Guitar cutter: Sourcing, Using, Maintaining

[Kerry Beal]

Some info I wanted to pass on. I was told by a rep that Martellato will be opening a branch up in California sometime this year. I've been looking at some of their melters.

http://www.martellato.com/

Luis

Love the look of their little melters that hold 3 different chocolates.

Oh, yeah, I didn't see those before - very slick! Esp. like the one that has 4 bins with individual controls.

I keep seeing them on little flyers that come with the Martellato molds. Very tempting!

[sote23]

yeah, that's the one I'm looking at, or maybe the one with the 4 different containers. would come in very handy.

Also check out the new drive cutting guitar at the bottom of the page, very interesting.

http://www.martellato.com/

Luis

Edited February 24, 2010 by sote23 (log)

[Edward J]

Lets see if I can load up a pic of my "poor man's guitar".....

[Edward J]

Picked it up at an auction, minus the strings.

One continious string goes through the whole assembly, tensioned by one (1!) key which is very similiar to a musical guitar key. Gives me 3/8" thick slices.

This contraption was made for cookies, but I use it for butter ganache,PdF etc. as well.

[mostlylana]

Over on the Ecole Chocolat grad forum - we are discussing doing a group buy for guitars. I contacted Dedy and they will offer a 10% discount if 6 people order. Each person would pay for their own and have it shipped to their address. I highly doubt we can get 6 people intersted in such a high priced piece of equipment but I thought I would put it out there...

It is important to know what sizes you want to cut and order the appropriate base size. You can just order a base and 1 frame if you just do square. You can add on frames as you can afford it.

Dedy website: Dedy: http://www.dedy.de/index.php?id=14&L=1

Oh, and here is a great site for $ conversion as the prices from Dedy are in Euro dollars and will need to be converted... http://www.xe.com/ucc/

O F F E R (these are their regular prices not including the 10% discount)

D E D Y P R A L I N E C U T T E R

This cutter is suitable for cutting and deviding marzipan,

jellies and similiar products.

The cutter is carried out in stainless steel.

The standard base is subdivided in 7,5 mm or 5mm.

The base can be fitted on a movable table,

also made of stainless steel.

Accessories: take-off metal sheet, wire, screws, tools

Price :

Standard base 7,5 mm EUR 580,00

Frame 15 mm EUR 280,00

Frame 22,5 mm EUR 240,00

Frame 30 mm EUR 220,00

Frame 37,5 mm EUR 200,00

Standard base 5 mm EUR 710,00

Frame 10 mm EUR 330,00

Frame 15 mm EUR 280,00

Frame 20 mm EUR 257,00

Frame 25 mm EUR 236,00

Frame 30 mm EUR 220,00

Movable table in stainless steel : EUR 490,00

I also contacted dr.ca and they now sell the Dedy - they no longer make their own.

dr.ca price for the Dedy 7.5mm base + 4 frames (includes tools): $CAD 2 795.00 USD$ 2 627.30

Tomric price for the Dedy 7.5mm base + 4 frames (includes tools): USD$ $2,995.00

Editted to add: email me if you are interested...

OK folks - it's crunch time. I'd like to get the Dedy order in next week. I'll need to know who is serious about ordering so we can know if we will get a discount (see above quote for explanation). If you can email me asap that would be great.

I phoned Canada customs this morning and spoke to a senior officer. She thought the proper tariff code would be 8438.20.90.90 which means: Machinery for the manufacture of confection or chocolate: other: other. And that is designated as No duty! If anyone from the US is interested it might be a good idea to contact US customs to see if any duty applies into the States.

So for a 7.5mm base with 4 frames the CAN$ price comes to $2332 (which includes shipping - shipping will differ for everyone though. This is a shipping quote to BC. Canada). I use this example as it's the same as what DR.ca offers at $2795 CAN. It's also the same package that Tomric offers at $2995 US$. Neither of those 2 prices include shipping. So if we also get a discount of 10% as well we're doing pretty good. So far we have 7 people interested and I'd say 3 that are a sure thing.

[aidensnd2]

I'm interested. Any idea how much the shipping to the US is? I'm in Washington.

Thanks

Dan

[mostlylana]

No idea about shipping costs to the US. The Dedy website URL is listed above. Contact them with your info and they will give you a shipping quote. At first they gave me a quote to the Vancouver airport - in which case I would need to clear customs myself. As Vancouver is 4 hours away from me I asked for a door to door quote. It was almost double in price! But that way the shipping company clears customs on your behalf and it's delivered to the door - hassle free. That being said, if I lived in a main center I would probably save some $ and clear it myself. That entails getting the paperwork from the shipping co.. going to customs and having them stamp the papers. Then you go back to the shipping co. with the stamped papers and they give you your guitar!

Anyways, back to shipping costs. Even with door to door shipping, the final price for me is still a few hundred dollars cheaper than anywhere else I could get it - and that's without a discount. With a discount it's several hundred $'s cheaper...

So you can ask for shipping quote to your airport and/or a shipping quote door to door.

[Kerry Beal]

Would you be willing to add a single frame to the order?

[mostlylana]

Would you be willing to add a single frame to the order?

Absolutely... as I was saying - everyone is putting in their own orders and paying their own shipping. The benefit to the 'group buy' is the discount of 10%. If I were you Kerry, I would get someone close to you to add to their order so you're not paying a separate shipping charge. You can go in on their shipping...

I'll keep you in mind as people confirm their order. You're in Ont? Near Toronto? Or if you're going to be at the conference, anyone else who's ordering and will be there would work too.

[Kerry Beal]

Would you be willing to add a single frame to the order?

Absolutely... as I was saying - everyone is putting in their own orders and paying their own shipping. The benefit to the 'group buy' is the discount of 10%. If I were you Kerry, I would get someone close to you to add to their order so you're not paying a separate shipping charge. You can go in on their shipping...

I'll keep you in mind as people confirm their order. You're in Ont? Near Toronto? Or if you're going to be at the conference, anyone else who's ordering and will be there would work too.

I'm near Toronto - is there anyone from my area that is ordering?

[aidensnd2]

I'm in. Do we have the 6 people necessary?

[mostlylana]

Cool! You make 6! Now for the logistics of it all. Schneich is looking into some shipping options as door-to-door delivery is quite pricey. Now that we have our 6 I'll be emailing everyone in a few days time with some options. Kerry, I'll include you too.

[Kerry Beal]

Thanks Lana.

[lebowits]

Lana - My thanks as well.

[justDeb]

Interesting thread...

I have 4 varieities of slabbed bon-bons and no guidtar. I cut them with a home made device-- a series of 4" high s/s "pizza wheels" threaded onto a handle with 15/16" spacers between each wheel. This contraption is tossed into an oven and warmed, then rolled over the slab brushed with couverture lengthwise, then crosswise. If I can "steer" the wheel straight, I get pefect 1" squares.

I make Grewling's caramels about once a week. Afer resting overnight, I "score" the slab with the same contraption. To cut, I use an old 12" Henckel's Chef's knife. By using light pressure and lots of back and forth movement, I can get clean slices very quickly with no sticking and no greasing of the knife. It is a bit of work, as I can only cut 3 or 4 pieces at a time, but I don't have any other way of cutting caramels at the moment.

I just wrote a rather lengthy reply, but it disappeared. I'm new here, so I haven't figured out how to post just yet. However, I made something like Edward's contraption recently and it works really well for under $30. Here are pictures (maybe, if I can upload them):

Edited April 26, 2010 by justDeb (log)

[Anandamide]

Hi everyone. I've long considered buying a guitar cutter, but the cost has been way too much for me. My hobbyist scale doesn't justify $2500, a fact I curse under my breath every time I'm faced with cutting 10 slabs of ganache by hand.

Just recently, though, I ran across this new product at Kerekes: a "mini guitar" with a 24cmx24cm surface for $650: http://www.bakedeco.com/detail.asp?id=23508&catid=371. Anyone have experience with this, or other insights? I think it's made by Martellato, mentioned in a previous post. I only cut ganache, no caramels, so I wonder if I could dispense with an all-metal cutter as bomb-proof as the Dedy. Heck, I can't afford the Dedy anyways....

Thanks in advance!

[Kerry Beal]

Hi everyone. I've long considered buying a guitar cutter, but the cost has been way too much for me. My hobbyist scale doesn't justify $2500, a fact I curse under my breath every time I'm faced with cutting 10 slabs of ganache by hand.

Just recently, though, I ran across this new product at Kerekes: a "mini guitar" with a 24cmx24cm surface for $650: http://www.bakedeco.com/detail.asp?id=23508&catid=371. Anyone have experience with this, or other insights? I think it's made by Martellato, mentioned in a previous post. I only cut ganache, no caramels, so I wonder if I could dispense with an all-metal cutter as bomb-proof as the Dedy. Heck, I can't afford the Dedy anyways....

Thanks in advance!

Dedy makes a mini too - but not that inexpensive. When I was looking at that mini at Kerekes site I couldn't see anymore than one set of wires for it.

[dcarch]

It would not be difficult to electrically heat up the wires. I would think that could be great for some kind of cutting.

That's what they use to cut Styroform.

dcarch

[Edward J]

yeah, that's the one I'm looking at, or maybe the one with the 4 different containers. would come in very handy.

Also check out the new drive cutting guitar at the bottom of the page, very interesting.

http://www.martellato.com/

Luis

Uhh, Sote 23,

I usually don't post anything negative about manufacturers, but Ihave a real beef with Martellato. I bought a 2/3 insert melter from them when I first opened my store. It melted one night, about 3 mths after I bought it. I mean the whole thing melted, a plastic stinking blob on my counter when I came in one morning. I got it replaced by the local dealer, but he was not compensated by Martellato. The dealer had one other unit from the pastry lab at VCC, with the same problem when I visited him. Needless to say, he was not a happy camper.

The unit has an on/off rocker switch at the back. Very often you will inadvertantly switch it off when you move or nudge the machine.

The unit is made from a one piece cast polystyrene with a plastic base screwed onto the housing. The plastic is very thin and has no bridges or "beefier" sections cast into it. Within one week of using it, it had developed stress cracks around the screws at the bottom of the unit, and a month later, cracks in the inside corners. After my "meltdown", my replacement unit cracked in the exact same way and same time frame. The s/s insert is designed to hold around 6 kgs of chocolate--the plastic housing can not handle this kind of weight, it was not designed to handle any kind of substantial wieght.

I still have it, even though I have moved on to larger s/s melters. The cracking on the plastic housing was so bad, and the cracks ran so far, that I finally took it apart, and glued on pieces of 1/4" plywood to the inside of the housing, giving it some ridigity and stoping the cracks from spreading further.

Just my personal experience...

[Anandamide]

Sounds like nobody has experience with the mini guitar, but clearly some bad experiences with Martellato! If anyone DOES decide to try this out, I would be extremely interested to hear about your experience. I'm going to have to wait a bit, and stick with my chef's knife+hot water.....boohoo.

[Viktoria]

I actually have a styrofoam cutter. It's just a wire, handle and batteries, essentially. Works by resistive heating.

[Lloydchoc]

After thinking about it for several years, I finally designed and built a double guitar cutter. It is made entirely of aluminum and stainless steel with a High Density Polyethelene base. Both the cutters and the base are interchangeable. This cost me less than $400 to make.

I used a chop saw and a cheap drill press along with assorted hand tools. I did have the cutter frames TIG welded.

Edited August 19, 2012 by Lloydchoc (log)

[lironp]

Wow! Very impressive!

[minas6907]

What is that your cutting in the picture?

[Lloydchoc]

That is the cutting base; it is made from a 1" thick HDPE cutting board