[TheForge] RE: Frying pan

[Mike Spencer]

>	Personally, I suspect that unless you are well capitalized
>	to mass-produce these items, or you are going to charge some
>	ungodly price, things like this are far too much work to be
>	worth one's time.  If you can get $500 per piece, then spending
>	a whole day building a frying pan may be a profitable venture.

I don't see the advantage in making an iron frying pan or, for that
matter, any kind of iron cook pot.  Copper is really easy to work and
the learning curve for raising hollow ware isn't bad unless you're
trying for perfectly symmetrical, jewelery finished Baroque teapots or
the like.  And I love to cook with copper pots on either gas or wood
stroves -- copper spreads the heat *real* well.

Quite a while ago I was asked to teach the restoration/reproduction
shop guys at Louisburg Fortress how to make 17 c. frying pans.  I
agreed and then, being completely clueless, borrowed a book and
started.  Within a month I had made some hammers, stakes and other
tools and made a 10" deep cookie jar of light weight copper --
trickier than the 1/16" for the frying pans -- as well as a saucepan
with nearly vertical sides (and, of course, numerous little trial pots
and learning bits.)  And at that point I gave the course well enough
that everybody made a small raised vessel in an afternoon with ad hoc
tools.  So it's not that big a deal to learn to do it.

IIRC, the last sauce pan I made took a couple of not overly long days,
including planishing and polishing, cover and knob, riveted iron
handle and tinning.

The raising itself goes pretty quickly.  The biggest time eater was
the annealing, which has to be done numerous times for a deep pot (but
fewer for a shallow thing like a frying pan.)  I didn't have a gas
forge or similar furnace and heating a piece of 1/16" copper big
enough to make a 7" pan to a uniform dull red with a big propane torch
in the open is pretty slow.  And the coal forge is a No-No because
bits of coke stick to the copper and make pits.  A nice toasty propane
forge would speed things up a lot.  Or a charcoal fire in the forge
would be okay -- doesn't pit the copper.

One mistake I made in learning was to buy a piece of used "copper"
pipe from the junk yard and split it open for stock.  Raised an omelet
pan out of it and it was dauntingly difficult.  Eventually I learned
that this pipe was red bronze.  Heh.  Moron.  Be sure your copper is
copper.

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                 						   /V\ 
mspencer@tallships.ca            						  /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/						  ^^-^^

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