So, what the hell is up with manufacturing today? Can't the executives of the mighty USA threaten and torture enough third-world children to get them make a quality can opener that will last longer then six cans?
I'm the cook of my house, and I pride myself on the use of most everything being made from scratch, so I use like ten cans a month with things like creamed soups and diced tomatoes and such - Seriously, I've bought six can openers in the last two years! And every !@#$%&*! one I bought, every freaking time I stand in the store aisle, saying aloud :"Well this will be the last one I ever buy - It will be just like the Swing-A-Way that my mom used to have! Before you even say, it, no, I don't like electric anything; I'm pretty old-school and have limited counter top until more suckers buy my books.
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| Farberware sucks, too! |
Over the last two years I had two OXO's, A super-expensive Kuhn, A Farberware (the most recent, and fairly expensive - see photo) some brand called "Progressive", a Target-Branded version of the Swing-A-Way, and yes, even a real true-blue Swing-A-Way with the rubberized grips and all metal features.
Who makes this stuff?
It turns out Swing-A-Way must have sold out and started making stuff with bad metal overseas, because they were the worst of the lot; The metal was done in by the super-strong metal of the basic can - I mean, who the fuck designs these things! Wouldn't any kind of engineer, designer or common man anywhere say; "Well, the cutting wheel and gears should be made of a stronger metal than the god-damned cans they're opening". And plastic (What did in the most recent Farberware gem)- what brain trust thought "Well, we'll make steel chromed gears, a steel chromed cutting wheel, but make the crank that turns them out of basic gumball-machine-prize plastic...and make it the size of a baseball bat so lots of torque gets built up there between the metal and the plastic." Who okays this, and more importantly, why do we stand for things not lasting longer? I inherited my Mom's Swing A Way but eventually "upgraded" to a prettier one because the Swing A Way was old. It still worked fine after over twenty years! Wish I still had it...
There is one can opening winner in this mess, however; The backup. It is the can opener from all of our camping equipment. It has no brand name. It is at least 20 years old. It is all steel. It has no cutting wheel; It has a blade instead. In 1997 it cost $1.49 at an army/navy surplus store. I have no doubt that it was made in an Asian nation by cheap underage labor with cheap materials. But the design is easy, and timeless, and this thing has opened more cans than Ron Jeremy. If the handle were longer I would make it my every day, but with a handle the size of a quarter my hands are bleeding after more than one can. Thus the lesson of design trade offs - If it had a longer handle the torque would be to much for the crappy metal and it would fail.
There is one can opening winner in this mess, however; The backup. It is the can opener from all of our camping equipment. It has no brand name. It is at least 20 years old. It is all steel. It has no cutting wheel; It has a blade instead. In 1997 it cost $1.49 at an army/navy surplus store. I have no doubt that it was made in an Asian nation by cheap underage labor with cheap materials. But the design is easy, and timeless, and this thing has opened more cans than Ron Jeremy. If the handle were longer I would make it my every day, but with a handle the size of a quarter my hands are bleeding after more than one can. Thus the lesson of design trade offs - If it had a longer handle the torque would be to much for the crappy metal and it would fail.
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| The "Ron Jeremy" |
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