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Vintage Bread Slicer project - yep. Exactly. And it's even pic heavy! ^^

EvilT

Active Member
17/12/14
371
17
18
Germany
Watch-wise I currently can't provide too much value to this forum, so I thought I at least share something new I learnt about vintage household products recently for the RWI public to enjoy [emoji4]

So at a friends' place we spent a couple of days at during a holiday trip the Missus enjoyed a vintage Alexanderwerk bread slicing machine and kept on talking about how good it worked compared to our friggin' 5 years old standard household automatic slicer by Krups (90 bucks value or so).

So I decided to briefly learn a bit about these things, bought a 50's vintage machine on eBay for 20 bucks, worked a bit on it and, after learning that this beast now cuts bread like a hot knife would go through butter, sold the Krups for 30 bucks [emoji23][emoji106]

So, here an overview of this particular brand and machine:

Alexanderwerk got founded in 1885 and still exists today. They started off with a mechanical meat grinder and produced a wide range of household and industry/ lab machines since then. Today/ since somewhere around the 80's they only work in the field of medical industry/ lab equivalent.

Here a range of bread slicers over the decades, pictures from google search, no warranty on accuracy of models/ versions ;)

v1 (~1900-1920's):
3b2aa83f4e0e9398db25d8a0403332d9.jpg

This one I personally really like. It's so.. manly.. archaic... but since we have kids (7-13 years) this one also shouts 'look Dad, no limbs!' somehow...

v2 (~1930-1940's):
45da8a7b2142584b2958f67cb05e8558.jpg

10aaa3de075be5c4c81b8d7566e7446f.jpg


v3 (~1950's):
bb012b3bf252b505c215dc5ea2bc5370.png


v4 (~1960's+):
a39cd8fcf4358b4cae4fc3e32c03a825.jpg


Here please enjoy an oldschool advertisement I found online, from around the 50's/60's:
99ae129be2dee597ad5b40c0a6f433b9.jpg


Now on to 'my' machine: I opted for the v3, since it for me sports the best from both worlds: robustness of true vintage high quality craftsmanship while utilizing quite modern materials (stainless steel etc) but not yet affected of a 'too modern strive for cheaper and more efficient manufacturing' if you get what I mean. This, paired with vintage yet timeless appearance. Decide for yourself ;)

I disassembled all parts, cleaned them thoroughly and oiled the necessary parts. After putting it together it indeed now will become a daily used, darn cool tool in our kitchen :D

Some pics from about middle of the cleaning process already when I got the idea for this thread ^^
3458882967ffbf69b8656d026f42c3ca.jpg


278dc4f4acb3812629446001cdecd02d.jpg


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ALL METAL BEZEL! Goal here is to hear no clicks at all though...

a9c4e01288d47659340faf3fce335d42.jpg


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839a28e17cd9bd1678b78785fd0c7e8a.jpg


c2b49ca2049fb0a53c30a45b4f3e9eb3.jpg


And a RWI tribute shot with a BBB:
4976ef5473726b755cf07511d8bbda46.jpg


I hope I didn't waste too much of your precious time, but rather enjoyed this little write-up ;)

All the best,

Evil T.


Sent from my PAM using the RWI PAMatalk mobile app
 

Fiddo

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Quite interesting!! I'm also a fan of "vintage" stuff.

Thanks for taking the time to post this!
 

xpletiv

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It looks as though the blade should cut "up" as the teeth are in that direction, is that how it is? Seems odd.
 

britain4

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13/11/15
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Very cool! I love getting stuff like this up and running again!
 

ivyjane

Looking Around
20/4/18
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Hard to imagine that this is the original style of bread slicer, looks like the food slicer and can be used for various of cuttings!
 

trailboss99

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Lovely old jigger that is! It will still be going strong in 100 years if taken care of.
 

ACILPER

You're Saying I Can Sell?
14/4/18
65
14
0
Fascinating stuff...
Are a couple of those used for slicing joints of meat, e.g. ham!?

Many moons ago, I had a go at restoring some old vintage scales.