Skillet Reccomendations

[Co D-1st FL]

I am interested in purchasing a period correct tin skillet to carry. Does anyone know of a good source or have one for sale?

[GaWildcat]

Jim,

Give Carter & Jasper a try http://www.carterandjasper.com/dinnerware.htm

Say hey to Deb and Wes!!! And we'll see ya at Sweetwater!!

[Craig L Barry]

Or (better still) you could make one out of an old canteen half...

[Mint Julep]

Or (better still) you could make one out of an old canteen half...


and why is this option "better still"?

[Pvt Schnapps]

I have a small skillet like the Carter and Jasper one, which I like very much. It may even be a Carter and Jasper, but I bought it through a "group buy" some years ago and have forgotten who made it. But I only take it to stationary events, and not always then. More and more any cooking I do goes no further than soup in the boiler, meat on a stick, or a tuber in the coals.

The advantage of the canteen half is that it's less expensive, easier to carry, and can double as an entrenching tool. You could dig with the skillet, too, I guess, but now that I've got mine seasoned I don't really want to do that.

The canteen half can also double as half a bake oven. This is from Kautz (COS for NCOs & soldiers), but Eben Horsford uses virtually the same language in his pamphlet on the army ration:

"The self-rising flour, so well known and highly prized in the mining-districts of California, is made in this way. It requires only the addition of salt and sufficient water to make a dough, and can be baked in the ashes between the halves of an old canteen, or even rolled up in wet paper or covered with leaves."

Cooked this way the bread would probably take less time than a potato.

That said, even the small skillet gives more cooking surface and stability than the canteen half. It's almost as easy to carry, too, though you can't strap it to the outside of the canteen.

[Mint Julep]

Well, I'm well aware of the differences in the devices. I'm just curious why he thinks the option is better.

I gave up on the mini-wok a few years ago and went back to a nice stable skillet.

[tenfed1861]

You could always try Village Tinsmith.They have some decent skillets from what I have seen.

[Rob Weaver]

You can also try antique stores. I have 3 period skillets that I bought for less than $10 each - the last this spring. It was $4. 2 are small enough I can slip them in my haversack and they don't add much to weight. I never could get a canteen half to take a good seasoning, whereas my skillets are already well-seasoned. Dirt doesnt even stick to them! (I dug with one of them once - it was better than an army e-tool).

[Craig L Barry]

"Better still..." The canteen half recommendation follows along the lines of the benefits Pvt Schnapps posted. Additionally, if Carlton McCarthy is correct in "Detailed Minutae" then there were only a few skillets per company (p. 26). Many reproduction skillets lack historical feature accuracy. See also "The Watchdog" Vol I, issues # 2 and 3. You can feel free to disagree with that if you like.

[coastaltrash]

Hey Craig,
While not an official invite by Carter and Jasper, come take a look at the skillet in the box tomorrow and tell me what you think. Its more or less for an outsiders opinion of what is and is not a quality skillet.

There are probably a handful of guys making correct skillets, and this guy is one of them. I can also tell anyone that if they do a campaign event, and don't use the mess theory they are cutting themselves short. In our group, we carry 2 skillets, two small coffee pots and a peach can. That is among about 15 guys and we feed everyone.

Pat

[Craig L Barry]

Yeah, looking forward to seeing you at STRI. Happy to look at the skillet, there are a few really good ones. Just guessing but probably the one you have is from the Rambling Irishman (which would be a good one)?

[coastaltrash]

Indeed! I will be Justin's traveling salesman this weekend. Items in the car however!

[billwatson2]

Second the flea market and antique shop route. Steel skillets, separate riveted handle, pop up every now and then, from little ones that are just what you want to carry all the way up to big 16-inch or so items. Ironically, for us, they want less for them, usually, than for the cast iron skillets you see everywhere. That doesn't happen to us very often....

Apparently at one time there were three cast iron skillets for every man, woman and child in North America, and every flea market and antique mall in the country is required to stock at least five dozen at all times. Here's what I want to know: Who buys them? and Why?

There is another skillet that pops up around here once in awhile, not sure of the provenance for us. It's a steel skillet, huge, set up to take a long wooden pole for a handle. They show up in photos of rich men hunting from Adirondack camps and, here in the Poconos, in 1890s or so photos of some of the summer camps that were popular here at that time. These are pretty pricey.

[Ephraim_Zook]

Apparently at one time there were three cast iron skillets for every man, woman and child in North America, and every flea market and antique mall in the country is required to stock at least five dozen at all times. Here's what I want to know: Who buys them? and Why?


Bill, I do. I use them in modern cooking, as do both my sons. With a little bit of care they are easier to clean than are modern ones (as long as you don't burn them). Plus they give you that nice old-timey feeling as you labor among the sink, microwave, elec coffee pot, fridge and all the other gots-to-have.

Ron

[Bill_Cross]

I have a small skillet like the Carter and Jasper one, which I like very much. It may even be a Carter and Jasper, but I bought it through a "group buy" some years ago and have forgotten who made it.
It was a Kearny Guards or Rowdy Pards buy, and I was the one who masterminded it. The things cost about $26 back then, and the smithy who made them lived on some weird-sounding road in Tennessee. I want to say Sheep Turd Lane, but I'm sure I'm wrong about it.

If he is still around and smart enough, he could charge C&J prices which are plain shocking to me. ;)

[Mint Julep]

It was a Kearny Guards or Rowdy Pards buy, and I was the one who masterminded it. The things cost about $26 back then, and the smithy who made them lived on some weird-sounding road in Tennessee. I want to say Sheep Turd Lane, but I'm sure I'm wrong about it.

If he is still around and smart enough, he could charge C&J prices which are plain shocking to me. ;)

You must be talking about that feller in Ridgetop. I've seen his work for sale but never seen him. Good skillets. Real blacksmith.

[Rob Weaver]

Apparently at one time there were three cast iron skillets for every man, woman and child in North America, and every flea market and antique mall in the country is required to stock at least five dozen at all times. Here's what I want to know: Who buys them? and Why?


Collecting frying pans is like collecting coins or stamps. You never know the minor variations until you start researching deeply. A lot of people collect specific manufacturers, and try to get an entire set of a particular model. Griswold (cast iron maker) was based in Erie, and collecting Griswold frying pans is a major antique niche here. My wife has a full set, including a couple interesting griddles. The funny thing is that Griswold made a little cast pan that was patented in early 1865. It didn't hit the stores until just after the war, though. It's a lot of fun cooking with these 100 year old + implements. You can't help but to wonder at all the stuff that was cooked in them over the years. We have a 10 inch that has such a good seasoning that after you've scrambled eggs in it, you can just peel the residue out of the pan with you fingers. Better than Teflon.

[Bill_Cross]

You must be talking about that feller in Ridgetop. I've seen his work for sale but never seen him. Good skillets. Real blacksmith.
If you can tell me the road he lives on, I'll surely remember it, even at my age. ;)

Something like Turkey Trot or a real country name.

Yes, his work is superb. I still have my skillet all these years later, and my son is always pinching it when we go to events together.

[TheQM]

You can also easily make your own period correct skillet. Buy a modern made, or old "Cool Handle" skillet. The old ones tend to be made of heavier gage steel. You often see these skillets for sale at events. The handle is made in two pieces, the bottom piece of the handle is stamped out with the actual skillet.

Find a blacksmith who will make you a correct iron handle. Insure the angle on the end of the handle matches the slope of your skillet. (If it's off a little, you can bend it in a vice.) Depending on the size of the skillet, your handle should be between 1/2" and 1" wide and about 1/8" thick. There should be a "Rat Tail" on the end of the handle, for hanging.

Use a hacksaw to cut the "Cool Handle" off your skillet. You will have to use files or a grinding wheel to round-off the hacksaw's streight cut, so the cut-off area matches the rest of the edge of the skillet. Depending on how the origional handle was formed, you might have to bend up the end of the cut-off handle to match the height of the skillet's side. That's easy to do, using the horn on a machinest's vice and a hammer. Attach the new iron handle to the skillet with a small C-Clamp, leaving a space to drill a hole through the handle and skillet. Rivet the handle and skillet together. Remove the C-Clamp and drill one or two more holes through the handle and skillet and then rivet these holes. (Tinner's rivets are still easy to find at hardware stores.)

I have made two of these skillets. Each one took about an hour to make. (Not including making the handle.)

[billwatson2]

"Something like Turkey Trot or a real country name."

How about Possum Trot Road? I know of two, one in Tennessee and another in North Carolina. I'd really tried hard to find a home to buy on Possum Trot Road in North Carolina when we lived in Elkin, NC, just for the cachet of having that on my mail.....

[Georgia Frame]

Bill gives some great advice, as I did something of the same for a friend who wanted to rework his skillet.

Cutting off the old handle, 1/8" thick sheet metal was used for the new handle, the end being bent to correspond with the angle of the pan. I clamped on the new handle, and match drilled 3 holes thru the handle and pan at the same time. I used some mild steel rods, cut to short length, placed the rods in the holes, heated the end(s) red hot, and peened them down flat (with a hammer) on both sides of the handle, and pan body.

I cut the end of the handle so that a long pointed narrow strip of metal was left, heated that up and formed it in the shape it's in pictured.

I'm a welder by trade, and used to do things like this, but we now can't do "Government Jobs" at work any more.:(

Kevin Dally

[TheQM]

Kevin,

Thanks. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!

[Rachal]

"Something like Turkey Trot or a real country name."

How about Possum Trot Road? I know of two, one in Tennessee and another in North Carolina. I'd really tried hard to find a home to buy on Possum Trot Road in North Carolina when we lived in Elkin, NC, just for the cachet of having that on my mail.....

We have a Possum Trot Road here in Lake City, Florida. Come to Olustee next year and buy a home while you are at it. Our economy could use the help. :)

[Bill_Cross]

How about Possum Trot Road?
THAT'S it!

And Bill R, given the choice between buying one ready-made and going your route, I think I'll take the former, LOL! ;)

[Mint Julep]

"Something like Turkey Trot or a real country name."

How about Possum Trot Road? I know of two, one in Tennessee and another in North Carolina. I'd really tried hard to find a home to buy on Possum Trot Road in North Carolina when we lived in Elkin, NC, just for the cachet of having that on my mail.....


Possum Trot is a common road name here in Tennessee. I suspect every county has one road with that name.

In Lebanon, right next to the ramp for I-40 East at the Hwy 231 intersection, is Tater Peeler Road. I've wondered about that one for a long time.

[Bill_Cross]

In Lebanon, right next to the ramp for I-40 East at the Hwy 231 intersection, is Tater Peeler Road. I've wondered about that one for a long time.
That's where the funnel cake vendors part the spectators from their money. ;)

Should be a "Tater Peeler Road" at every large event instead of "Lee Avenue" or "Grant Blvd."