First three are the meat grinder and base after latest rebuild and paint..  I'm telling you that thing will grind frozen meat without hesitation.  Geared down to a brisk 85 RPM and grinder input wheel.  

Last two are the belt grinder in progress.  I just ordered the wheel set today. I know things are backwards right now. Platen is on wrong side for the wheels.  It won't end up in this exact form after the tweeking is completed. A work in progress.

  Is that meat grinder hard to clean?  I mounted mine on a 2x12 board with clamps so I could unclamp it and put it in a tub of soap for a deep cleaning.

My Grandmother used to grind ice cubes in ours then rinse with boiling water. The newer one came apart easily for cleaning but it was too large. Last I remember grinding anything was Mother's really excellent sandwich spread, started with maybe 5lb piece of unsliced bologna and she added . . . stuff. Mother wouldn't allow game meat cooking when she was around, it was all they had during the depression and she didn't need the reminder.

Frosty The Lucky.

  We grind bread crumbs through ours to push out the big leftovers but wash the heck of it all taken apart as well.  I suppose boiling water would work.  Times and bacteria change.  We have an "industrial" meat tenderizer that's very hard to clean and sanitize.  Would not want to catch a fingertip in that thing.

Everything unbolts from the frame.  After that cleaning is pretty straight forward. The frame gets sprayed off in the laundry tub.   The ready rod is there to hold the plates on the output side.  I was grinding some stiff cold meat and the threads stripped off the grinder. Instead of buying a new grinder I made those plates to hold it all together.  

 

It doesn't look complicated, it'd take me longer to find the right size wrenches than disassemble it.  Heck none of them are hard to clean but my Grandmother fed ice cubes through ours, said they had to chip ice off blocks when she was a kid. Her old hand crank grinder doesn't look any different than one you can buy today. I don't know why she "cleaned" it with ice and a little soap but she was in her 60s when I was born.

We have the grinder sausage stuffer attachment for my KitchenAid mixer. I checked it out when I got it that Christmas and darned thing is way harder to disassemble than Granny's 140+ year old one.

Frosty The Lucky.

The one I have uses 1/4", 5/16" and 3/8" nuts and bolts.  Then the grinder portion gets rinsed in hot water then into the dishwasher.  I found out early on to store it all dry in a wood box.  The time it got oiled before storage the oil "polymerized".  There was one fine holed plate where the oil was so hard I degreased it with my torch.  I also have a all in one like the kitchen aid.  Just noi fast enough to grind season and stuff 30lbs of meat.  So, I made this one in the picture.

I use olive oil on my cast iron pots and grinder plates, it does not  polymerize.