Fixing old Mixmaster proves value of ’50s tech
On my way to a long list of other things I should have been doing, I was distracted by a svelte 60-something-year-old.
Those 50 or older will know what I’m talking about: Out of the corner of my eye, as I walked though the kitchen, I saw that black and white Sunbeam Mixmaster mixer of my childhood.
It’s just like the one that Grandma used to whip up cakes. And that Mom to make the best chocolate-chip cookies. And it stopped me in my tracks last weekend.
Actually, it had been sitting there for a few weeks since it started making shrill noises at high speeds, and I had been avoiding it. But the time had come to tear it apart and put it back together after a thorough cleaning, oiling and greasing.
I had never done this before, but I had torn apart many motors, radios and other gadgets in what amounted to mechanical autopsies of dead machines. And given that this machine is at least 60 years old, I was confident that its 1950s engineering was designed so that everything could be taken apart with a screwdriver and a wrench for repair.
I wasn’t sure that a cleaning and oiling would fix this machine, but I had to try something to see if I could keep the old workhorse running.
We actually have two of these mixers. They were ubiquitous in the 1950s and ’60s; every baby boomer’s mother and grandmother had one, it seemed. The design is sleek and clean, and it easily accepts attachments, such as a juicer and a meat-grinder. (Both of which we have and still use — especially the meat grinder.)
We inherited the first of the Mixmasters about 30
years ago from my wife’s grandmother. We found it when cleaning out the attic of her home in Pittsburgh. The Sunbeam was missing the glass mixing bowls and beaters, and it was pretty dirty.
So I squirreled it away in the basement, where I spent hours cleaning up its exterior. I found a shop that stocked replacement parts for ancient mixers, boxed them up with the mixer and gave it to my bride for Christmas that year. She was thrilled and has used it ever since — along with a modern, “heavy-duty” mixer that died last month at age 10. (It’s next on the autopsy list.)
My wife bought the second Mixmaster online, probably from someone else who cleaned out a grandma’s attic. It’s a virtual duplicate of the one we inherited, and she bought it as a spare, or a parts machine, because she loves them.
And it’s good that she did, because Grandma’s started making those shrill noises about a month ago. It was the kind of noise that sets your teeth on edge — raspy and loud, like metal on metal. And it was accompanied by that hot electrical motor smell that tells even the clueless chef that something is wrong.
For those keeping count, that meant the last mixer standing was the parts machine, and it started sounding awful, too.
We decided that it would be the sacrificial trainer for the novice mixer repairman. It seemed fitting that I should tear it apart at the kitchen counter, where a mixer spends most of its time.
The machine is very simple, and it indeed came apart mostly with a flat-blade screwdriver. I used a small wrench to remove the gears, but that was it for tools.
I benefited greatly from a couple of YouTube videos produced by a young man who clearly has done this many times and, I presume, does it for a living.
His calm discussion of his work during the video diagnosed the problem in our mixer: The grease and oil on the important moving parts had turned sticky during the past six decades. “It’s like lubricating it with honey,” he said. That’s fitting for toast, but anything that slows down a small electric motor is going to cause it to work too hard. That’s when we hear its shrill call for help.
He used 3-in-1 oil to lubricate the shafts of the motor and for the beaters. The gears are packed with a liberal amount of grease. It looked a lot like the grease I used to pack into bearings in our old cars and trailers when I was a kid. The video repairman recommended synthetic grease because it holds up well over time and in various temperatures.
I used white grease, which I bought for less than $5 at an auto-parts store.
The tear-down, cleaning, re-greasing and re-assembly of the mixer took about four hours — at least half of which was spent scratching my head to make sure I was doing it properly and making a trip to the store for grease.
When it was back together and we turned the switch, it hummed like it was 1959 again. And so did I.