Universal Housewares Universal Housewares Cast Iron Meat Chopper with Pulley

Purchased this #32 Universal Housewares grinder because it appeared to be a little more durable (from pics), made in the USA, the other reviews and was 2X the expense as others I could find online (get what you pay for sort of thing). Not the case entirely.Go to Universal Housewares web site - assuming it is still up - currently appears to be a USA manufacturer. This grinder is made in China. I called the number on the Universal Housewares web site and it was disconnected. A "Universal Trading Co. Inc." single piece of instructions paper came with the grinder claiming it was "Milled Iron Castings".Have not actually used it yet but it has two sets of steel bearings. The bearings near the handle end of the housing are pressed into the housing, look good and contain a centered fixed shaft that connects to the wheel. There is also a set of bearings on the worm where the worm connects to the shaft. The bearings on the worm come out with the worm and can be cleaned, etc. The bearings set up actually appear somewhat durable.The large end cap that screws against the plate has non-uniform threads on the first thread row so the cap currently presses at an angle against the plate. I believe a little grinding on the first thread on the cap and I can fix it but not sure. If not it will cause wear on the blades/plate when it cuts.The grinder is heavy and the wheel appears sturdy with a solid connection to the shaft. The housing and worm are tinned like the other China models. I read that some food prep products are tinned and should be tinned with 100% non-toxic tin but with China products who knows. The tin does flake off the worm with my fingernail. I would rather not have it tinned and just oil it when finished with it. May try to use my dremel brush to take the tin off the worm at least.Like the others, the worm tip is a little loose at the plate hole. The worm tip is all steel and screws into the worm. Most all grinders I see are like this but it could be improved. It also came with a 2" pully for an electric motor, 5/8" maybe?. A nice plus.I purchased a single phase Grizzly 3/4 hp motor for this grinder and I believe it should be sufficient but was concerned with the 1725 or so RPM on the motor and pulley ratios. With this set up the worm may spin to fast, estimating 145-190 RMP. Took the problem to an electrician and he is going to install some widget to the motor so I can adjust the RPM. He claimed the torque will remain the same. He is also going to wire it up with an on/off/reverse switch.All in all I believe I can make this work and grind game meat quickly but it is not worth 5 stars.

My husband and I used this for the first time tonight. We had a huge venison roast and put it through the grinder very easily. Although, I could definitely see how a motor would simplify matters, we still went through it in less than an hour (which includes cleaning it up post-grinding, and taking care of our cranky children). I would recommend this to others. This one hasn't been as impressive as some motored ones I have been around, but it did the job efficiently, was easy to clean, and didn't get my kitchen messy with "goo" everywhere. You will want a workbench or something similar to bolt it down on.- One complaint, the packaging we received the grinder in was horrible. I am almost surprised we even got it because of the box being in such bad shape. Also, no manual included and the handle didn't survive the transit, so my husband had to make one. These aren't devastating factors, but are annoying.

OH- where to begin. When first taking it out of the box my husband noticed the casting still had ruff edges on the pulley wheel, ruff as to where it could cut someone if they weren't careful. The machining holes for the bolts were off center, the housing where the shaft bolted in was cracked due to this, thus also making the shaft off center. SO, the shaft couldn't even rotate at all. My husband tried to remedy it by doing a few things, after getting it "fixed" as best he could he hooked up a motor to the pulley wheel and let it run about an hour with veg oil in it so we wouldn't wind up with metal shavings in our meat. (8 deer that mostly was going to be ground...)When it was running it was LOUD, as if someone was knocking two hammers together. Not ideal seeing as how we like to process while our kids are asleep. The barring was loose in it's recess and required an additional spacer in order to hold it in tight, which he remedied with a piece of copper wire. We promptly requested a replacement and it got here in 24hrs! Amazing as that was the second one we received was worse. The shaft was still off set, the housing was cracked even worse and the part that holds the grind plate in was stripped.The other was already boxed up and we were done with the product. We promptly boxed it back up as well and requested a refund. Maybe it was the batch from the manufacturer... but it was junk and now we are sitting on 150 pounds of meat that WAS to be ground. I've updated this, my husband gave me his details of the horror of it all.

Product is from china and no different that the 60-70 dollar meat grinders from buffalo tools or Kitchener from northern tool (69.99). The one I received was not packaged well and looked like it was either used and returned or returned and then sent back out to me. One MAJOR issue was that the end where the ground meat comes out was cross threaded and I could not get it unscrewed, even after using a cheater bar. Very poor quality which is not what I expected from such an old well-established company such as "universal". If you order this please do yourself a favor and totally disassemble to check all the threads and moving parts.

This grinder works great. I have a 1hp motor doing 1700rpm and with the pulley system included, it goes through a deer in 20 minutes by myself. There was not much included about motor size or rpm when I purchased mine, so I hope this information helps future buyers.