I'll put it this way, I've used my 12 inch unit to blast away at a ton of corned beef, pastrami, ham and bacon.....it works awsome and clean up is a breeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeee comparied to my other units, as I mentioned before and was so in this thread the key is to remove the blade.....not that difficult to do and just do it "sober"...DUH......... I used mine to slice up a ton of ham and bacon tonight and broke it down, cleaned and sanitized it in less then 15 minutes........ yes you need a phillips screwdriver, but hey we all should have one of those afterall....... three screws and that blade is off......... did I mention this slicer is the EASIEST to clean I've ever had??????? and I still have 2 other slicers........still........really......don't use them anymore.......but I'm a packrat I guess......