Archive | Parts

A few people have expressed interest in purchasing the remaining Revere Ware parts inventory but a deal has not yet been struck.  Here is a breakdown of what I currently have.

My preference would be to sell ALL the remaining parts to a single buyer and I will give much better pricing if this is the case.  I would be able to provide support in the future for additional manufacturing runs of parts as necessary.

Please contact me if you are interested.

We are pretty clear on our website and on Amazon.com that our knobs don’t come with screws:

And yet the most often complaints we receive are along the lines of “Why isn’t a screw included with the lid knobs? or “My lid knob came missing the screw.”  And people get angry about this.

Any Revere Ware aficionado knows that the classic copper bottom Revere Ware lids have a screw welded to them.  For us to include a screw along with our knobs, for the 1% or less of people whose screw has rusted and fallen off, or they are trying to use our knobs with something other than Revere Ware would simply be a waste, and would have added unnecessary cost to the production cost of the knobs.  We’ve been accused of being cheap and have been called names for not including a screw.  🙁

If you do need a screw or your lid screw has come off, we have some simple instructions for fixing this which includes the specifications for the type and length of screw you will need, which you should be able to get at any hardware store.

Update 3/10/23: The large 2-screw handles are back in stock.  We still have the small single screw handles but continue to run low on stock.

The large 2-screw handle for vintage Revere Ware pans is our most popular size.  They fit the vintage style skillets and sauce pans like these.

We are running low on inventory and it will likely be 2-3 months until we get more.  If we are out of them on our website, you can always check the Amazon.com stock.

On another note, we are also running low on the stock of the smallest of the single screw pan handles.

These fit the newer style pans and skillets made in the 70’s and beyond.

They are also our most popular size of that style.  However, unlike the handles above, we need to manufacture more of these so it will likely be 3-6 months until we have those back in stock.  If we don’t have them in stock on our website, you can also check the Amazon.com stock for those.

The Revere Ware of legend, that produced between 1939 and 1968 made a lot of fans.  It was well made, really useful stuff, and iconic.  Along with all that, Revere Ware the company stood behind their products, not only with a then lifetime warranty, but with a large stock of replacement parts.  Take a look at this catalog of replacement parts from 1967.

They sold everything, and I mean everything.  In 1967, they sold handles for pots that hadn’t produced since 1946, lids for every style, screws, you name it.  In contrast, here is a similar replacement parts catalog from 1988.

Quite a bit fewer parts.  But at that point, you were lucky to get anything, because, a year or two later, they stopped selling any replacement parts.

The problem started in the 1960’s when other cookware types started coming out and stealing the thunder from Revere Ware, which up until that point had pretty much been king of the castle.  As their sales fell, they looked to broaden their offering to align with what people were looking for, and to reduce costs. It was at that point, in 1968 that they redesigned their iconic copper bottom cookware to use about half the metal, and with a much simpler one piece Bakelite handle design.  It helped, but Revere Ware still struggled financially.

In 1982, unfortunately, Revere filed for bankruptcy, mainly due to losses in their aluminum division; while the cookware division did remain profitable, it wasn’t enough.  This is presumably when the bean counters really got to work and looked for every opportunity to slash costs. From this point on, Revere was never again about making good products (they hadn’t been since the late 60s) or serving the customers well.  They submitted to a takeover in 1996, and the new owners (World Kitchen) went through another bankruptcy in 2002.  During these periods and beyond, they were really just trying to wring profits on the back of the brand history, and running the business as cheaply as possible.

Truth be told, the stuff produced from the 90’s through the discontinuation of the brand in 2018 ranged from poor to bad.  They would sort of support warranty claims then (they still claimed to have a 25 year warranty), but didn’t have a whole lot of selection to send you in replacement, especially in the latter part of those three decades.

In the mid-2000’s, my wife and I loved thrifting; we didn’t have kids at that point.  Among the things we picked up were some Revere Ware pans; I felt a little nostalgic about them, recalling my mother had some in the 60’s and 70’s.  But, the handles were in poor shape so I set out to see if I could find replacement online.  No such luck.  What I did find was the occasional new-old-stock replacement on eBay, and, a guy named Charlie Anjard, who ran the Shine Shop.  He took old Revere Ware and refurbished it.  He cleaned the metal of the pans and then polished them using industrial processes.  The Bakelite, he subjected to sanding with progressively finer and finer sand paper to remove the damaged Bakelite and expose the undamaged part.  Everything came out looking like new.

Here is a bunch I had done by the person that took over from Charlie.  The Bakelite, of course, is ours.

Charlie also put together the Revere Ware history and photo guide pages, and collected a lot of information on the history of Revere Ware, which got me even more interested in the brand.

It was at that point I thought I’d see how hard it would be to have some replacement parts manufactured; I have another business that is also involved in manufacturing, so this wasn’t too much of a stretch.  I turned out to be doable and I’ve slowly expanded my offerings since 2009.

Granted, what we offer now is a fraction of what Revere Ware offered in the day.  But unfortunately, as a small shoestring operation, we have to keep profitability in mind. There are two big obstacles in having parts manufactured – the cost of molds, and minimum order quantities.  A mold can cost several thousand dollars.  That means if we say, make 30% in the end on $10 parts that come from a mold that costs $3,000, we have to think we can sell 1,000 of them just to break even on the cost of the mold.  Often times, a contract manufacturer requires that you purchase a minimum of 5,000 or so parts, which sets the bar even higher.  We have to think we can sell that many in 3-5 years for it to make sense.

I think the range of parts we currently sell covers perhaps 70% of what people are looking for these days.  One way to provide more would be to build 3D models of the parts that can then be printed in an appropriate materials using 3D printing services.  We did exactly that for the trigger for the 3 1/2 quart kettle.

3D printed parts aren’t cheap; that one will set you back over $22 in the end, and that’s without us marking up the cost at all.

To date, we’ve sold 87 of that trigger through Shapeways.  You can probably see what I am getting at here; if we had spent the money to make those triggers, incurred the cost of a mold, and ordered 5,000 of them, we would have lost money.

So, 3D printed parts aren’t cheap, but they are better than no part at all, if you want to keep your cookware for nostalgic reasons.  I would love to develop more 3D models for parts, but there are a couple of problems.  First, I am not a mechanical engineer; I managed to make the model of the trigger through a lot of trial and error, and it was a bit of a struggle.  Second, there aren’t yet materials for every use (but presumably some day there will be).

On the bright side, 3D printing can also help prove if demand is there or not.  If orders for 3D printed parts prove there is enough demand, having a 3D model makes a part that much easier to manufacture.

Revere Ware enthusiasts might be loosely called a community, of sorts.  I’d love it if any members of this community of are mechanical engineers would offer to design some replacement part models for the things people are looking for.  I’d be happy to host a library of these here.  Some food for thought.

There are some simple economics behind producing repayment parts like ours.  When we want to make a new part, we have to be somewhat certain that we can sell enough over a reasonable period of time to cover the cost of production.  Producing a new part involves two things – the cost to make the mold, and the MOQ, minimum order quantity.

The cost of making a mold itself can be a barrier to making a new part, but it really isn’t the worst.  The minimum order quantity is often 3,000-5,000 parts.  If we only expect to sell a hundred of a part each year, it can take a long time to work through that inventory, and all the while, we are sitting on working capital while we hold it.

So not every part can be made in quantity like the originals were.  An alternative is to design a 3D model to have printed via an online service.  The cost of each part goes up significantly, often 10-20 times the cost of production in quantity.  And the materials are getting better, but still aren’t quite suitable for all types of cookware replacement parts.

And there are tradeoffs. For example, our replacement handle for vintage Revere Ware stock pots and Dutch ovens has two halves that go together around the handle spline, and there is a nut embedded in one half of the handle.  With 3D printing you probably have to rely on just a sheet metal screw into a plastic hole.

But many people who can’t use their vintage Revere Ware pieces because of missing handles and such might be willing to accept some trade offs and pay a higher price just to be able to use their beloved piece again.

On such is the handle for the bale handle pot.

That top handle would be a great candidate for a printable 3D model.  The same is try for the coffee pot handle, although I’m not sure about availability of appropriate materials, as the coffee percolator handle is in much closer proximity to a stove heating element.

So far I’ve personally designed one part like this, a replacement trigger for the 3 1/2 quart tea kettle.

I’ve taught myself a bit of 3D design, but I don’t really have the time (or patience) to do more designs like this.

So I’d like to put it out there for any mechanical engineer or 3D designer / Revere Ware enthusiasts to take the flag and run with it.  There are probably at least half a dozen parts that could benefit from having a good 3D model that can either be printed in currently available materials, or in the future when better materials are available.

Please contact us if you are interested.

I just want to add some clarification on using our 2-screw handle sizing sheet.  We’ve recently updated it, adding instructions and a ruler on the page.  The idea is that you print the sizing sheet at full size, no scaling, and then lay your old handle over the top to find the correct size, looking at the overall size of the Bakelite part of the handle compared to those on the page, and making sure the holes line up with the red dots, which represent the holes in the replacement handles.

When you first print the sheet, compare the measurement on the ruler on the page with a ruler or measuring tape to make sure it is printed properly.  If they don’t match, then you won’t be able to use the sheet to find your handle size.

If you compare the medium to the large size, and the large to the x-large size, you will see they aren’t close.

The small and medium are a bit closer, but don’t really match well.

So if you see most of the red dot through the holes in your existing handle, but it is off by just a bit don’t worry.  But if you only see a little bit of the red dot through one of the holes when the other one is lined up perfectly, it is probably the wrong size.

Note that we sell very few of the small 2-screw handle size, so if you aren’t sure between the small and the medium, it is probably the medium you need.

You can also differentiate the small and medium by the spline width (height).  The small goes on a 3/8″ spline while the medium goes on a 5/8″ spline.

Kudos to customer Natalie for figuring this out. We’ve had a few customers have an issue where the new cap won’t close all the way down.  In some cases we’ve sent a new cap that worked better than the first one customers received, perhaps a slight variation in the manufacturing.  Natalie however tried the original pin that held the cap in, in place of our replacement pin, and it was just slightly smaller in the middle where it goes through the metal hinge bracket on the kettle, which allowed the cap to close all the way.

So if you have this problem with our new cap, try reusing the original pin, at least for the hole that goes through the metal bracket.