Cleaning a cast iron skillet that appears to have been painted

[Glenn.Riling]

A couple days ago I bought what looked like a very old 8 inch skillet from a thrift store. I have treated it with oven cleaner a number of times and while doing this I realized that under all of the burned-on crud was what looks like thick old paint or maybe some other material. The attached photos show the bottom of the skillet as it looked when I got it and how it looks now. I am guessing that the skillet might be a Wagner Sidney one based upon the bottom of the handle but until I get the blue "paint" off I cannot see any writing on the bottom. I am looking for any advice on what I can try to do to remove the covering. I know that the skillet will never be perfect but I would like to get down to bare metal. Hope someone can help.

 

[Doug D.]

Wagner wasn't known to do enameling except on the small skillet ashtrays. If you do encounter a full size Wagner skillet enameled, it was likely done by a third party. The most likely candidates for an enameled skillet in blue would be Vollrath and Favorite, but this handle isn't consistent with Vollrath. If this is larger than a #3, it could very well be unmarked Favorite. Removal would be your choice, of course, but personally I'd leave it.

 

[Glenn.Riling]

Thanks for the quick response. I do not ever remember hearing of the Favorite name before. I was just looking at a photo of one of their skillets online and do see a resemblance to the handle on mine. I am leaning towards leaving the blue color on, mostly because i doubt it would be easy to remove. I was hoping there would be writing underneath to confirm the maker. It seems like whatever was done with the coating may have filled in any etched descriptions. There is not a hint of any writing on the bottom the way it is now.

I do own one skillet that I am convinced is a Vollrath and did see similarities of the bottom of the handle to my new item. It is another strange skillet - at least I have found no others like it in my research. 3 photos of it attached. One shows the bottom and two others show the sides. There are scratch marks everywhere. Either someone spent a lot of time after it was made putting on these marks or a mold was made like this aand it was cast this way. Any thoughts?

 

[Doug D.]

It is Vollrath. The scratches are the result of an ill-advised and overly-aggressive cleaning with a wire wheel whose bristles were too stiff for the task. Key to Vollrath identification are the 90° orientation of the number to the handle and the reinforcement ridge that extends all the way from the skillet sidewall, to the hanging hole on the handle.

 

[Glenn.Riling]

They were very thorough with the wire wheel bristles. Good to know how it ended up like this. I actually like it. I only enjoy finding bargains at thrift stores and cleaning them up so it is possible that I never find another Vollrath - at least I have one. As to the painted one I asked about originally I will note that it is possibly a Favorite but will never know for sure. Thanks again.