Wondering if Griswold came from foundry with slightly domed cooking surface?

[EdC]

Most of the time when we talk about flatness (or lack there of) of a skillet, we think of a downward sag, often leading to them being "spinners" and such. All of the Wagner's I have tried (smooth bottom and heat ring included) have been like this... which is why I currently stick with Wagner's with heat rings as they still sit flat on the stovetop.

However, with Griswold's, I have picked up several small logo and Iron Mountain series skillets over the years and they exhibit the opposite effect (an upward dome). The vast majority of them were in extremely good condition. No pitting or signs of any misuse. They all sit flat with no wobble. But they all have a very slight dome in the cooking surface. If you took a 6 inch steel ruler to the inside of the pan, you could ever so slightly rock it back and forth. When frying, the oil has a tendency to pool on the edges, but it's not so bad... the center still gets pretty well covered.

All of these would be sold on eBay as "sits flat" and "no warping", and I haven't felt a need to complain or return them. Due to the excellent condition of the skillets (including a chicken fryer small logo I have) I have tried that exhibit this behavior, I'm wondering if Griswold's of this era came from the foundry like this and this is within spec? I'm wondering if it was more important not to have a spinner that they err'd on having a slight dome, not enough for oil to pool dramatically, but still noticeable.

Or are people seeing absolutely flat surfaces from this era's Griswold skillets? Thanks for any feedback on this, as I'm curious what my expectations should be when buying future iron.

 

[Doug D.]

It would take a large number of samples of never-used pans that old to make the call that an upward bow was "cast in" to some pans and not others (either the defect being in the pattern used or the bow being an artifact of some variance in the iron cooling as it solidified). If we exclude cooling variance, it would require pans cast from several of the different working patterns used, divided into sub-groups made up of pans cast from the same pattern to see if we thought one or more was to blame.

I think it's safe to say that most people consider a spinner the result of user abuse, not factory defect. The upward bow could be also. Some have even reported pans which exhibit bowing when heated which return to flat when cooled.

I suppose if dead flat is your preference, asking the seller to report the result of a straight edge on the cooking surface would be the only solution.

 

[EdC]

Yea, understand this is only speculating. Just picked up another Wagner #8 (Sidney-O) with heat ring and it has a very similar sag in the middle (but still sits flat due to heat ring) as the other ones I have of the same series. I'll be on the lookout for more Griswold Small Logo and Iron Mountain's and see if it has the opposite slight bulge.