# Cuisinart 'Everyday Pan' Damaged With Spatula Corner!



## jessevans (Apr 30, 2013)

Hi all,

I wonder if anyone has had a similar experience with a stainless steel skillet. I googled around and the only descriptions of damage I found were from heat or salt. I managed to damage my pan in a completely unique way! I bought this pan in 2007 and it has stood up well to all my abuse. It is an inexpensive pan but has a decent aluminum sandwich bottom. It is covered with heat stains and I could care less about that, but lately I noticed all these little holes in the cooking surface! They are quite tiny, just a millimeter or two long, and they look as if someone poked a little hole in the pan using the tip of a sharp knife...like a hole in pie crust, but in miniature. (They look completely different from salt pitting corrosion.) A few of them even have the edge deformation that you see in a piecrust slash: a little curling of the edge. I peered and peered at them and thought and thought, and kept cooking, and finally noticed one day: I must have _made _these tiny slits in the surface of the pan by tapping the pan with the corner of my spatula when cooking! I have a habit of tapping the spatula to dislodge the food after turning/stirring food, especially onions, 'cause they always want to cling to the spatula.

Wow! I had no idea the spatula could cut into the surface of the pan that way!

This is my only stainless skillet, the others are cast iron, and none of the cast iron pans show this damage, though I cook onions in them just as often. Of course none of my stainless pots show this damage either, but I don't saute onions in the high-sided vessels.

Do you think I got a defective pan, or is stainless steel just kind of soft when heated? Should I bother to send it to Cuisinart (on my dime) for the Lifetime Warranty replacement, or will they just tell me it was user error? Needless to say I'm not going to tap my pan any more, but I am concerned that the cuts in the surface of the pan may lead to corrosion. OTOH, there's no evidence of corrosion so far, and the pan still works fine, so maybe I will just ignore it. I am curious, though, if anyone has any ideas about whether this is normal behavior for stainless steel. (Comments on whether this is normal behavior for a cook are perhaps unnecessary.) /img/vbsmilies/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Thanks! -Jess


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## douglasdunhill (Jan 10, 2009)

I'd either toss it or send it back, but I wouldn't continue to use it. Odds are the holes will get larger, and could trap food. Plus small specs of stainless steel could break loose and get into what you're cooking.


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## jessevans (Apr 30, 2013)

Thanks for your reply. What makes you think the holes will get larger? Under normal circumstances I wouldn't expect either a stainless steel coating or the aluminum interior to corrode and flake off. I wondered about trapped food as well, but it seems to be a non-issue. I've probably been cooking with the pan like this for years. I was just really curious if anyone else has had this happen. If I had realized how thin the layer of stainless is on these pans I wouldn't have treated it so roughly...It must be just a microscopic coating of stainless over the soft aluminum core.


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## red1 (May 14, 2013)

Anything with a lifetime warranty should be able to stand a fair bit of abuse. In my opinion send it back, get a refund or another pan. Will be checking my stainless steel pan now


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## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

Let me start with your last sentence first... that's a habit that happens to more folks than just yourself; trust me, I've been there.

Regarding the "pits".  If they are like those in my pans they are little dents.  The long-term effect is nil and the short-term effect is also nil.  The pits will not collect food particles and become unhygenic and I dobt that they will expand in size (unless you keep tappong hte spatula on the pan).  The pits will not cause food to stick any more than before, in my experience.  Your cookware now looks used.  If that is a problem, then think of it as looking more "experienced".


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## chicagoterry (Apr 3, 2012)

The "Every Day" pan is part of the Cuisinart Chef's Classic line, I believe, and on the Cuisinart website it says to use only plastic, nylon or wooden utensils on those pans. This is the case with most of their stainless cookware. I have the Multi-Clad pro skillet and I don't use metal utensils on it, per their recommendation. They do say you can use metal utensils on their French Classic and Hard Anodyzed cookware, but those are the only two.

http://www.cuisinart.com/products/cookware-comparison.html


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## ed buchanan (May 29, 2006)

Banging a metal spatula on it, your lucky its lasted 4 years


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