Top Menu

Navigation

Revere Ware Parts :: News

The USPS has done great this holiday season

By on January 3, 2022 in Shipping

I am happy to report that we haven’t had a single lost or detoured package over the last two months.  And by all indications, the delivery times are pretty close to the revised 3-5 day window for first class mail.  Compared to the 2020 holiday season, 2021 shipping with the USPS went really well.

I don’t track UPS and Fedex as closely, because we rarely ship using any service other then that USPS.  But I can tell you that for the last couple of months, we’ve personally experienced a lot of delays with orders from Amazon; perhaps as much as 25% of our orders haven’t made their expected delivery day, and we’ve had a few that were very significantly delayed, and two that never showed up.  Compared to Amazon, the USPS comes out very much smelling like roses.

0

Regarding order changes

By on January 2, 2022 in Uncategorized

TL:DR

We can’t add things to an order as we don’t store payment information and order cancellation isn’t always possible.

The Whole Story

A few times a month people request changes to orders placed through our website, such as adding an additional item, canceling and order, or changing the quantity of an item.  For a couple of reasons, order changes are not simple, and are not always possible.

For starters, we use a fulfillment contractor to ship our orders.  The orders placed on our website are then transmitted to our fulfillment contractors system and an order is created in their system.  Sometimes, an order is fulfilled quickly after it is placed and is added to a bin of outgoing orders.  When this happens, it is nearly impossible for them to dig through a large collection of packages and pull out a single one.

And sometimes it is just bad timing.  You place an order and 10 minutes later request cancellation.  We check our customer service email two hours later but the order has already shipped. 🙁

So when someone requests a cancellation, we do contact our fulfillment contractor and request cancellation, but about 20% of the time, the order is already in the outgoing shipping bin, or has shipped, and cancellation isn’t possible.

This also applies to requests to reduce the quantity of something in an order, for instance when you accidentally order two of something not realizing it was already in the cart; we’ll happily do that if we can, but it isn’t always possible.

Second, we chose long ago not to store payment information to reduce the exposure of that information being stolen should our website be hacked.  When you order from us, we simply pass your credit card information on to our merchant processor and never store it.  But that means if you ask us to add an item to your order (to combine shipping), we can’t, because we have no way of charging you for it.

When someone wants to add items to an order, we typically just cancel the original order (see above for limits on this) and ask the customer to place a new order for everything they wanted.

0

The best of RevereWareParts blog: May 2010 dishwasher test

By on January 2, 2022 in Care

In spring of 2010 I decided to do a test to see how well Bakelite held up in a dishwasher.  If you want to preserve your Bakelite, best to wash by hand.

Bakelite Dishwasher Test

Previously, when figuring out whether Bakelite was dishwasher safe or not, I had to rely on my own anecdotal evidence, far from scientific. Finding that less than satisfying, I decided to perform my own test to see just how well Bakelite held up in the dishwasher.

The test was simple; I attached two Bakelite handle halves to the dishwasher rack with zip ties, one on the top rack, and one on the bottom.  In our household, we do about a load of dishes each day, so it is safe to say that the number of washes is about equal to the number of days in the dishwasher, within a few percent.

After two months, or 60 washes, I began to notice a little bit of fading and dulling of the shine on the Bakelite. Below is what the handles look like after six months, or 180 washes.  The darker/shinier handle is the unwashed (new) comparison.

Clearly, the Bakelite has suffered as a result of washing in the dishwasher.  There was no difference between the top rack and bottom rack; both suffered equally.

I can now say with great confidence that you should refrain from putting your cookware with Bakelite parts into the dishwasher.

 

1

Using the 2-screw sizing sheet

By on December 25, 2021 in Parts

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.

0

When a new kettle cap won’t fit properly

By on December 19, 2021 in Parts

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.

0

USPS shipping update – there is still time to order for Christmas!

By on December 13, 2021 in Shipping

We’ve issued a number of notices to order early for Christmas this year, based on the disastrous shipping situation that everyone experienced last year, with many standard First Class packages taking 3 or 4 weeks to arrive when ordered in late November or December 2020.

I’m happy to say this year things are going much better.  I just checked some recent shipments that shipped from our fulfillment contractor in Reno Nevada.

  • Shipped 12/8 to California: arrived 12/11
  • Shipped 12/8 to Montana: due to arrive today 12/13
  • Shipped 12/9 to Tennessee: due to arrive today 12/13
  • Shipped 12/9 to Austin, TX: due to arrive today 12/13
  • Shipped 12/10 to Illinois: due to arrive tomorrow 12/14
  • Shipped 12/10 to Minnesota: due to arrive tomorrow 12/14

It seems like all across the continental US, packages are arriving in 3-4 calendar days.  We have also not had any reports of any packages getting lost in the USPS system, or taking inadvertent long trips to places they aren’t supposed to go, like Guam or Hawaii.

As a comparison, we’ve personally had quite a few orders from Amazon.com be significantly delayed, or never arrive.  I’d say the USPS has really done a stand-up job of pulling their act together this year.

So you still have time to order from us and receive the package for Christmas.  But don’t wait too long!

0

Solving problems, advanced edition

By on December 6, 2021 in Amazon, DIY, RevereWareParts.com

I must say, the customers that are brave enough to purchase parts from a small independent website like ours seem to be made of heartier stock than their brethren that quietly retreat to the safety of Amazon.com for such purchases.

We know for a fact that those of you that purchase from us directly seem to be better at reading, as you rarely ever return items just because you didn’t fully read our product pages and ordered the wrong item.  On some products on Amazon.com, returns approach 15% of purchases; on our site we sit comfortably south of 1% of total orders being returned.  Even the characters that buy from us on eBay hardly ever return items, so this is definitely an Amazon phenomenon (phenomazon?).

But, there are some Amazon.com returns that are truly based on difficulty with our parts.  Granted, trying to replicate a line of replacement parts on a shoestring that was once developed by a huge corporation is bound to result in some imperfections.  But I give you our website customers credit, you seem to either figure it out or contact us for help (which we dutifully supply in droves) and rarely ever give up and just return the darn things, like your cohorts at Amazon are more likely than not to do if there is an issue.

So we’ve made some changes to try and engage with Amazon.com customers more; we now put stickers on every part with our Gmail address to make it easy for people to contact us for help, and we contact every customer who returns a product (that Amazon will allow us to in their infinite wisdom) to ask what went wrong.

And it turns out, we’ve been able to identify some small issues that are worth noting from al this.

Knobs that won’t screw on easily

Sometimes, the lid knobs just don’t seem to want to screw on.  I suspect it is corrosion on the lid screws that is the ultimate culprit here.  When you see a screw that looks like this, you know there will be trouble.

I suspect the tolerance on our embedded nuts is a little tighter in our latest production run vs prior runs.

Here are some things to try if you are having hard time

  • Use some WD-40 or household lubricating oil
  • Scrub a rusty screw with a green Scotch-Brite pad to try and remove as much of the rust as possible.  A wire brush might also be helpful
  • Push the knob onto the screw to try and engage the threads
  • You can always remove the screw, drill a hole, and use a separate screw from the hardware store, as we detail here, if your screw is too far gone.

If it still doesn’t work, contact us for more help

POH-2 pot handle won’t fit flat against the pot or the holes don’t line up

This one is another head scratcher.  We’ve had a few customers where the handle fits on just fine, but the hole in the handle isn’t line up with the hole in the bracket.

If this happens to you, you can sometimes get the screw to fit in just enough to screw down, and it holds fine.  Another solution is to nibble away at the inside hole of the Bakelite handle with a Dremel tool, or a round file, to provide extra room for the screw; usually you just need another 1/16th of an inch.

We’ve also had customers for whom the handle won’t fit all the way over the bracket. Here is the bracket of one such customer (who also had the hole won’t line up issue).

I measured several brackets from my test pots and they came out at 1.75″ x .5″ x 3/16″ (deep) the same exact measurements as the customers bracket.

In this case I sent her a replacement handle that worked, so it was probably just a little extra Bakelite on the inside of the handle where the bracket fits in that was preventing it from going all the way down. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have this problem.  If you are a DIY type person and don’t want to wait for another handle to try, use a Dremel tools to remove some of the Bakelite material from where the bracket fits to get it to seat all the way.

0

The timelessness of Revere Ware

By on November 29, 2021 in History

We put some of our Revere Ware cookware to good use this Thanksgiving.  Here is my 12 year old daughter working on the filling for an apple pie.

This is such a great picture because she was featured in some of the early pictures we did when making stock photos for the new replacement parts.

0

Cookware fails

By on November 24, 2021 in Interesting

I’ve seen lots of ways old Revere Ware can fail.  For example, when the aluminum disk in the Tri-Ply cookware melts all over a stove top.

We had our own fail last week with a popover pan.  My wife loves making popovers and the kids really enjoy them. She has used her favorite popover pan many times, and always starts by putting it in the oven while the oven is heating, as per the popover pan instructions.

However, a few days ago, this process seems to have gone awry.  When she opened the oven, she noticed a red coating on the oven door and much of the inside of the oven; the popover pan has a red finish.  The coating seems to have vaporized and settled on everything.

Here you can see how the pan finish has mostly disappeared in many areas.

The oven racks seems to have taken much of the red finish, but the door got quite a bit as well.

We were left scratching our heads.  We checked the oven controls; did we accidentally put it on self-clean?  Nope, the self-clean setting is all the way around the dial from the bake setting.

I suppose it is possible our oven malfunctioned and reached a temperature far higher than it should have, we may never know.

In our case, the deposit of red finish seems to scrub off pretty easily with soap and water, so there is no real damage done other than a ruined inexpensive popover pan.

 

 

0

Shenamazonigans

By on November 17, 2021 in Amazon

When a customer returns an item to Amazon, warehouse staff evaluates the item to see if it is OK for resale or not (fulfillable), or they are supposed to. Since we started getting our unfulfillable Amazon returns send back to us, we’ve seen some strange things come back that were supposedly our parts.  Either customers get mixed up and return the wrong item with the wrong label, or people are intentionally returning something different than what they got so they can keep the item.  Probably some of both.

What is troubling though is when the Amazon staff returns things to inventory that are either damaged, missing parts, or the completely wrong thing.

A few months ago we started putting a sticker on all of our parts with our Gmail address so Amazon customers know how to contact us if they have an issue.  We got an email from a customer this morning that seemed really strange.

I only received the yellow part. Missing the brake part of the device

We don’t sell anything yellow and I have no idea what on our parts might be considered the brake part.  So I asked for a picture.

Well the knob looks familiar, but the yellow thing is part of a steering wheel lock.

So it appears that someone ordered that item, and our knob, and returned part of the steering wheel lock and our knob in the same return.  Amazon staff somehow evaluated this combination and found it fit for resale.

As a seller, I find much to be desired with Amazon’s Marketplace for 3rd party sellers.  As a customer, I’ve become more and more cautious about what I buy from Amazon and always try to use a service like Fakespot to vet items.  This one example shows a little bit of all that is wrong with Amazon these days. Clearly, they have chosen quantity over quality, at the expense of customers and sellers.

What I mean is that they have prioritized growth in sales volume, number of sellers, and number of products while making it harder for honest sellers and for customers, and virtually ignoring abusive sellers that do things like massively fabricate reviews and steal other sellers stores and ruin their reputation with cheap knockoff products.

Why would they do this?  Perhaps because they are the 1000 pound gorilla now and they can.  Perhaps because they have been able to deflect criticism thus far and have been taken to task over their failures.  Perhaps because they are making a conscious decision that it would just cost too much to provider better customer service for sellers and to put more effort into cracking down on abuse and fraud.

Last night my wife and I both found the same food for one of our pets, me on Amazon, and she on Chewy.com; same price in both places.  The choice was easy; whenever we can, we will divert our spending to another retailer over Amazon.com.  We still give them a lot of business, but less than we used to.

 

 

0