Sometimes great things pop up on eBay, but you have to be quick. Here is a brand new vintage era pre-patent tea kettle:
You can tell it is the vintage variety by the stamp on the bottom.
But, sadly, this one must have gone quickly, at a very reasonable price.
Customer Frank received a lid knob from us and it would not screw down all the way. We have had the occasional report of defective threads on the nut inserts, so we sent another. That one had the same problem. But then Frank had an idea.
After I wrote this morning, I had the inspiration to shoot some WD-40 on the threads of the lid and into the threads of the knob. I unscrewed the knob, put the lubricant on, and tried again — and it went further. I did that several more times and each time it got closer to the bottom of the threaded post… and finally got the new knob to go all the way down to the surface of the lid.
Corrosion on lid knob screws is common, as water gets trapped under the lid knob and around the screw, and the dissimilar metals used between the screw (stainless steel) and the factory nut insert (sometimes aluminum) can promote corrosion. That happened to be the case for Frank and a little WD-40 helped the knob go down all the way.
For the last 10 years or so, while Revere Ware copper bottom cookware was still being produced, tea kettles were the only product I recommended to anyone to buy new. Unlike the rest of the copper bottom cookware, using less metal in the tea kettles (which I’m not even sure Revere Ware did) doesn’t really reduce their effectiveness. Additionally, we’ve not heard of reliability issues with newer kettles vs older ones.
But now that Revere Ware is no longer producing any cookware, you can’t easily buy new kettles anymore. So when a couple of pristine looking used kettles appear on eBay, we take notice.
Here are a pair listed by the same seller that don’t really look used, and are pretty reasonably priced. My recollection is that a new kettle cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 when they were being produced in the last 5 years, so these two, at $49.86 shipped, aren’t that much more, especially when $10 of that is shipping.
So get yourself one of these great looking kettles (one and two).
We received this notice from Amazon.com yesterday:
We are seeing increased online shopping, and as a result some products such as household staples and medical supplies are out of stock. With this in mind, we are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies, and other high-demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so that we can more quickly receive, restock, and deliver these products to customers.
For products other than these, we have temporarily disabled shipment creation. We are taking a similar approach with retail vendors.
This will be in effect today through April 5, 2020, and we will let you know once we resume regular operations. Shipments created before today will be received at fulfillment centers.
Currently, we have approximately three months stock for all parts for typical sales volumes for this time of year at both Amazon.com and our websites fulfillment contractor. While we can’t currently send inventory to Amazon.com, it seems likely that sometime over the next two months that restriction will ease.
Our fulfillment contractor tells us they are operating at full capacity, accepting new inventory, and have no plans to shut down.
So, for now, we can provide all of our parts without interruption.
If you are stuck under home quarantine like us, perhaps now is a good time to refurbish your vintage Revere Ware. Here are some tips.
New Parts
We’ve got you covered there.
For your vintage skillets and sauce pans that have handles with two screws through the Bakelite part we carry handles and hardware, and lid knobs. And here is our sizing sheet that helps you find the right size.
For your post-1968 skillets and sauce pans that have handles with a single screw through the metal part, we carry handles and hardware, and lid knobs. And here is our sizing sheet that helps you find the right size.
For your pots and Dutch ovens, we carry handles and lid knobs.
For your vintage 4 quart, and model 1574 and 1576 pressure cookers, we carry gaskets.
For your percolators, we carry replacement glass tops.
For your 2 1/3 quart kettles, we carry handles, triggers, and caps. Not sure what size your kettle is? Use our kettle identifier.
Our fulfillment warehouse and our Amazon.com stock are both complete right now and will be for the duration.
Cleaning
Here is our handy cleaning guide. That will help you get years of gunk off and polish it to a shine.
Quick summary:
For burnt on gunk on the inside of a pan, use automatic powdered dishwasher detergent and vinegar, and bring it to a boil. Then scrap off the gunk with a flat metal spatula.
For gunk on the outside, submerge the entire piece into a large pot with a lot of baking soda in it and bring to a boil. Then work off the gunk with repeated scraping and scrubbing and immersion in the boiling baking soda mixture.
To clean the inside of a cookware piece well, use a green Scotch Brite pad.
To clean the outside of a piece to a nice shine, use Bar Keepers Friend.
Repairs
Have a nub instead of a screw on your lid? Here is our guide for that.
Did your lid knob screw come off? Here is our guide for that.
Information
Want to learn more about the history of Revere Ware? Now is a good time to read up with our basic history of Revere Ware Cookware, our detailed history of the Revere company, or our photo guide to Revere Ware products.
Enjoy!
Have you ever gotten notice that a package has been delivered but you can’t find it? There are a number of reasons why this might be the case, based on our experience.
This has happened to us personally as well as some customers. I suspect what is going on is that the delivery person is under pressure to meet their delivery quota, and often this means them working very late; we’ve gotten packages at late as 9 pm some days. So they mark a package as delivered and plan to drop it off when they are back in the neighborhood the next day. Sometimes waiting a day solves mis-delivery problems.
One day we got this delivered to our driveway
Those are all tennis balls. I thought my wife had mistakenly ordered 12 cases of balls instead of 12 balls. Turns out the tennis coach for the local high school lives at the same address on street over.
We also frequently get packages and mail for our next door neighbors. Sometimes carriers just miss things.
On occasion when a customer contact us with a report of not having received their package despite tracking saying it was delivered, we find that the address was not entered correctly. Perhaps the house number has two digits transposed (I’ve been known to do that) or apartment number was left off. It is always helpful to go back to your order confirmation and verify the address.
We’ve had packages left in the most unexpected of places. I’ve scoured my yard and porches, called Fedex repeatedly, etc., only to discover the package some time later where I didn’t expect it to be and forgot to look. For some strange reason, sometimes carriers make an oddball decision about what is the safest place for a package.
The point of all this is that there are many things unrelated to us that could be the cause of your package showing delivered but you don’t have it. Do a little due diligence before you send us an email demanding we locate your package. If it is truly lost, we are happy to send another, after verifying your address. 🙂
Over the years Revere Ware used different thread inserts for the lid knobs, including aluminum and brass. But at some point they also skipped the nut insert and use molded the threads into the Bakelite itself. Reader Jessica contacted us with one of these.
As you might imagine, Bakelite isn’t nearly as durable as metal threads. But hey, they will never rust. 🙂
The symptom of course is that the threads will strip eventually, and the knob won’t stay on. You can replace it with a new one (from us of course), but there is a chance you can repair it. You can try using some high temperature Teflon tape to allow the knob to screw on tighter, or, if that doesn’t work and you are desperate, some high temperature JB Weld. However, the JB Weld solution will likely be a permanent one, as you may never be able to unscrew the knob again, and trying to do so might snap off the lid screw.
