Once upon a time, a son of France rose, drank his bowl of cafe au lait, smoked a morning Gauloise, and made machines until lunchtime. Fortified by the lunch packed by his young bride, a carafe of vin ordinaire, and more Gauloises, in the afternoon he made more machines. The next day, and the next week, he did it all over again. Those machines traveled all over the world of the swingin' seventies, to kitchens from Helsinki to Hackensack, and set to work. Chopping and dicing, whirring and kneading, they worked in kitchens grand and small, just as their big commercial Robot Coupe brothers were working in the world's restaurants. Like the solid French ouvriers who made them, the machines worked and worked. The years passed, decades went by, generations came and went. The sturdy young Gaul who screwed together this food processor and riveted the engraved label to its underside grew old, stooped, and was buried in the old cemetery by the wood, next to his beloved wife. The machines he made outlive him, and may outlive their children, and their children. In 1970s France, they hadn't learned to shave thicknesses and cheapen materials so that their products would fail just after the warranties expired. Your Robot Coupe in Kitchen Aid livery was made to keep working indefinitely. It was meant to be the last food processor its owner would ever have to buy. We live in the twilight of quality consumer goods. Everything is made in China of thin plastic and pot metal, cost-engineered to fall apart after an average of X years, with a standard deviation of Y that the company's accountants compute into the warranty reserves and balance against the manufacturing cost, to achieve maximum profit for the corporate parent. There is no red wine, or indeed time for lunch, in the factories. Yes, there are sturdy machines in the factories, some even made in France. They are used to make the cheap new machines that we consumers buy. Or, that we don't buy. You can get a used bowl, lid, blades, and stem for your KFP 700 for about $50 on eBay. See link for a typical auction. Or a new work bowl for about $60 from a few companies who stock parts for old machines. Try Gourmet Depot. Obvious, as a grouchy old sentimentalist, I would keep using the old French machine instead of junking the work of our Gauloise-puffing and vin rouge-imbibing hero. But I'm not a nutter about this stuff. Why, only today I dumped a box of old stuff - 56K modems, parallel printer cables, floppy disks, Celeron processors - at the freegeek computer recycle place. But I kept the old acoustic coupler and 1200 baud modem that I used to go online with, from pay phones on dusty roads all over France. Maybe, even the side road where the factory once stood. Maybe, even the phone where our hero would call his young wife, to take her out for dinner with the francs earned from his long day of making machines. Maybe, even the sturdy machine on your kitchen counter. Here is a link that might be useful: Example

I have a Cuisinart custom 11 that i have to hold to work, the lid is cracked alittle so I bought a new Cusinart 14 cup but didnt open it. Does anyone think the newer one is superior to older one....thinking I should have just gotten replacement part.

Sue, please be careful with that slicer blade - I got a nasty cut from mine! You might consider soaking the whole top in HOT, soapy water - perhaps it will loosen. If that doesn't work, try taking it to a hardware store and asking them to help - they are very good with helping folks in a pickle - ACE hardware is my favorite place to get things fixed, and they don't charge for services or advice!

I love it! Forewarned - it's a large heavy-duty FP, sorta dauntingly so coming out of the box. It fits nicely on my countertop though once I got over the shock. /tricia