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Cuisinart Food Processor Stuck


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I will not do this again.

I casually dropped the metal blade into the work bowl and latched on the cover. Now the pointed ends of the blade are stuck against the side of the work bowl at one end and against the cover at the other. When I try to remove the cover, the points dig in. The only solution I can see at this point is not great; break either the bowl or the cover, whichever is cheaper to replace.

Any one else have another solution?

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oops. I'm no help. I'd just buy a new one. :biggrin: But you get major points for this one.

Have you tried turning it upside down and shaking it to see if it dislodges away from the cover?

Marlene

Practice. Do it over. Get it right.

Mostly, I want people to be as happy eating my food as I am cooking it.

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Can you take the tube out and move the blade around that way?

Maybe drill a hole and poke at it that way? You can always epoxy the hole. Or use duct tape. A real man would use duct tape.

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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oops.  I'm no help.  I'd just buy a new one. :biggrin:

That's what I want to avoid. I don't use it a great deal, except for pastry dough. It is only medium size, but has been sufficient.

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Can you take the tube out and move the blade around that way?

Maybe drill a hole and poke at it that way? You can always epoxy the hole. Or use duct tape. A real man would use duct tape.

Thanks, Brooks. Drilling a hole might work. I'll take a look. And though I always have a good supply of duct tape, of course, something not quite so visible may be called for here.

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Either stick the damned thing in the freezer or apply heat to get the plastic part to contract or expand? (yes, lame idea, but better than duct tape)

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
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Have you tried something crazy like filling the entire thing with oil? It might just make it slippery enough. The idea of expansion might also be viable, maybe hot water.

Never trust a skinny chef

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Have you tried something crazy like filling the entire thing with oil?  It might just make it slippery enough.  The idea of expansion might also be viable, maybe hot water.

Upside down in a sink full of hot water? Maybe.

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As soon as I quit giggling I will try to think of something. :raz:

I am liking heating up the bowl and trying to jiggle the blade. Also, after heating the bowl a bit maybe by wrapping with a hot towel, try compressing the bowl from the outside opposite the plane where the blade is stuck. It won't be obvious but you might be able to move it a few thousandths enough to let the blade drop. Hot towel = wet towel in microwave until steaming. Maybe I need to tell someone that would pull this trick that you need to protect your hands from steam burns from the towel.

Sorry. I have to go giggle some more. :laugh:

Linda LaRose aka "fifi"

"Having spent most of my life searching for truth in the excitement of science, I am now in search of the perfectly seared foie gras without any sweet glop." Linda LaRose

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Leverage on the cover=2x4 duct tape. if it breaks buy new bowl and lid. Be Bold and move foward.Sell at a garage sale as it sits and buy a new one.

Bruce Frigard

Quality control Taster, Château D'Eau Winery

"Free time is the engine of ingenuity, creativity and innovation"

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

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Remove the entire plunger assembly from the feed tube. That will give you room to insert something with a hook on the end which you should hook under the back side of the blade on the lower side - pull up sharply.

This has worked for me when I did the same thing.

I also found that when I had the lid stuck on another time with something hard stuck between the shredding plate and the lid, I was able to break it loose using a rubber mallet, giving a sharp sideways tap to the open edge of the front latch. As I recall it took a couple of taps to get the top to rotate enough to unlatch it. This was on the big one (20 cup) and with it, when the top is latched it is also locked on to the base which is very heavy.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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In addition to the 'pull up sharply' idea, you could try to move the blade counter to the direction that got it wedged in the first place. Because you have to move the lid CW and that likely wedged the blade, see if you can tap the blade CCW.

Or perhaps a screwdriver through the drive opening from the bottom to hit the blade in the middle and dislodge.

(Note that if either of these ideas wedges the blade further, I'm going to pretend I said nothing.)

Edited by slbunge (log)

Stephen Bunge

St Paul, MN

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I have no suggestions but I will say that replacing the bowl is the same price as a new one. I've been using a broken Cuisinart for about 7 years. After my dropped the lid, broke the plastic latch that locks it, she looked into replacing it and decided on a new one. You can't purchase just the lid or the bowl, it has to be the whole thing and it was well over $100. So, it then became mine and I still use it all the time, but it's absolute disaster if I can't find the latch for the lid.

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Thanks Andie. The voice of experience. I'll hunt around for something I can use as a hook.

This one also has the cover locked to the bowl, which is locked to the base.

Look in your closet. Those wire things? The things with your clothes on them? Those are clothes hangers. They are good for much, much more than holding your favorite cowboy garb. You can clean out a vacuum hose with them, open car doors, retrieve car keys from open grates, clean shotguns, etc. They are all purpose tools and I am sure that adding cusinart repair to the above list would not be much of a stretch.

Good luck, cowboy.

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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Thanks Andie. The voice of experience. I'll hunt around for something I can use as a hook.

This one also has the cover locked to the bowl, which is locked to the base.

The oldest Cuisinart I have, the first one introduced to the US, has the feeder tube that can be left open, the plunger does not have to be locked on before the thing will work.

All the later ones had that interlock latch that is a pain, just so idiots would not be able to stick their hands into the feeder tube.

Sometimes the plastic latch on the back gets broken and unless you know the trick of how to stick something in there to take its place, your only option is to get a new lid.

After I got the domed "dough" top for one of my machines, I figured out how to make it work but it is still tricky.

There is a web site, if I can find it, that has "Cuisinart secrets" with descriptions and illustrations of how to get around some of the problems, such as when the shaft holding the shredding plates won't release.

I still like the Cuisinarts better than any other food processors, even with their idiosyncracies.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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Success! Thanks to Andie. I bent a coat hanger and jerked up on the blade as Andie suggested. Popped loose on the second or third try. I really was not ready to give up on this one or to get a new one (until I need larger capacity), since this is an old one that also does not require the tube to be latched to operate.

And thanks to everyone for your suggestions.

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Thanks Andie. The voice of experience. I'll hunt around for something I can use as a hook.

This one also has the cover locked to the bowl, which is locked to the base.

Look in your closet. Those wire things? The things with your clothes on them? Those are clothes hangers. They are good for much, much more than holding your favorite cowboy garb. You can clean out a vacuum hose with them, open car doors, retrieve car keys from open grates, clean shotguns, etc. They are all purpose tools and I am sure that adding cusinart repair to the above list would not be much of a stretch.

Good luck, cowboy.

i have long believed that people from the north try to use duct tape to fix everything, while people from the south use wire. thanks for supporting my kooky theories, there.

(i really have more of a southern mindset when it comes to these things)

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For those who are curious: I took a pants hanger and removed the carboard tube that supports a pair of pants. The wire ends that snap into the tube at both ends have a rather sharp bend. I slipped one bend into the procesor through the feed tube hole and then adjusted the angle of the wire until I could get the opening of that sharp bend onto the blade. Then jerked upwards. That did it.

(And thanks Brooks. I guess we were thinking along the same lines. I tried a couple of other hooked and non-hooked rods trying to pop it loose first, but the pants hanger did it.)

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i have long believed that people from the north try to use duct tape to fix everything, while people from the south use wire.  thanks for supporting my kooky theories, there.

(i really have more of a southern mindset when it comes to these things)

Well, ultimately, the perfect repair would have involved the use of the coat hanger and the duct tape at the same time.

I had a costume one year, for Mardi Gras, constructed completely of duct tape and various kinds of "warning!" tape that I bought from an industrial catalog. I still have alot of it-never can tell when that "biohazard" or "crimescene" tape might come in handy.

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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