This is a Sunbeam LeChef food processor, Catalog # 14-11. We
inherited it from my wife's mother. It's at least 20 years old. It
sat unused for about 15 years until we developed a need for it about 9
months ago. Since then we have used it many times. It has always
worked properly.

Our dog has no teeth so we use it to grind kibble into a powder. It
has worked great for this, week in and week out. A few nights ago
when we started to grind our regular three cups of kibble the cutter
blade rose on it's support post until it reached the lid. This was
high enough that it came off the center post, began to wobble and made
a disturbing bumping sound.

We tried to grind the same batch about five or six times. It runs for
a short time, then repeats the behavior. By the end it had gotten to
the powder stage and the blade quit rising. To test it I ran it with
nothing in the bowl and again with water -- it will run properly
apparently forever this way.

Anybody know what's causing this?

On 6/9/2010 10:13 AM, jim evans wrote:
This is a Sunbeam LeChef food processor, Catalog # 14-11. We
inherited it from my wife's mother. It's at least 20 years old. It
sat unused for about 15 years until we developed a need for it about 9
months ago. Since then we have used it many times. It has always
worked properly.

Our dog has no teeth so we use it to grind kibble into a powder. It
has worked great for this, week in and week out. A few nights ago
when we started to grind our regular three cups of kibble the cutter
blade rose on it's support post until it reached the lid. This was
high enough that it came off the center post, began to wobble and made
a disturbing bumping sound.

We tried to grind the same batch about five or six times. It runs for
a short time, then repeats the behavior. By the end it had gotten to
the powder stage and the blade quit rising. To test it I ran it with
nothing in the bowl and again with water -- it will run properly
apparently forever this way.

Anybody know what's causing this?

It's often due to overloading the bowl. Food processors I've owned
usually caution about that happening. Try reducing the amount ground
by one-third to one-half and see if it helps.

On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:21:28 -0500, Hell Toupee
wrote:

On 6/9/2010 10:13 AM, jim evans wrote:
This is a Sunbeam LeChef food processor, Catalog # 14-11. We
inherited it from my wife's mother. It's at least 20 years old. It
sat unused for about 15 years until we developed a need for it about 9
months ago. Since then we have used it many times. It has always
worked properly.

Our dog has no teeth so we use it to grind kibble into a powder. It
has worked great for this, week in and week out. A few nights ago
when we started to grind our regular three cups of kibble the cutter
blade rose on it's support post until it reached the lid. This was
high enough that it came off the center post, began to wobble and made
a disturbing bumping sound.

We tried to grind the same batch about five or six times. It runs for
a short time, then repeats the behavior. By the end it had gotten to
the powder stage and the blade quit rising. To test it I ran it with
nothing in the bowl and again with water -- it will run properly
apparently forever this way.

Anybody know what's causing this?

It's often due to overloading the bowl. Food processors I've owned
usually caution about that happening. Try reducing the amount ground
by one-third to one-half and see if it helps.

Thanks for the reply. After it started happening we cut back the
amount to a third (one cup) and it still happens. After that we
slowly poured in the feed tube -- it happened before we got even one
cup in.

jim evans wrote:
This is a Sunbeam LeChef food processor, Catalog # 14-11. We
inherited it from my wife's mother. It's at least 20 years old. It
sat unused for about 15 years until we developed a need for it about 9
months ago. Since then we have used it many times. It has always
worked properly.

Our dog has no teeth so we use it to grind kibble into a powder. It
has worked great for this, week in and week out. A few nights ago
when we started to grind our regular three cups of kibble the cutter
blade rose on it's support post until it reached the lid. This was
high enough that it came off the center post, began to wobble and made
a disturbing bumping sound.

We tried to grind the same batch about five or six times. It runs for
a short time, then repeats the behavior. By the end it had gotten to
the powder stage and the blade quit rising. To test it I ran it with
nothing in the bowl and again with water -- it will run properly
apparently forever this way.

Anybody know what's causing this?

FWIW, it might be easier and better for the pooch to just soak the
kibble. Our dog was hit by a car and had fractured pelvis. During his
recovery, I added milk and egg to his normal food, let it soak and then
fed him. Normal for humans with fractures is to give a high protein,
high calorie diet ) Our dog ate about twice his normal amount of food
during recovery but gained no weight. He recovered completely, in spite
of also having to endure enemas a time or two - no push power with
fractured pelvis ) Having an RN is extremely useful )

On 6/9/2010 11:27 AM, jim evans wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:21:28 -0500, Hell
wrote:

On 6/9/2010 10:13 AM, jim evans wrote:
This is a Sunbeam LeChef food processor, Catalog # 14-11. We
inherited it from my wife's mother. It's at least 20 years old. It
sat unused for about 15 years until we developed a need for it about 9
months ago. Since then we have used it many times. It has always
worked properly.

Our dog has no teeth so we use it to grind kibble into a powder. It
has worked great for this, week in and week out. A few nights ago
when we started to grind our regular three cups of kibble the cutter
blade rose on it's support post until it reached the lid. This was
high enough that it came off the center post, began to wobble and made
a disturbing bumping sound.

We tried to grind the same batch about five or six times. It runs for
a short time, then repeats the behavior. By the end it had gotten to
the powder stage and the blade quit rising. To test it I ran it with
nothing in the bowl and again with water -- it will run properly
apparently forever this way.

Anybody know what's causing this?

It's often due to overloading the bowl. Food processors I've owned
usually caution about that happening. Try reducing the amount ground
by one-third to one-half and see if it helps.

Thanks for the reply. After it started happening we cut back the
amount to a third (one cup) and it still happens. After that we
slowly poured in the feed tube -- it happened before we got even one
cup in.

Well, the next guess would be that the blade is no longer sharp enough
to process the load as efficiently as it used to. Have you tried a
combination of a smaller amount and pulsing the machine, instead of
having the blade run non-stop? The pauses between action might give
the kibble enough time to settle back down in the bowl. The only other
possible solution I can think of would be to add a liquid to the bowl
to moisten the kibble as it grinds, keeping it down low - but unless
you're going to feed it immediately, that wouldn't work.

If you're willing to invest in another machine, I'd recommend getting
a coffee grinder for the kibble. Those are amazing at how fast they
can render even fairly hard stuff to powder. I use mine to grind hard
spices.

On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:32:15 -0500, Hell Toupee
wrote:

If you're willing to invest in another machine, I'd recommend getting
a coffee grinder for the kibble. Those are amazing at how fast they
can render even fairly hard stuff to powder. I use mine to grind hard
spices.

That's an excellent suggestion. If I can't solve this problem I'll
look into it. Do you know how long it takes to grind a cup of beans?

On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:51:58 -0400, "
wrote:

jim evans wrote:
This is a Sunbeam LeChef food processor, Catalog # 14-11. We
inherited it from my wife's mother. It's at least 20 years old. It
sat unused for about 15 years until we developed a need for it about 9
months ago. Since then we have used it many times. It has always
worked properly.

Our dog has no teeth so we use it to grind kibble into a powder. It
has worked great for this, week in and week out. A few nights ago
when we started to grind our regular three cups of kibble the cutter
blade rose on it's support post until it reached the lid. This was
high enough that it came off the center post, began to wobble and made
a disturbing bumping sound.

We tried to grind the same batch about five or six times. It runs for
a short time, then repeats the behavior. By the end it had gotten to
the powder stage and the blade quit rising. To test it I ran it with
nothing in the bowl and again with water -- it will run properly
apparently forever this way.

Anybody know what's causing this?

FWIW, it might be easier and better for the pooch to just soak the
kibble.

We first tried soaking, but even after soaking for 20 minutes the
brand we buy was not soft through-and-through.

On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:29:51 -0500, jim evans
wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:32:15 -0500, Hell Toupee
wrote:

If you're willing to invest in another machine, I'd recommend getting
a coffee grinder for the kibble. Those are amazing at how fast they
can render even fairly hard stuff to powder. I use mine to grind hard
spices.

That's an excellent suggestion. If I can't solve this problem I'll
look into it. Do you know how long it takes to grind a cup of beans?

Just moments. A coffee grinder also lets you pulse the beans. For me
(we I used them) a few pulses and/or a longer hold of the button.

It would surely be a good option.

I knew nothing about coffee grinders before I read your message. I've
now looked at about 20 of them on Amazon. They all seem to grind 3oz
at a time. If that's equivalent to liquid measure, unless it grinds
the 3oz in a few seconds, it would take us too long to grind all we do
at one time -- 12 cups or about 100oz

I've found a Mr. Coffee that will do more than one cup. The reviews
aren't great, but if push comes to shove . . .

On 6/9/2010 2:48 PM, jim evans wrote:
I knew nothing about coffee grinders before I read your message. I've
now looked at about 20 of them on Amazon. They all seem to grind 3oz
at a time. If that's equivalent to liquid measure, unless it grinds
the 3oz in a few seconds, it would take us too long to grind all we do
at one time -- 12 cups or about 100oz

Take a look at this one. It has an eight-ounce capacity hopper (that's
eight ounces of coffee beans, to give you a mental image of the bulk
capacity), and discharges the ground product into a larger storage
jar. So you could grind, adding more kibble, till the jar fills up,
then dump the jar, repeat as needed. It will be quick, and you can
adjust the fineness of grind.

http://www.cuisinart.com/products/coffee_bar/dbm-8.html

On 6/9/2010 2:45 PM, Oren wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:29:51 -0500, jim evans
wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:32:15 -0500, Hell
wrote:

If you're willing to invest in another machine, I'd recommend getting
a coffee grinder for the kibble. Those are amazing at how fast they
can render even fairly hard stuff to powder. I use mine to grind hard
spices.

That's an excellent suggestion. If I can't solve this problem I'll
look into it. Do you know how long it takes to grind a cup of beans?

Just moments. A coffee grinder also lets you pulse the beans. For me
(we I used them) a few pulses and/or a longer hold of the button.

It would surely be a good option.


I've never been a coffee drinker but you reminded me of the big
self service coffee grinders I used to see in grocery stores. If
you could find one of those old monsters, you could grind a whole
bag of kibble at once.

TDD

jim evans wrote:
As it turns out, my wife had a Braun coffee grinder at the back of a
cabinet. We tried it and it sure works good. It grinds three ounces
so quickly it may be as fast as the food processor. The thing that
takes time is getting the powder out. If I can come up with a way to
speed up emptying it I'm sure it will take no longer than the food
processor. Thanks so much for your suggestion.

turn it upside down whilst it's still grinding, then turn it off. all the
dust will be in the cup

jim evans wrote:
This is a Sunbeam LeChef food processor, Catalog # 14-11. We
inherited it from my wife's mother. It's at least 20 years old. It
sat unused for about 15 years until we developed a need for it about 9
months ago. Since then we have used it many times. It has always
worked properly.

Our dog has no teeth so we use it to grind kibble into a powder. It
has worked great for this, week in and week out. A few nights ago
when we started to grind our regular three cups of kibble the cutter
blade rose on it's support post until it reached the lid. This was
high enough that it came off the center post, began to wobble and made
a disturbing bumping sound.

We tried to grind the same batch about five or six times. It runs for
a short time, then repeats the behavior. By the end it had gotten to
the powder stage and the blade quit rising. To test it I ran it with
nothing in the bowl and again with water -- it will run properly
apparently forever this way.

Anybody know what's causing this?

Is it threaded in the direction so that when working it *should* tighten
itself? If so it's probably stripped. I used some good SLOW curing
epoxy on my coffee grinder with the same problem. 24 hour epoxy, let it
cure for 4-5 days. If it turns in the direction that normal use would
unscrew it, just clean it up and put some loctite on it.

jim evans wrote:
I knew nothing about coffee grinders before I read your message. I've
now looked at about 20 of them on Amazon. They all seem to grind 3oz
at a time. If that's equivalent to liquid measure, unless it grinds
the 3oz in a few seconds, it would take us too long to grind all we do
at one time -- 12 cups or about 100oz

You need a *real* coffee grinder. Not the cheap little blender style
ones (like I have).

Hell Toupee wrote:
On 6/9/2010 11:27 AM, jim evans wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:21:28 -0500, Hell
wrote:

On 6/9/2010 10:13 AM, jim evans wrote:
This is a Sunbeam LeChef food processor, Catalog # 14-11. We
inherited it from my wife's mother. It's at least 20 years old. It
sat unused for about 15 years until we developed a need for it about 9
months ago. Since then we have used it many times. It has always
worked properly.

Our dog has no teeth so we use it to grind kibble into a powder. It
has worked great for this, week in and week out. A few nights ago
when we started to grind our regular three cups of kibble the cutter
blade rose on it's support post until it reached the lid. This was
high enough that it came off the center post, began to wobble and made
a disturbing bumping sound.

We tried to grind the same batch about five or six times. It runs for
a short time, then repeats the behavior. By the end it had gotten to
the powder stage and the blade quit rising. To test it I ran it with
nothing in the bowl and again with water -- it will run properly
apparently forever this way.

Anybody know what's causing this?

It's often due to overloading the bowl. Food processors I've owned
usually caution about that happening. Try reducing the amount ground
by one-third to one-half and see if it helps.

Thanks for the reply. After it started happening we cut back the
amount to a third (one cup) and it still happens. After that we
slowly poured in the feed tube -- it happened before we got even one
cup in.

Well, the next guess would be that the blade is no longer sharp enough
to process the load as efficiently as it used to. Have you tried a
combination of a smaller amount and pulsing the machine, instead of
having the blade run non-stop? The pauses between action might give the
kibble enough time to settle back down in the bowl. The only other
possible solution I can think of would be to add a liquid to the bowl to
moisten the kibble as it grinds, keeping it down low - but unless you're
going to feed it immediately, that wouldn't work.

If you're willing to invest in another machine, I'd recommend getting a
coffee grinder for the kibble. Those are amazing at how fast they can
render even fairly hard stuff to powder. I use mine to grind hard spices.

I use one of the coffee grinders that are more like a blender, nothing
like a real grinder like in some stores. Anyway after years of use the
blade came loose even though it was threaded to tighten as it turned.
Being the cheap guy I am, I used some 24 hour PC-7 epoxy and let it sit
3 or 4 days, the last few in the hot sun.

In article ,
Hell Toupee wrote:

On 6/9/2010 2:48 PM, jim evans wrote:
I knew nothing about coffee grinders before I read your message. I've
now looked at about 20 of them on Amazon. They all seem to grind 3oz
at a time. If that's equivalent to liquid measure, unless it grinds
the 3oz in a few seconds, it would take us too long to grind all we do
at one time -- 12 cups or about 100oz

Take a look at this one. It has an eight-ounce capacity hopper (that's
eight ounces of coffee beans, to give you a mental image of the bulk
capacity), and discharges the ground product into a larger storage
jar. So you could grind, adding more kibble, till the jar fills up,
then dump the jar, repeat as needed. It will be quick, and you can
adjust the fineness of grind.

http://www.cuisinart.com/products/coffee_bar/dbm-8.html

Or OP could make friends at the local supermarket by grinding his dog
food in their coffee grinder before he takes it home.

On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:32:15 -0500, Hell Toupee
wrote:

On 6/9/2010 11:27 AM, jim evans wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:21:28 -0500, Hell
wrote:

On 6/9/2010 10:13 AM, jim evans wrote:
This is a Sunbeam LeChef food processor, Catalog # 14-11. We
inherited it from my wife's mother. It's at least 20 years old. It
sat unused for about 15 years until we developed a need for it about 9
months ago. Since then we have used it many times. It has always
worked properly.

Our dog has no teeth so we use it to grind kibble into a powder. It
has worked great for this, week in and week out. A few nights ago
when we started to grind our regular three cups of kibble the cutter
blade rose on it's support post until it reached the lid. This was
high enough that it came off the center post, began to wobble and made
a disturbing bumping sound.

We tried to grind the same batch about five or six times. It runs for
a short time, then repeats the behavior. By the end it had gotten to
the powder stage and the blade quit rising. To test it I ran it with
nothing in the bowl and again with water -- it will run properly
apparently forever this way.

Anybody know what's causing this?

If you're willing to invest in another machine, I'd recommend getting
a coffee grinder for the kibble. Those are amazing at how fast they
can render even fairly hard stuff to powder. I use mine to grind hard
spices.

To whom it may concern: As a result of this suggestion we bought one
of these coffee grinders http://tinyurl.com/4nnm7zr By now we have
ground several bags of kibble and it still works like a champ. It's
not real fast, but this approach appears to have solved our problem.

Thanks very much to Hell Toupee for his suggestion.