Hello all,
The Mrs. bought me a 15 lb. stuffer from Sausage maker for Xmas back in '06. It had the polymer gears even though the box it came in said "stainless steel gears". When I called and asked why mine had polymer gears they said, "Oh, we stopped making them with metal gears a few years ago". Well it sat in the closet for the first few years I had it because when I get together with my buddies during deer season to make fresh sausage in a casing, we just put a stuffing horn for hog casing on my big Hobart grinder and run off 25-50 lbs. or so with no problem. I used the stuffer once to make a batch of bologna in 2.5" casings once about 5 years ago and it worked OK and then it sat until last deer season when I had some friends that wanted some venison bologna made. We got the first 10 lbs. done and partway into stuffing the second batch the
%&@*#% thing broke a tooth. I took it to our local Sausage maker outlet and the clown who calls himself manager gave me a runaround about it being abused etc. I told him, "Look fella, this thing has had less than 50 lbs. of meat through it. No I can't prove that but it's a fact. If you won't do right by me, I'll call you're Customer Service dept. and have a nice chat with them". He agreed to get me a new set of gears and install them.
A week later he called me and told me he had my stuffer ready to pick up. About three weeks later, I attempted to make bologna for my bro-in-law who killed a nice doe in our late Archery season after Christmas. I got about 2-3" of a log stuffed and the gears started slipping so badly that I wasn't able to finish the job with it. I went out to the garage, built a fire in the wood stove as it was in the teens out and later finished stuffing with my Hobart grinder and oh boy, was I pi$$ed!!... I called Sausage maker the next day and gave them an earful!! They said send it up right away and we'll make it right.
The only thing I can see that they've done is to weld in a stainless spacer above the top gear so that it can't hop above the lower gear. I've yet to try it but will be doing so soon. I will keep you all informed of the outcome.
My advise.... DON'T BUY any model with polymer gears from Sausage Maker. They're junk!!
Smokin' Burt