Cast iron skillet restoration
 

I thought some might be interested. I'm going to go through the steps of restoring old rusted cast iron cookware. I bought this skillet at an auction yesterday for $2




These old skillets are way better than new ones once restored. I'll be starting on it tonight and I'll add pictures and information as I go.

Good to know, have done a couple myself. The wife when she first seen one like that said she wont eat anything out of it, haven't told her, but she has had plenty of meals out of ones that looked alot worse then that.

Yeah, I married a city girl so I had break her in slowly to this kind of thing. Eating food cooked in cast iron won her over pretty quickly on this one though. Processing most of our meat/food from scratch took awhile but she is on board now and I don't think she would have it any other way.

Maybe after I get done here we can compare methods.

Here is a griddle that came with the skillet. I did it this morning. It looked about the same when I started.

First you soak the skillet in a 50/50 mix of white distilled vinegar and water.


I do it right in the sink. A plastic tote will work if you want to do a bunch at once.



The vinegar will eat the iron if you leave it in too long (overnight tops preferably checking on it occasionally)

Reaction starting to happen

This one is being particularly stubborn. I chose it because of the heavy rust to show you can bring even the really bad ones back.

Here it is after an over night soak




This one is going back in.

Well after saying "no longer than 24 hours" this one took 48 but its not much work. Just waiting.




The rust is gone. The bits left are old seasoning/patina.

and now we can actually see what kind of skillet it is

Now you coat the entire skillet with some kind of grease (I use bacon grease) and put it in the oven at 450 degrees and put it in the oven for an hour.


Turn on the exhaust fan because the oil will smoke a little.

And she is ready to cook. Notice the surface is way smoother than even the best cast iron produced today.

Looks good, you pretty much go through the same process I go through. I will admit sometimes I do light layers of oil or grease/heat then do again X3 maybe X4. It makes sure when your seasoning a refurbished pan it gets coated evenly and into every crevice or pore. Also can add I turn the pan upside down while in the oven so any excess oil can drip to a pan below and not pool in the bottom causing that sticky lair.