Pasta Maker Machine- 100% Made in Italy, Heavy Duty Steel Construction, Easy Lock Dial, Wood Grip Handle & Cleaning Brush- Fresh Homemade Italian Spaghetti Fettuccine or Lasagna (Classic Line)

Beautiful machine! Works like a dream. Heavy duty. This machine is not a flimsy light weight thing. This feels like quality - something hard to find these days. I "cleaned" the rollers of any left over factory debris by making a throw away dough and rolling it many times through each roller. A couple tiny dark marks came out and then it all ran clean. After that I made sheets for ravioli. It was a dream and so fun. Now, I do have modern countertops with an extra thick countertop. So the clamp, being made for average sized tops didn't fit. So, I clamped it to the edge of a thik wood cutting board and this worked well. I can see myself using this machine often. It was too fun.

After reading several reviews on slightly cheaper models and considering the advice given in Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking", I chose this model. It sat under the cabinet for 3 weeks after I bought it because life's demands didn't afford any time to play with my new toy. I finally scored a Saturday with nothing else to do and pulled it out of the cabinet. Here are a few observations:1. This model is a product of Italy and the instructions (which are written in several languages) are written in poor English. Since the product is a simple design, I found that I didn't really need the instructions to figure out how to assemble the double cutter attachment. Thankfully, attaching the double cutter is the only assembly required.2. The pasta machine came with a recipe for pasta dough. The recipe was also written in several languages but the English instructions were a bit clearer than the assembly instructions. I didn't use the recipe provided by the machine's manufacturer though. I used the instructions provided in Marcella's book mentioned above.3. This machine is heavy and unbalanced when the double cutter is attached. It comes with a clamp to clamp it to your counter top or table if you choose to use the hand crank provided to operate the machine. I bought the "Villaware V180 Pasta Machine Motorizer" along with the pasta machine. Using the motor with the pasta machine not only eliminates the need to use the hand crank, it eliminates the need to clamp the pasta machine. Not having to use the clamp means that you can position the machine anywhere you wish on your work surface, not just on the edge. I found it was more comfortable to place the machine about midway to the wall on my counter top. Using the motor also frees up both hands for manipulating the pasta dough as it is being processed. I honestly don't think I could have used the thinnest settings with just one hand to manipulate the pasta dough. The dough becomes quite fragile when it thins and tends to want to stretch and presumably, break at the thinner settings. By using two hands to manipulate the dough, I found it easy to process the dough through the machine even at the thinnest settings.4. One of Marcella's suggestions was to buy a machine with a double cutter because you will be able to make wide fettuccine style noodles and narrow round spaghettini style noodles. I made both using the fettuccine style noodles to make fettuccine in butter and cream sauce (Alfredo) and short spaghettini style noodles to make chicken noodle soup. Both cutters worked flawlessly.5. The machine/motor's over all performance was also flawless. The motor switch has two speed settings and I used the slow setting throughout. The pasta machine and motor combination worked the dough easily through all the width settings. The motor also has a separate ravioli button that I have not tried yet. I ended up processing three batches of dough. The first was used to clean the pasta machine of metal bits and thrown away as was instructed in the manual.Conclusion:This is a well made pasta machine. It's parts are well designed and made of stainless steel. Maintenance is a breeze. Just wipe it down when finished using it. This is a great little pasta machine. In short, it does what it is supposed to do - and - it does it with ease. It makes pasta.

I'm a cook and I love to cook. I already used my machine to make a dough and it was perfect. It does not move and fits very well to the table.

Okay, so it arrived yesterday and I ran my first "cleaning" batch through this morning. I used only water and the most abundant flour in the house which was whole wheat... I made a dough of 1/2 cup water and 1 cup flour (with more added as I kneaded and ran it through). I mixed it up and kneaded a bit then let it sit for 10-15 mins.Setting up the machine: I was able to put it on the counter with the clamp between two drawers and it holds quite well. The counter and cabinets are standard installs. It would be nice if maybe the rod was longer, but it is quite sturdy. It was a little bit tight turning the thumbscrew, but it was quite doable and no knuckles scraped! :-)Then I grabbed a fist-sized chunk of the dough and rolled it in flour and started running it through the machine at setting 6. Then 5, and on down to 1. At 1, the whole wheat/flour dough did get a few holes and had some roughness the first time, but after a couple of runs through, it was smooth and thin. I then ran a few of these sheets through the cutters. The wider (fettuccine) was good at all thicknesses I tried, 3-1, though a tiny bit thicker was better...we'll see how they cook up. The thinner (spaghetti/angel hair) worked best with the thinner sheets. The thicker sheets - or maybe it was that they were not quite floured enough - make the resulting spaghetti somewhat bumpy, as if it was getting pushed through rather than being cut cleanly.The handle stayed in while I was working, the only time it fell out was when I let go at the end of rolling and the handle was up and at just the right angle - I think I might have pulled it as I moved my hand away. It was quite easy to get used to letting it go at the bottom of the rotation.The action feels smooth and even. My dough was pretty thick - whole wheat - and it pulled through quite easily. I didn't force it, just let it sit on top and "pull" itself through. It will take some experience to get this even so my sheets are more square, but the thickness is very even through each level.Cleanup was easy with the 1" paintbrush I appropriated from our workbench :-) Even the few bits of pasta that were sticky enough to remain in the cutter came off as it dried.The (minor) negatives and reason for 4 stars: the feeder tray falls out. Because of the way it's attached, the rollers moving the dough into the feeder pulls the tray off. I'll play with it and so far I don't think it's going to be a problem, maybe as I get better with "sheets" it will be more useful (and more annoying that it doesn't stay in). But it doesn't work as expected.Out of the box, there were 3 rust spots on the side of the machine. They are small and I was able to use a tiny bit of dry steel wool to get them off. We have some chrome spray paint for a tiny touch-up. It was disappointing to have this out of the box, but will not affect function and is easily fixed. Not everyone might have the tools and paint handy, but I'd rather fix it than waste time and resources to send it back, probably to be tossed... We'll see how the finish holds up over the next few months.Overall: So far, LOVE IT!!!FIRST BATCH UPDATE: First batch of "real" pasta went swimmingly! 100% semolina no.1. 1 cup of flour and 1 egg for a smaller first batch. It was a little "dry" the first time through on setting #6, it crumbled, had holes and broke in a few places. But a touch of water and some all-purpose flour dusted and kneaded in fixed that. The second and third times through it looked like the picture in the manual! I ran it through to #2 (at some point in the middle it got so long I had to cut it in half) then through the smaller cutter for angel hair.The instructions have you folding it over and running it through a few times. I did that once or twice on each setting as I thinned it, but the first time I went down a #, I ran it through the single thickness (e.g. when I went from #6 -> #5, I ran it through 6, folded the ends together, through 6 again, then turned it to 5 and ran it through once, THEN folded it, ends together, through 5, then single thickness through 4, etc.)The last bit I ran through to #3 thickness and did a small bit of fettuccine. There were a couple of bits of metal still in the rollers, so I should have run the cleaning batch through the big cutters a few more times....oops! Still LOVE IT!