Griswold #6 Tite-Top Dutch Oven

Doug D.

Administrator
Staff member
Found this at a new hunting spot yesterday. Black paint no help in assessing condition, but the price was too good not to take a chance. I could tell it was flat, the bail was bent but not soft, and it appeared the paint was over crud and rust, so it was a good bet it wasn't fire damaged. Doesn't appear pitted, and I think I can see polishing marks through the paint.

Lid is done, and the bail is fixed. No cracks in the iron, but a short one in the porcelain at the edge. More photos when it's done.

 
Nice! Can't wait to seethe finished product.

Any hints on removing paint? I have a very nice Griswold, Erie, PA aebleskiver pan that someone painted to cover minor rust spots. The kicker is, I saw the rust when I bid and would have rather had it rusty than painted.
 
A couple hours in the electro put a good dent in getting the outside off. The inside was tougher. All night in the lye bath didn't do much; must be the type of paint.

The lid must not have been heavily painted. I floated it in the lye a while, but then s/s scrubbed the top and DPDed the underside. Couldn't tell the shape the porcelain was in for a good while; it's worn and etched, but not terribly so. Seasoning it made both sides look a lot better.
 
Given enough time, lye has always taken paint off for me. As a bad example, I woke up the other day to find that the lye tub in my garage had sprung a leak, and lye water was slowly running out under the garage door into the driveway. It ate the paint (the heavy duty stuff) off of the floor of the garage overnight.
 
Not sure what's the story with the inside of the pot. Polish marks extend from the top down about 2/3 of the way. The rest, including the bottom, is not what I call pitted, not from rust anyway, but it is oddly rough and uneven.
 
Maybe the pot was used to cook acidic foods like spaghetti sauce, etc. that caused some pitting. The whole pot and cover are, or were, in a state of strange coloring, paint?, and sanding? marks on the bottom of the pot. It's lead a hard life by people not well versed in keeping iron cookware in good condition.
 
Just paint, no sanding. The bottom is just mottled with black stains, which will be the next cleaning step. Everything looked like the deal of the decade until the inside bottom was revealed. Acidic food may indeed be the culprit.
 
Well, it's as clean as it's going to get. More photos added to slideshow above. Straight vinegar and steel wool cleared up the bottom fairly well. I'm not liking the inside, though, and am not seasoning it until I test it for lead. I know that acidic food may very well have caused what's going on there, but I'm not taking any chances. As good an excuse as any to buy a lead test kit, anyway.
 
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