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Good kitchen tool for moderate use
I am not a pasta making connoisseur, and can not give you a comparison to other pasta makers. This pasta making set has been used now about 6 times in my kitchen. My daughter lovers to make her own pasta. Construction seems solid, though some of the materials may be of less than top quality (one of the exterior screws seemed to be rusty or coated with some sort of rust like material). But the food surfaces looked fine. My one real complaint is that the crank handle is constantly falling out of it's shaft hole. The handle is meant to be removable, but there is nothing in the design to keep it from falling off if it is just lightly touch from below (which removes the friction holding it in place). It is more a silly annoyance than any real problem. The handle will end up dropping on the floor 4 or 5 times during a pasta making session (unhurt). It behaves properly when grasped firmly and is in use. The ravioli maker will be the hardest to use. It requires full, even width sheets of dough. And applying the filling in a rather tight space is a bit tricky. I think the manual flat ravioli templates would work better. It does come with a roller cutting tool to cut the dough strips to the correct width.
It did not come with any instructions at all! Not that you really need them, if you know how to make pasta dough. And the box seemed a bit old, like this is an excess of some large production run that needs to be moved, thus the really good price.
Perfectly serviceable and fun for light use.
[Wednesday, January 07, 2009]
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Disappointed
This machine weighs a ton, so consider return shipping costs if you aren't fully satisfied with it, as I am not...
Works fairly well for merely flattening the dough, however the ravioli attachment squeezes literally all of the filling out of the ravioli centers prior to sealing them up, the crank handle constantly comes out of its hole while you're cranking it, and the angel hair pasta attachment spits out a large "scored" sheet of pasta that will not separate itself into thin pasta pieces to save your life. I recommend buying a pasta machine in a store, so that you can return it if it works as poorly as this one.
[Saturday, December 27, 2008]
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Works as advertised
I was concerned about getting the V178 AL DENTE because of the negative reviews on Amazon but took the plunge since Amazon is great on handling returns. After having it for a week I've made several batches of pasta and I am very happy with the quality and functionality of the device. It took 3 batches before I got the hang of it, but recent batches have been turning out good.
I'm guessing those with issues are putting too much in, not taking the time for practice runs or using dough that is too sticky. For someone, like me, that wants a pasta maker and knows it will only be used occasionally, the Price/Quality exceeds expectations.
[Monday, October 27, 2008]
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