I don't like the instructions that come with the new ones nor the internet suggestions for restoring old ones. What have you found that works for you?

medxam

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Doc Garrett
Dead Man's Doctor

I'll be interested in this also. I just picked up two old Griswold skillets today and both of them need some work. I'm gonna use the smaller one for cornbread and the larger for breakfast stuff.

I use salt and olive oil to make a paste and rub till the skillet looks good and clean, wipe out the mixture and coat the bottom and sides of the pan with Olive oil and heat to 400, let cool, wipe dry, put away.

I have taken some very old ones and sandblasted them and then started from scratch, this is like getting a brand new 60 or 70 year old pan.

Scrub out the skillets with either steel wool or other abrasive cloth. DO NOT make it smooth. Make sure the rust is gone. Then wash with soap and water real good. Rinse out to make sure all the soap is gone. Dry very good to make sure no water is left to rust. Then get ready to season. Cover the skillet with crisco. The white lard kind. Make sure you rub it all over the skillet and even the handle. Put the oven on a cookie sheet covered with foil. Bake in a oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Turn off oven let skillet sit in oven till morning. Then use the skillet like you have never ever cooked before and have fun.

P.S. These instructions are from real life and the Lodge Factory website. We have used the above in our Scout Troop for years when we have a problem with our cast iron.

medxam,
Since I was a scout leader for 20+ years, I haven't messed with too many skillets but have done my fare share of work on Dutch ovens. You didn't say what condition you are trying to correct so I will start from the top. For new stuff instructions say to heat it in an oven after coating it with cooking oil, stinky and smokey so I normally get the pan hot on one of my camp stoves outside and then coat it with oil and let it cool.
For rusty cast iron I will clean with a scouring pad and litely reseason. For extrenely rusted or burned in food I will add water and boil it for a good while and scrape or steel brush out the remnants. Reseason.
For one that has been cooked in all of its life and gets the thick black coating built up the only cure I have ever seen is to burn it. Built a large fire, set the pan inside the fire and let it be. (Make sure not to hit the pan with any water while it is hot) Leave the pan in until the fire is out and you can pick it up with you hands. Reseason.
One method of seasoning I haven't mentioned is to coat the pan with oil and hang it above some heat. This is how I was taught to season blackiron pieces by the gentleman that I took Blacksmithing classes from. We would forge out something and then oil it with veggie oil and hang it next to or above the fire in the forge.
Hope this helps,
Larry

Funny this should come up now. I just retreated a couple of frying pans and a wok about two months ago.

The quick way to prepare an old skillet is to put it on a rack in the oven and run a high-heat oven cleaning cycle. That will burn off all the old oil and organic residue. Then after it cools to handleable temperature you can do the soap and water wash to get a clean surface. Oil it with your cooking oil of preference and give it an hour at 350 degrees.

Don't over oil before you heat it. Frying pans and skillets are irregular and will have low points into which oil will run. Pooled oil will give you thick areas in your seasoned surface, and they will fail faster than areas of your surface that had thinner coatings of oil to start with.

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David Wilson

I use griddle stones to clean rusty or carbon-encrusted cast iron pans. The stones are the size of a large brick & may be found at most resturant supply stores for around $3. I break a new stone into 2 or 3 pieces & generally use up the entire chunk scrubbing a really cruddy pan or pot. This really does a nice job on old comals (flat-iron grills) that have spent a lifetime cooking tortillas & are really carboned up. In the past I have sandblasted old dutch ovens and frying pans as well. Any new (used) cast iron piece I find, usually at the Goodwill store, gets this treatment and then a re-season using olive oil and 2 hours in the oven at 425.
I have 3 footed dutch ovens that have lids with a lip to hold coals or briquettes that we use camping for baking only. Walmart sells a pack of 4 large round parchment liners that will fit any size dutch oven & really makes it easy for cleanup as none of the food actually touches the bottom or side of the pot. When it comes time to put the camping gear away, I just warm them up on the stove or in the oven (I have been known to use a weldig torch too), coat them with vegetable oil & wipe 'em down with paper towels or a rag before they go up till next year.
My personal observation about cookware is connected with the rise in alzheimers disease in the older generation - seems to me that aluminum cookware came into vogue just about the time my folks were growing up (dad is 88). Maybe there is no connection, but then again, I will use cast iron and not allow any aluminum in our house. John

Steel wool or even a wire brush to knock off the rust, then coat in Crisco and put upside-down in the oven (to prevent pooling oil) at 350F for an hour or so. Let it cool in there.

Then start cooking bacon. Lots of bacon.

If your trying to remove carbon buildup white vinegar is the best. Caution---check often as the vinegar will eat up the CI.
The best method to clean rust and carbon is a---- battery charger----------it cleans them to---as new condition.
Go to ---www.griswoldandwagner.com. There is a lot of information there.
Original Pam works great for the seasoning process.

I would not use olive oil. I would use canola or another oil that does not have as much flavor as olive oil, or use Crisco. (not butter flavored)

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

I cook often with the Lodge Camp Dutch Ovens. I have used their reseasoning process on several old cast iron skillets.

After cooking, do NOT use soap when cleaning cast iron cookware. Soap removes the seasoning.

Use very hot water. The hot water heats the cast iron. Wipe excess water off and the rest will evaporate. While the cast iron is still hot, wipe with oil. Let cool before covering with the lid and storing.

I use a lye bath for the really dirty ones and then season a couple of times with Crisco outside on my pit.
Ed

***ABSOLUTELY MAKE SURE that any old pan you are planning on using for FOOD PREPARATION was never used for LEAD MELTING/CASTING. LEAD POISONING.

I have 2 new WEDGE cast iron skillets that I purchased to cast ingots with and I plan on attaching a WARNING TAG to Handles. I'm looking at Laminating a Warning tag and attaching with a wire.

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NRA Pistol/Rifle Inst. RSO

Start with a fresh new piece of cast iron cookware. You never know if one of the last owners used his to melt wheel weights. Cast iron is porous and the lead will leach out into what you are cooking. But, then, its your health, not mine.

A longer acting version of the Darwin Award.

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Not All Who Wander Are Lost

My son uses W. C. Davis cast iron skillets. The last time they were manufactured was before the Civil War. Most of mine are from the 30's and 40's. I do have some from the teens that get some use also. Some of the older "hollow ware" is the best. There is no "teflon" in my house.

Scrub em with sand in a mudpuddle until clean then dry and bake with oil at 450 for a couple of hours, Makes good cornbread after that.

If it is not new I boil water in it with the lid on tight for 20-40 minutes. That will steam off almost all of the crud. Rust spots get soaked with Coke then steamed. They then get scrubbed with steel wool, warmed in a 250 F oven and reseasoned with vegetable oil. It takes a lot of cooking to build up a great black patina and I will do all I can to keep it on my cast iron, key word being mine. I will scrub off someone elses and get it down to iron before using it to cook with.

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Front sight and squeeze

I season mine in a 500 degree oven after the unit has been cleaned, cover it lightly with canola oil and place it in the oven for 2 hours...then I let it cool, overnight usually. I then make a batch of corn bread in it. Mmmmm... Then it is ready for many things including a 2 Layer Apple Pie!

My last restoration I had the frypan bead blasted to get the petrified gunk removed down to bare metal. I then used a drop of bacon grease and 3M scotchbrite (Brown) to scrub and make an even surface.
The seasoning process I used was to warm the pan and wipe a light coating of bacon grease over the whole pan inside / outside. Then cool and wipe out excess. After frying several batches of bacon, the pan wipes clean with just a paper towel.

You can get lead test strips that will let you check this. Most of the current production stuff is nowhere near as good as the vintage stuff.... and with most of the new ones coming from China, it wouldn't surprise me to find lead in them, too.

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Certified AR-15 / SIG Armorer.

Mr. Blaster:


Blow off with compressed air, quick rinse with boiling water, coat with Crisco shortening. Set in the oven 300-350 for an hour, let it cool, wipe out any excess with a lint free towel. Put to use.

I've got two cast iron pans (from China no less-probably has USA scrap iron content), that are perfectly seasoned and require little if any cleaning after use.

Here is some good info---------
Cast Iron Cleaning & Restoration - The Cast Iron Collector: Information for The Vintage Cookware Enthusiast