I bought the slicer to make sliced pickles; they are a little over an eighth of an inch thick and very cleanly cut. It worked great, it is very adjustable and comes with multiple blades. I am sure I will find many more uses for it.

"Packed expressly for Williams-Sonoma" WS now only sells an OXO brand for $70 and a De Buyer Deluxe for $160. I love that Amazon does the scavenging for me.

Made in France

"18/10"

"dishwasher safe"

The product has sodder marks and is a very commercial looking product in that there are no frills or any prettying in the design. There is a video for the consumer version on the matferbourgeatusa website. It's simple and straightforward to put together and use but the video is nice to watch anyway. "Voila!" hee, hee, hee.

I am very unhappy with the instructions that came with this mandoline. My husband and I tried countless times to use the slicer and have not been able to figure it out. About 6 weeks ago I wrote Amazon and they told me I would have to get further instructions from Matfer, which I expected to do. At that time I sent an e-mail to Matfer and they responded immediately stating that because it is a commercial slicer they would send me a video. A few weeks ago I did not have the video yet and again sent another e-mail and Matfer said "We sent it out, but will send out another video immediately." Nothing yet! If I did not throw away all the papers from Amazon and the so called instructions I would have sent this back to Amazon. I will write once again to the manufacturer tonight and if I do not hear I will send all this back to Amazon. I don't need a large item taking up precious storage place.........And, YES, they do have my correct address.

My first mandoline was the Bron which is visually the most serious/macho/cool of the bunch, but its shortcomings were unacceptable - the slicing blade is one-piece stainless, and can't hold a sharp edge; the julienne blades are not sharp and can't be sharpened; and the safety carriage is designed to not go past the cutting edge. I sold it.

I now have a Matfer (the all-stainless model) and it has a 2-piece slicing blade: the cutting edge is high-carbon steel (which can be sharpened and hold its edge) welded to a stainless part. The julienne blades are very sharp (altho can't be resharpened). The safety-gadget thing works well, but can't be used for waffle cuts. I use the Matfer only for waffle cuts and if I have large quantities of slicing. If you want french fry size potatoes or are slicing celeriac, you're better off with a sharp knife. The disadvantage of this machine is that you can't adjust the slicing blade's uniformity of thickness - my slices are thicker on one side (the Bron had more adjustment leeway).

The machine I use the most is the Benriner - the slicing blade is very sharp and is sharpenable. The (unsharpenable) julienne blades are extremely sharp. It can't do waffle cuts and is not good for massive quantities of large cuts. It's best for finer julienne and thin slicing such as potatoes, cucumber or daikon.

Don't even consider using these machines without the safety gadget.

Unless I have a large quantity of slicing to do, I'd opt for a sharp knife, because cleanup time counts too.

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Note: I originally wrote the above review in Nov. 2001, based on the then-current Matfer model 44595. Judging from the photo of the current model 215000, it appears that the slicing blade is now one-piece stainless steel instead of carbon welded to stainless. "... you can sharpen the knives and correct the play of the blades for more precise cuts" refers to the slicing/waffle blade, not the julienne. The julienne blades are not sharpenable.