The Kenwood Electric Food Mixer, Model A200

The Original Kenwood Mixer

At the Ideal Home Exhibition of 1950 Kenwood introduced the first of the now iconic Kenwood “Chef” planetary action food mixers, the model A700. Previously in this blog I have written several posts about restoring the A700 Chef, and the 1960 redesign, the A701 Chef. But the A700 wasn’t the first mixer made by Kenwood (or Woodlau Industries as the company was known from 1947 to 1950), nor was it the first Kenwood mixer that I restored. That mixer, in both cases, was the model A200, a dual-beater stand mixer from 1948 whose design, externally at least, Ken Wood copied from the Sunbeam Mixmaster. Today A200 mixers are hard to find. They were only produced for a short time from 1948 to 1950 when they were superseded by the A700. They were also competing with the popular, more established Sunbeam mixer, whose origin dates back to 1928.

Several years ago I was fascinated when came across an A200 for sale on a local auction site as I’d never seen a Kenwood mixer like that. After a quick internet search, I realized it was an unusual find, so I bought it as a restoration project. When I restored it, I wasn’t thinking about documenting the process for a blog like this, but luckily I did take a few photos during the process. I’ve been meaning to share some of them, as there seem to be very few photos of these mixers online, and certainly none I’ve found of one taken apart. So in this post I’ve put together a photo gallery for anyone who might be interested in this piece of Kenwood history.

The Mixer Before Restoration

The A200 I purchased came with a juicer attachment, which had its metal spout missing, the two beaters, the drink mixer attachment, and the original glass bowl. The only standard attachment that was missing was the felt buffing wheel attachment for polishing cutlery. Unfortunately, the seller did not do a good packing job and the glass bowl was broken in transit. It took a while, but I did eventually manage to find a replacement original A200 glass bowl for sale, and was able to obtain it.

The unrestored A200 with the bowl plate and two beaters in the foreground. The juicer attachment, a copy of the Mixmaster juicer, can be seen on the bench behind at upper right.

For comparison, here’s my 1947 Sunbeam Mixmaster (model A9B). You can clearly see that the A200 has closely copied its external form. The main external differences are A200s larger and heavier body, and its polished metal front and side decorations, early evidence of Ken Wood’s focus on the “eye appeal” of his appliances. Internally, the Mixmaster is a more sophisticated design than the A200, which was, after all, developed in Ken Wood’s garage, along with a toaster (the A100), in order to start his new kitchen appliance business.

Front view of the A200. I’m guessing that the centre and left-most hole in the base allow for the rotating base plate to be repositioned for two different sized bowls (there was a larger bowl that could be purchased separately), which need to be appropriately offset from the beaters so that the beaters can mix near the bowl edges as the bowl is turned by hand (note that the Mixmaster has a wheel on the bottom of one beater that contacts the bowl and drives it around). From a photo I’ve seen, it looks like the centre and right-most holes were used for fitting an optional grinder attachment, which again looks to be copied from the Mixmaster grinder.

Close up of the rotary speed control knob at the back of the mixer. There are four discrete speed settings on this mixer, which uses a tapped transformer for speed control. Again, the Mixmaster is more sophisticated with a continuously variable centrifugal speed controller – similar to the speed control that the Kenwood A700 would use.

The mixer in raised position. By pressing a catch on the stand, the upper body can be lifted off for hand-held use. It is quite bulky and heavy to hold however.

The Bakelite handle of the A200 with embossed, residue-encrusted “Kenwood” logo. At the time of this mixer’s manufacture the company was called Woodlau Industries from the names of wartime colleagues Ken Wood and Roger Laurence – the company founders. Their products, however, used the brand Kenwood. I don’t know how Roger Laurence felt about this, but in 1950 he left the company, although not before putting his name, as inventor, on the patent for the Kenwood Chef mixer – the product most associated with the Kenwood brand to this day. When Laurence left, Ken Wood changed the name of the company to the Kenwood Manufacturing Company Limited.

The mixer’s nameplate showing the Kenwood logo and the Woodlau Industries company name. The company started in a garage in 1947 and moved production to a factory in Woking in 1948.

Dismantling and Restoring the Mixer

The front metal cover is removed to reveal a another cover over the simple gear box. The spring at right is a spring-loaded ball catch that keeps the handle in the upright position The handle can be rotated out of the way to allow the juicer to be attached to the power outlet on top.

The removable hemisphere at the back of the mixer houses the speed switch and transformer assembly (foreground). This photo shows the charred, partially exposed wires running from the transformer to the motor. There’s a fan on the rear of the motor, but there’s no ventilation openings for air flow, and it clearly it has been very hot in there.

The rotary speed switch is mounted above the transformer. There were also two old noise suppression capacitors that I have already removed. One capacitor was completely blown out.

The partly disassembled motor with armature and the front of the motor casing. The motor shaft protruding through the front is cut into a worm gear which drives gears attached to each beater drive shaft. The motor is a simple universal type similar to the A700 motor.

The motor field coils in dire need of re-wiring!

The commutator had only modest wear, and the brushes had plenty of life left, so I was able to re-use them.

The re-wired transformer with new capacitors installed.

The re-assembled re-wired motor with the rear fan attached. Because of the way it was wired to the transformer there were six wires that had to be carefully routed past the fan in the limited space available. The size of the motor assembly, and the bulky transformer arrangement is the reason the A200 mixer body is bigger and heavier than the Mixmaster, with its tightly packed and custom-engineered internal design.

The motor has been re-installed in the body, and the transformer wired-up to the motor and screwed back into the rear end shell. I have also wired in new length of electrical flex. Interestingly, the original instruction manual (which unfortunately I don’t have, but I found some photographed pages from it online) reveals that the mixer was sold with a “9ft length of flex”, but seemingly no plug. It provides the handy advice that “The red and black leads should be connected to the short or ‘live’ pins of a 3-pin plug; the green lead should be connected to the long or ‘earth’ pin. On no account must the green lead be connected to a short pin.” I would have added to that last sentence: “or you will die!” The past is a foreign country indeed.

The gearbox reassembled and re-greased. The two visible gears turn the beater drive shafts and are driven by the worm gear on the motor shaft which protrudes between them. The right-hand drive shaft in the photo continues up and also drives the juicer attachment, which connects to the port on top of the mixer.

And finally, the mixer fully reassembled. I had the metal body parts powder coated in a warm white.

The speed knob all clean and polished. Yay for Bakelite!

The handle rotates to allow attachment of the juicer to the top port. The Mixmaster is the same, but rotating the Mixmaster’s handle also ejects the beaters. For some reason Ken didn’t or couldn’t copy that mechanism in the A200 (see next photo).

In the A200, the beaters are held in place by a plate that fits into grooves in each beater shaft and is held there by a thin spring wire. To eject the beaters, you push the plate back and the beaters drop out. It’s a fairly basic design, and again not as elegant or robust as the Mixmaster mechanism.

A photo taken later after finding a replacement original A200 glass bowl.

Oh, and for completeness, here’s a photo of the drinks mixer attachment. Unfortunately I don’t have the cutlery polisher.

Of course it needed to be tested, and it worked like a charm. However, this will probably be the last cake it makes for a while. Although completely re-wired and restored to full working order, I think that the limitations of the mixer’s design, and indeed its rarity, mean that it will have to remain a working display piece in my cabinet of vintage Kenwood mixers – and yes, I have one of those!

I hope you enjoyed the photos, and thanks for visiting.