Replacement Parts for Vintage Kitchen Equipment

[Chris Amirault]

To my horror, the metal jar of my vintage Oster blender fell on the floor this morning, breaking the hard plastic (bakelite?) base and crushing my belief that every part of this tank of a blender was indestructible. After I dug my crappy Cuisinart "blender" from the back of the shelf and listened to it wheeze through some peanut butter, oats, milk, and a banana to make a not-very-smooth smoothie, I pledged to buy the missing base this morning.

Not so easy, that. The base itself has three extended grips on the outside, unlike the more current model shown here with five. The patent number on the base is 2,530,455, but searching patent databases doesn't get me anything useful (though it's fun!). On the blender itself, it says that I should order part number "352-61F" for the "base and jar," but I had a hard time figuring out what to do with that information, if anything.

I lucked out on eBay: the exact part with clear photos and for only $12. Still, I know I'm not alone around here in owning and treasuring vintage kitchen equipment, so I'm hoping someone out there has some ideas about how to find replacement parts for these great machines.

[chezcherie]

(calling andiesenji....she posts amazing stuff about these vintage machines. i wanna see her garage one day!)

[Kayakado]

I found a lot of stuff just doing an internet search with model and mfg info. I replaced the filter on my 40 year old stove hood that way. My mother found a glass dome for her DAK/Weltbilt bread machine on ebay. I bought two mint Vita-mix 4000s on ebay for under $200 each.

My faavorite resource for toaster, waffle irons etc is www.toastermuseum and their retail site.