PL8 Professional Mandoline - Versatile Slicer with Adjustable Straight, Waffle, and Julienne Blades, Extra-Wide Stainless Steel Deck, Safety Hand Guard, Non-Skid Feet, and Space-Saving Design

I've owned and used this item for years. I love it for its safety features, its always sharp blade, and ease in both using and in cleaning. After nearly a decade of use, the knob that lets you adjust from crinkle-cut to conventional slice broke and it's now stuck on crinkle cut. I like this so much that I bought a new one to replace the old one. If it lasts as long as the old one, I'll be happy--it's a great product. It's features not only slice, but it's versatile: you can also make apple sticks for salads or can dice an onion for sauces. Highly recommend.

I am just getting into cooking more home cooked meals since I work at home now and found it tedious and time consuming to slice and chop some of the things I was cooking to the point I was avoiding recipes that required a lot of slicing. A friend suggested that I get a mandolin but to skip the plastic ones and get a 'nice professional grade' model. OUCH!! When I saw some of the prices of the top end models I was going to just pass until I saw this one. It was still a little more than I wanted to pay but after using this a few times now I would have paid more! I love that there are no real blades to swap out and it is easy to clean with just a sink sprayer but after a day of using it it easily tossed right in the dishwasher and it's sparkling clean again. Changing between cuts is as easy and turning a know or sliding a switch and can be changed up very quickly and easily. The hand held part and the slider work flawlessly together and were very smooth no matter how much I jammed in there to slice. It only has 4 cut thicknesses which seemed low compared to some of the others but with a little practice and the pressure you use I can consistently get more than the 4. My first time using it it was so quick and easy I sliced enough potatoes to make two big trays of scalloped potatoes and some french fries in less than 5 minutes! It took me MUCH long to just peel the potatoes!! Solid, easy to use, quick to clean, and not having to mess with or touch the blades makes this perfect for me being a novice cook but I can see anyone using this and enjoying it. Normally I would do a PROS and CONS at the end of my review for something like this but there is no need here. Everything works great and if I come across something that I do not like or think it does not do well I will update this review.

This mandoline is every bit as beefy and beautiful as it looks, and it is very stable. The incorporated blades are important to me because I tend to cut myself when cutting anything at all and drop my knives a lot. Hopefully this will save my toes. By necessity, I’ve gotten very good at jumping away from falling knives and box cutters. All ten toes can testify. When first examining and testing the blade-closed position for storage I did manage to “catch” my finger in the gap between the closed blade and the deck while examining it for storage safety. No injury, but I did breathe in sharply and expected to see a cut. This is something to keep in mind. Even with it closed, be very careful. I was concerned that the combination of buttons and pull knobs would be a pain, but they are quick to manipulate while being well-made and placed. All of the knobs and buttons work easily, but are also quite secure and don’t feel flimsy. In fact, there is nothing about the PL8 1000 that feels flimsy. It feels and looks quite professional. The rear leg is also sturdy and beefy, easy to open or close, and the incorporated handle has a nice cushiony covering that feels durable. The designers did a good job with this mandoline. The only thing that would make it better was if it was all stainless steel. As a life-long klutz, I feel sure I will drop it at some point and it may break due to the non-metal parts – buttons, body, etc. The PL8 comes in sturdy, protective box with useful quick-start information on the back. It is well-packed for shipment. The price-point was a concern to me, but after seeing and using the PL8 1000 I think the price is spot on. I did a quick review of the manual, but it is so short that, while it was informative to a degree, it doesn’t give you anything thing more than the operational basics. The manual could be expanded bit to include a few tips, suggestions, and techniques without much trouble. The manual is quite small and the English portion is a very short five pages, but there is also a Spanish language version at the back. One thing that concerned me before purchase was the food handler guide. Since it’s attached in the picture I didn’t think it was removable. It is and that will aid when slicing tomatoes since a good cut requires a zig zag approach on a diagonal blade. It removes and reattaches easily when needed for use or cleaning. The guide also has nubs at the top and bottom to facilitate holding the veggies when cutting lengthwise. Nice. I got a cutting glove for the times I’m not using the guide. Today for testing I used a nitrile glove. Not great protection, but better than bare skin. Likes: the incorporated blades, the many choices in sizes and types of cuts, the professional quality and appearance, the speed of processing, the overall design, and the metal deck and legs. Clean-up was super easy. A rinse with my sprayer and I was done. I also like the video that shows the various things that can be done. I am slower and less clever at present, but that will change with continued use. Video found here: http://progressiveintl.com/products/professional-mandoline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjR-s5egilU Dislikes: the food handler and the guide – especially the handler (zero surprise). If you lift the guide up to place food the handler falls out with a clatter so remove it first or hang on to it while lifting. The metal spikes hinder more than help. They are too few and don’t really seem to help while holding the food, even with the guide. Even then they don’t retract automatically and will come in contact with the blade if you are not careful. When not using the spikes and using the guide it works fine except that you have less cutting control. It seems to me the spikes on the handler should be spring loaded and offer at least five or six. I think I will mostly be using the PL8 1000 without the guide and handler, but with my cutting glove as I suspected before receiving. After a bit of research, part of my issue with the food handler may be my fault due to lack of experience. Time will tell. I still don't care much for it though. For me this mandoline is a learning experience. It is my first and it will take me a bit to learn the possibilities, but nonetheless it is a quality tool. I already dropped the food guide and it didn’t break – very encouraging. I will update this review and the stars once I know more.

I had been considering purchasing a robust stainless mandolin for some time and now so glad I waited and purchased this. I am extremely proficient with a paring knife or chef's knife...well any cooking knife for that matter, but this unit is incredible. Very very well built and when faced with slicing onions for soup or prepping veg for platters or soups or stews, this is the way to go. Very sharp, very very well built, very versatile, easy peasy to clean, numerous interchangeable parts...love this thing and wished I had purchased it long ago.

Je suis très content de cet achat, surtout pour le prix. Elle tranche parfaitement bien dès la sortie de la boite, mais elle possède surtout de nombreux avantages: - Toutes les lames sont incorporées dedans, pas de changements manuels de lames à effectuer, il suffit juste de tourner la molette sur le coté pour choisir la hauteur de coupe ou le style de coupe (julienne, etc...) - La hauteur de coupe est calibrée et l'on peut savoir choisir exactement l'épaisseur de coupe (là aussi avec une molette sur le coté):1mm, 3.5mm, 5.5mm and 7.5mm - Même pour passer d'une lame plate à une lame ondulée il suffit de lever le capot avant tourner la dernière molette (un peu dur au début) et refermer le capot! - Le poussoir permet outre de ne pas se couper mais aussi d'utiliser des légumes longs (courgette, carottes) grace à une forme adaptée. - Le poussoir permet aussi de faire des coupes gaufrées Elle est très stable pendant la coupe La mandoline une fois pliée prend moins de place que ce que je pensais. Seul défaut , mais commun à toute les mandoline, il reste toujours une partie du légume ou du fruit en fin de coupe. Pour conclure, cette mandoline est très pratique, elle possède un très bon tranchant, elle très compact du au fait que tout est intégré à l'intérieur, y compris les deux lames (droite et ondulée) . Un rapport qualité/prix imbattable.

scam. This is not original PL8 brand. Don't buy

De messen zijn niet super scherp, dat merk je bv wanneer je verse tomaten snijdt. Het apparaat voelt degelijk en stabiel aan. Na een 5tal weken gebruik, braken de knoppen om de snijdikte etc te regelen af. Leverancier gaf hiervoor geen garantie. Intussen heb ik terug een goedkoper alternatief in gebruik...

Absolutely brilliant bit of kitchen gear !! I use a lot of fresh veg and fruit as part of my diet but by far the biggest pain I find in the kitchen is slicing up aubergines which are tough going to slice thinly even with a good knife. Because I use a lot of these in my cooking I was looking for something that could handle this quickly. I came across Mandolines as a possibility and bought a cheap one to try it out. It was useless !!! As my mother always said 'when you buy cheap you end up buying twice'. I did a bit more research and found the Progressive PL8 came up as star rated on a lot of reviews and although it seemed a bit expensive the chore of constantly slicing salads and those aubergines eventually made me press the 'Buy' button. It arrived really quickly (Thanks Amazon Prime) and I immediately put it to use slicing up some aubergines - it performed absolutely brilliantly. Sliced to perfection far better than I could ever do with a knife, totally effortless and in a fraction of the time as well. I have given it a run with making carrots Julienne, slicing cucumbers and French fries and even waffle cutting apples just to test it out and its amazing. It slices and cuts so much faster than with a knife and more accurately too - uniform slicing is a boon when doing food prep because the ore uniform the ingredients the more uniform the cooking will be. Word of warning here if your apt to be clueless with sharp instruments stick to the Play Doh kitchen range because the blades on this thing are SHARP - like a razor and will cut into you just as fast as it will slice into a potato. I know because I just had to run a finger along the blade to see and it bit into me like a lightsaber so be warned. Progressive have made it as save as possible with a cutting position for storage which lowers the blade out of harms way and the sliding safety guard for you to grab for with which help keep your hands away from those razor sharp blades. The sliding safety guard is a brilliant idea on this as it keeps the food into line with the mandolin. Without it on my cheap mandolin its too easy for vegetable to veer off the ramp. If you don't use the sliding element of the safety guard and use just the vegetable holder remember to stop well short of the blades or else you will run the base of the veg holder into the blades possibly damaging both (I have seen a reviewer moaning about just this). So if your doing it by hand because you feel heroic and aren't using the vegetable holder then be very careful because the blade will give you some serious ER type damage, if you do use the veg holder step before you get to the blades and then put the veg holder onto the sliding hand guard. That way you can cut up the fruit and veg right to the very end without risking your fingers or damaging the machine. Watch a few videos to get an idea of how versatile this machine is - I think its one of the best things I have ever bought for my kitchen, its a real time saver and much less hassle to mess about with than a food processor plus unlike the food processor its quick to clean (just run it under a tap and leave to dry) and also uses up a lot less space. Its quite large for a mandolin but a lot less than any food processor. Make sure if you get one of these you read the manual and watch a few videos to give you the idea of how to get the best from it. I'd buy one of these for any friends who like cooking as a present - just wish someone had bought one for me years ago !