Cast Iron Thickness

[jeffrideal]

Just curious, I have two # 8 skillets by Griswold.  One is a slant TM with heat ring and marked 704 M and the other is a large TM with no heat ring and marked 704 G.  I love the look of the M, but for cooking, the G is a much smoother and lighter pan.  It also seems much thinner than the M.  I would think that the thickness of the CI got less as advancements were made.  So the question is, do Griswold pans get thinner the newer they are?

[Roy G. Meadows]

Jeff,
The short answer to your question is "no". The first ERIE's were some of the thinnest and lightest that Griswold made. In general, the skillets got heavier as you progress through the six Series of ERIE's and then got heavier as you go from ERIE's to Slant TM to Block TM. I believe the Small TM's stayed about the same as the Block TM or got slightly lighter. I don't yet have much data re skillet weights, but I hope to study this at some point. If anyone has some accurate weights on various Griswold skillets, please let me know. The data needs to be accurate to at least a tenth of an ounce.
                                                                    Roy Meadows

[Jcas]

Not the info you asked for, but out of interest
i have two identical Holcroft skillets, yet one is nearly 1kg heavier than the other.

[Roy G. Meadows]

Julie,
This is over two pounds difference between identical skillets!!! How large are these skillets? What is the total weight of one skillet? Are the Holcroft markings the same on both skillets (looking for evidence that indicates the skillets were made at about the same time)?
                                                                          Roy Meadows

[jeffrideal]

Thanks Roy, that is very interesting.  BTW, the pans Julie speaks of are a few threads down from this one and the thread is started by Julie.  They are very cool pans.  Julie, which pan is the heavier one, the one on the left?  

[C. B. Williams]

I've got to admit, I had real doubts when I read this, but here goes. I have a #8 block smooth bottom and a #8 slant with heat ring.
#8 slant with heat ring = 63.40 oz.
#8 large block smooth = 56.95 oz.

Thats 6.45 oz difference. We can blame some on the heat ring itself, but not that much I would think.
Soooo, at least with the examples I have, the older skillet does out weigh the later one.

[jeffrideal]

I do not have anything accurate enough to weigh my two pans but I will see what I can do.  I suspect that my Block TM is lighter as stated above.  BTW, does your slant with heat ring have a # 8 on the handle? Mine does not.  

[Roy G. Meadows]

CB (or anyone),
You seem to have some very accurate scales. Could you weigh the following for comparison:

Slant TM/ERIE- with HR                 (c1909-c1916)
Slant TM/ERIE PA USA- with HR      (c1916-c1924)
Block TM- with HR                          (c1924-c1940)

               OR

Slant TM/ERIE PA USA- with smooth bottom  (c1916?-c1924)
Block TM- with smooth bottom        (c1924-c1940)
Small TM- with early handle            (c1939-c1946?)

Any size skillet would be of interest. The ERIE's were Griswold's lightest skillets in general, but they got heavier as you proceed through the Series based on our limited data on #7's.
                                                                Roy Meadows

[Tom Neitzel]

Jeff,
The data needs to be accurate to at least a tenth of an ounce.

Roy, I'm really curious about the 0.10 ounce accuracy requirement.  That's just a hair over half the weight of a nickel.  That's not much iron.

I've weighed lots of plett pans and found that they can vary 2 to 3 ounces between pans of the same pattern.  I decided to round to the nearest ounce because of this.

I do think the scale accuracy to 0.10 ounce would be necessary.

Tom

One other thought if you don't have a good digital scale.  Try a self-service USPS office.  They should have a scale you could use.  You could always tell them you are an eBay seller thinking about using the flat rate boxes without packing materials.