Force 10 Model 63256

General Description

This substantial cooker is made from thick gauge stainless steel and is by far the most expensive cooker reviewed. It has two hotplate burners, and a grill inside a thermostatically controlled oven. All the burners have battery-powered electronic ignition. The thing that sets it apart from all the
others is that the oven door folds away underneath the cooker. This stops the cooker tilting forward when you check
on dinner.

Effectiveness and functionality

It has two sizes of hotplate burner; the larger can boil a pint of water in less than four minutes. The pan clamps pivot from a point on each side, which is functional but not very flexible. The oven door folds under the cooker (A) and is a major plus at the cost of internal oven space, which is further reduced by the position of the oven burner. The internal grill takes up little or no room and is very effective once it’s hot, but the performance can be affected once it is splattered with fat from your Sunday roast. The grill heat deflection plate, unlike other
models, is permanently in place and has sharp corners (B) waiting to leave a hole in your new expensive foulies. Unlike most other cookers the harbour lock is situated at the top of the cooker
and is well engineered and easily accessible.

Cleaning

The spillage tray can be easily cleaned as the whole pan support (C) hinges up and can be removed, which is just as well as there are lots of square corners and seven deep cross head screws for grease and dirt to collect. The oven is not much better. The markings on the screen-printed facia-panel will fade after vigorous or prolonged cleaning.

Installation

The cooker is 450mm wide and comes with solid looking mounting plates. At the rear, the base is cut away thus allowing it to gimbal further in the same space.

Servicing

As with other cookers the likely parts to fail are the thermocouples and the ignition system and these are only accessible from the top of the cooker. Unfortunately this requires undoing a lot of small screws that easily corrode and can be difficult to undo even when new. Any work on the door would be a major undertaking as the side-panels are riveted together.

The Verdict

This is without doubt a strong cooker. However, experience shows that while the case lasts forever replacing the mortal burner parts can be tricky, to say the least – though luckily they use burners common to other cookers so spares should not be too expensive. If you were to buy this cooker it would last for years provided repairs are, or can, be carried out and the parts obtained. You
could buy two of the cheaper models for the same price, though.

Buy the Force 10 Model 63256 from the Marine Shop