"History" Posts

Whirlpool Cost Reductions I: Pinion Drive Bearings

In the decades since Whirlpool first acquired the KitchenAid mixer product line from Hobart, they’ve made a few cost reductions. Here is one: the pinion shaft bearing, which transmits energy from the motor shaft to the main gears. Of note here are two specific changes: the first is that the alignment pin is now cast into the bearing housing itself (top). Originally (bottom) the casting had a hole in it which accepted a dowel pin (visible on the right-hand side)….    more →Whirlpool Cost Reductions I: Pinion Drive Bearings

Family Heirloom

Every so often I encounter someone with a really old machine that needs repair, or even just long-overdue maintenance. The owner is very reluctant to let the machine out of their sight, because it was a treasured gift, or handed down from a loved relative. I totally get it — you never know what can go wrong if you let it leave the house. But really, it’ll be OK. As long as you send your machine to me. In “You…    more →Family Heirloom

Plastic Mythology

There seems to be a trope going around that modern KitchenAid mixers are specifically inferior to vintage ones because their “gears are made of plastic” (or a similarly phrased complaint). This is categorically not true. All of the gears in full-sized tilt-head KitchenAid mixers, from a 60s-era K45, the 90s KSM90 “Ultra Power” or the modern KSM150 Artisan (and all the variants in between, but not the Artisan Mini or Accolade), are the same. This is also the same gearing…    more →Plastic Mythology

You Never Forget Your First…

I don’t remember exactly how old I was when it arrived; I was just a kid. (Maybe ten or so.) Avocado green, because that’s how it was done in the 1970s. Our old Sunbeam Mixmaster had gone to the great appliance farm in the sky. We had an Oster meat grinder which made the most unholy high-pitched scream when it ran. Then, one day, there it was. This futuristic-looking machine did a superior job in both of the areas where…    more →You Never Forget Your First…