Did I Get It Good Enough, or Stop Too Early?

J

JRobertson

New member
Been grabbing old pans from anyone who would give them away for years and just stockpiled them in my cupboards. Just started cleaning the old iron recently. Did my research and set up an electrolysis tank. Not knowing how long it would take, for the first piece (this #8 Gris), I checked every couple of hours, and scrubbed it down. Probably spent 6 hours total in the tank before i declared it clean.

That being said, I don't think I got all the previous seasoning off, and it's left a slightly rough surface on part of the cooking surface. Is it your opinion as well, that if I had left it in the tank for longer it would've gotten this smoother? First picture is the roughness I am talking about. Second picture is where the surface came out much smoother.

All other pans I have left for 8-12 hours or longer and had much better success removing everything.
 

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Looks like stripping your pan exposed some damage that was there already, just covered up. That is pitting and it will fill back in over time. That is the risk you run when restoring pieces. Nothing will get it back to its original smoothness. Just start cooking and trust the process. You might look closer now when buying pieces because that sort of damage is usually visible before cleaning. Happy cast ironing.
Kyle
 
Firstly, the pan was free, so I'm not worried about "getting a deal" It's a great pan, don't get me wrong. Love it. I just think I didn't get all the previous seasoning off before charging forward with re-seasoning.

Secondly, the surface doesn't seem to be pitted at all it. Perhaps this will help better explain what I'm trying to show in the pictures:
 

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Not an expert here, but don't most people use lye to get the seasoning/gunk off and electrolysis for rust removal? Maybe that would come off in a lye bath.
 
Doug, while it's true that a lye bath will take the old grease and seasoning off better, I've got 3 children under 5 in my house, and don't have a garage/shed I want to put a lye bath in to keep it away from them, so I've gone strictly electrolysis for the time being.
 
Need to determine if what you think is "stuff" is carbon or if the adjacent, relatively smoother looking area you believe to be the original cooking surface is actually the pitted part. I would in a case like this recommend trying to see if a 1" putty knife held flat against the smooth area and pressed into the raised area can tell you if the raised part is carbon or iron.
 
Not sure what I would do from here. Probably try the Easy Off method just to try it.....after that just use it a lot, let the seasoning fill it in.
 
Lye,(easy off)won't remove carbon,let that skillet an other electro treatment,make sure you have (-) on skillet and (+) to sacrificial plate,probably you didn't connect it right since you have better result with the skillets you clean after that Gris,You can live the skillet on etank forever and won't hurt the skillet,
 
Looks like Kyle was right! Very slight, very even rust pitting. No matter, it still cooks well, and seasoning should fill it in in no time. Not bad for free!
 
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