was it dirty. The thing had what seemed to be 30 years of neglect baked onto the outside of it. I didn’t take many pics of the before and they are pretty nasty lol. I completely tore it down into its individual pieces excluding the pulleys for them i just cleaned and re packed the bearings as well as a good wash in the housing as well as the handful of petrified “meat” that had worked itself inside there over the years.
It took me 19-20 hours of scrubbing to get this thing tore down cleaned and put back together. And after a re wire and replacing a few springs it is back into proper working order.I sharpened the blade with the built in sharpener then took the edge to a mirror finish with my sharpening stones and a final polish.
Learned a lot about how a slicer works tho, and in hindsight i’m not really upset this place went out of business because i got a cheap slicer out of the deal and they are no longer cutting food on what was probably the nastiest thing I’ve touched in the last 20 years.
I’m finishing up a watchmaking cleaning machine - it was corroded and tough looking but the motor & heater were still working. Bead blasted and painted it and am now replacing the 1950s-era wiring with nice new wire
that sounds really cool, what is the mechanism of cleaning? In new ones i suspect they use ultrasonic or something like that no idea what was around when yours was made tho.
There are a set of fine mesh baskets that you put the parts in (really tiny gears and plates). Those baskets are lowered into a jar with cleaning solution (naphtha) and the machine spins it for 30 seconds or so. Then the basket is raised and spun above the solution in the jar to get rid of much of the fluid residue. Then it moves to another jar for a 2nd bath in cleaning solution. After that it moves to a rinse jar. And finally it drops into a jar shaped housing in the machine that is heated and the basket is spun to dry off any remaining solution.
You have to be careful with some ultrasonic cleaning as the most delicate components (including the jewels & their pivots) can be broken by the ultrasonic waves.
Here’s what they look like before they’re rehabbed. In this condition it would be about $500-750. After restoration it would cost 2-4X that.
Here’s what it looks like now. I made the mistake of not coating the plating on the center shaft after I bead blasted so I’m going to have to clean off the shop rust by hand
But it’s a ton better and I just have to replace the motor cord and it’ll be done. Still trying to decide what I’m going to do for the switchplate. Probably going to setup a water transfer decal for it.
Oh, yeah I work on watches. One of my other hobbies - but one I can actually make regular money off once I don’t have to keep fussing with the day job Studying for the FBHI exams so I can sit for them in London in a couple of years.
as well as a replacement pusher plate or pusher plate cover still working out a design that wont end up with it being put into the blades.
