Homemaker Professional Grade Pasta Maker Heavy Duty

My girls love pasta (like don't all kids) so I took a chance on this as a holiday present. Overall, I don't regret it, but here's the story why.This was surprisingly smaller than I expected. I'm sure it meets the specified dimensions, but it felt small. I'll start with the bad:* The thing arrived smelling like machine oil, which is not good. It was like factory assembly oil was still on it. My wife was repulsed.* One of the connectors holding the noodle cutter in place wasn't installed properly, resulting in a pasta guide being out of alignment. This meant that the noodle cutting parts wouldn't spin right. I couldn't easily correct the alignment out of the box.* It's not foolproof in making pasta, although practice should help.To address those, I took off the sides of the cutter heads, saw how the connector holding things should work, and removed it to fix the guide that wasn't aligned properly. This only required a phillips head screwdriver, and wasn't too bad. I have to admit that the servicability of this machine is higher than expected--things are largely screwed on, and can be removed for disassembly without too much pain. There are a lot of sharp surfaces, so do be careful if you dissect the machine.Next, I cleaned it pretty thoroughly with dishwashing soap, even though the instructions say to not clean it with water. The machine oil smell seemed to come off pretty well, although the box smelled, so that had to go out into the recycling.Okay, a the good items:The thing has instructions, and seems to have good functionality. The thickness is adjustable with the little knob on the left, and it seems to work pretty much as expected. It could be 4 stars if it arrived in better shape.Our neighbor boy, who I consider a master chef junior based on how his parents talk about him, had no problem creating some delicious spaghetti noodles for a dinner. He didn't figure out the clamp down thing, although I showed him after he was complaining the clamp wasn't working right. If you are a good chef, or part Italian, I'm guessing it will work pretty well. We had a good impression after dis-assembly, fixing, cleaning, re-assembly, and use by the neighbor boy cooking genius. He said it was fine as a pasta maker, and didn't complain about it--and I'm hopeful he's not just being nice.Today, my wife and girls tried to use it, and they were not impressed. Evidently, their dough was not as good as that created by our neighbor, and they kept having trouble with the handle. The dough would fall apart (they may not have the wetness right) and basically they had a bunch of problems. We are clearly not an Italian family, and practice should give improvement. Hopefully the thing withstands our learning phase, and has some durability, which it appears to have.Overall, I'd probably give it 4 stars, but arriving with the maligned cutting guide and smelling like machine oil, I could also see giving it two stars as well.

This is the second pasta maker I've ever owned, and to its credit, it was a lot easier to remove the oil on the sides of the rollers that can get on the dough and make it look dirty. That's pretty much the nicest thing I could say about it. As I rolled out the dough to a level 5 (9 being the thinnest), the dough gets caught up in the underside of the rollers instead of rolling out. It backed up as it stuck to the rollers and made a mess as it jammed with the rest of the dough that hadn't been rolled out. I had to add a lot more flour to the mixture than I'm used to in order to keep the dough from clinging to the rollers, and I couldn't roll it out any thinner than 5 (I figure 7 is a good thickness). The result was a really thick noodle that still tasted a bit like flour in the middle. I'm also sure there's some dough left in the compartments of the pasta machine that I can't reach. What I found is that the metal underneath the roller became bent out of shape, so instead of scraping the dough off the roller, it caught the dough and trapped it inside the front compartment.The machine itself felt more delicate than what I'm used to. The hand crank used to turn the rollers slides out of position too easily, and it fell out several times during use, when the machine should be holding onto it a little more tightly. The grip that holds it to the counter also unscrews by itself thanks to force, so the machine will jump as I work the dough.Professional grade and heavy duty, it is not. A good pasta machine should be durable, and this was anything but. Sadly, after only one use, I may have to just buy a new machine.

I finally received my pasta maker a few weeks back and today, used it. OMG!!!!!. I love this hand crank machine, just love it. I thought it was going to give me trouble using it, but, ( let me say it again), but, it's the easiest hand operated equipment EVERRR!. It really is, following the direction, for my pasta noodles, also, for my lasagna, turn out just grand. This is my frist time using. Then, for the frist time, I made my angle hair and let it dry. I'm so very glad I got this . Before at the begining, I was not going to order, thinking, Im going to use it one time, going to be hard to use, may-be, I might be to lazy to keep taking out and putting away. Not at all. Im glad I got this, and at a very good price too. Thanks, MarieSmith

1st time making pasta, wasn't ready to make a big investment, and this worked great! So heavy. Will stick with this one, easy to use, cleaned up well.

I really love this the only problem I have is trying to keep it on the table or counter. It keeps moving around. It would go so much easier if I could tighten it down better

Works well but cleaning instructions soul have come in handy. Also it's a good idea to remo e the covers an lube the gears.

We were very disappointed with this pasta maker and don't think the "heavy duty" description is accurate. The first time we used it, it rolled out the pasta dough very unevenly (alternating thick and very thin sections). Upon further inspection, the mechanism to roll out the dough appears to be bent, preventing it from generating a usable rolled out pasta dough. Not sure if the product was faulty upon arrival or just bent upon first use. Either way, I would not buy it again.

Great simple machines at a great price. I bought four of them and use them in a pasta making class that I teach.