Restoring Cast Iron?

MikeTodd

I have 3 pieces of Lodge cast iron that I cook with on a daily basis. These three are seasoned and I take very good care of them.
My mom recently brough up 2 pieces of cast iron from my grandmother's house in Florida. These pieces have rust and I have no experience with restoring them or know if they can be restored.
Any ideas?

avengethis

You can use a mild steel wool to remove the rust and get it down to bare cast. Then clean thoroughly with warm water and a mild dish detergent. After that season it up.

MikeTodd

Thanks! Any idea from the pics I took if the one has to much pitting on the sides?

0patience

That is the beauty of cast iron, they can be cleaned up, oiled and ready to go again.
Use some steel wool and clean up the rust.
The flaky rust on the out side, might need wire brush, but be careful, don't get carried away.
Then use soap and water and clean it real well. 

Now here is where there is a thousand different ways to season them, but folks use shortening, vegetable oil or lard to coat them. 
Choose which ever one you want and coat it inside and out. 
put it on a baking sheet, or tin foil in the oven upside down and bake it.
About 300-325 deg F is probably good for 45 minutes to an hour.
Let it cool and remove it. 

It should be fairly shiny inside. If it isn't, try coating and heating it again. 
Some cast iron will soak up quite a bit of oil if it's really old and dry.

Others may have a better or different way, this is just the way I've grown up with.

jlmarta

There are many ways to restore and reseason cast iron. You can find a helluva bunch of ways on Google. 

In my experience, I'd rather have an old used one than a new one because the bottom inside surface on the old ones are generally smoother from wear than a newer one. If the inside bottom surface is still new enough to have a kinda 'pebbly' surface I've seen folks take a disc sander to 'em to smooth the surface before cleaning and seasoning them. It's a lot of work but worth it. I e got one right now that needs it but I'm too lazy to tackle it. 

The way I judge whether the bottom is too rough is to melt a little bacon grease, butter, even oil and fry an egg in it. When the white is firm enough, tilt the pan and see if the egg will slide around without the help of a spatula or pancake turner. If it doesn't slide easily, the bottom isn't smooth enough....

MikeTodd

Thanks for all the tips!
Does anyone have any experience with the method of putting the cast iron in a fire prior to removing rust?

Yakster

My Wife was collecting cast iron for a while and would keep liter bottles of Coke or Pepsi to get rid of the rust... we never drank that stuff, too corrosive.  

I seem to remember something else about spraying them with something (oven cleaner?) and putting them in garbage bags for a while too.

jarubla

We have had good luck getting through the rust by using a salt and baking soda scrub, and some elbow grease. 

Once clean, re season as 0Patience said and you should be GTG

MikeTodd

Well it turns out that there are many different methods out there. Since I already had the fire pit going, I decided to do a cleaning by fire.
I will let it sit in the fire pit until tomorrow after church and we will see how it turns out.

Nolagizmo

From an rca  registered **** a $s just scrub after the fire with steel brush and wash with dawn and a golden fleece.  You will be good as new once you season with a lil oil

Nolagizmo

I can't say c00n

Amos_Umwhat

about 50% of my cooking is in cast iron.  I have good luck with an angle-grinder, wire wheel, then season as Opatience outlined above.

Sleddog46

I just saw this blog and hope it's not to late to reply. Don't EVER put cast iron in an open fire. To easy for them to crack if not cooled properly. Look up e-tanks. You can make your own very easy. Get a plastic 5 gallon bucket, a battery charger, and some wire and I use a broom handle to lay across the pail. Also a couple of pieces of re bar or steel and a box of Borax wash soda. You fill the bucket with 4 gallons of water add 8 table spoons of the wash soda. Mix it up so it's all diluted and suspend your pan by a wire hooked on the broom handle into the pail until completely covered. Now hook your rebar or steel to the side of bucket ( I use a couple of clamps and attach the positive lead to the steel and the negative to the wire holding the cast iron piece. Turn on charger and let it run for several hours. DO NOT DO THIS INDOORS. You need ventilation. It takes all the crud and years of build up off and when thru it looks brand new. Then go ahead and season. I've cleaned many using this method.

jd50ae

I have used naval jelly, diluted and a wire brush.