Should have done it sooner

K

KenK

Member
Just set the e-tank up. Why I never did it sooner I don't know, vinegar was getting expensive and on certain pieces just seemed to take forever. It's working up a storm on the Erie scotch bowl a got a few weeks back.

A couple of quick questions. Do you just cover the solution you made and save it for the next skillet or do you dump it out and start fresh with each piece? If you save it how do you know when to change out the solution?
 

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You can keep re-using it for quite some time. Covering will reduce evaporation. If you do get evaporation, just top up with plain water. Eventually, you should start fresh at some point; built-up dissolved removed crud appears to make the system run "hot".
 
thanks for the tips just amazing how quick it's getting the rust off the bowl. It's been in maybe 2 hours tops and it's almost rust free. Using vinegar would have taken forever on this piece. The bottom of the bowl has a lot of pitting unfortunately and after a lot of pans saw that was the big downside of vinegar. If there was rust in the pitting it would really take a long time to get clean
 
Electro makes quick work of pieces that are only rusted:

Identical Lodge #7 skillets.
Image
 
I have had a lye vat for a while and a week or two in it works wonders at getting the crud removed. Now with the e-tank things will be a lot easier
 
An electro tank will do both rust and crud, but a lye bath, even though it can't remove rust, is still good to have because it requires no monitoring. You can leave pieces in lye virtually indefinitely, it will not hurt the iron, and they won't rust if fully submerged.
 
I can see the lye bath becoming more of a "holding tank" until I get ready to season cast iron that has been through the e-tank. Excellent...

Anybody happen to know the largest size skillet that will fit inside a 5 gal. bucket?
 
JBPoole said:
Anybody happen to know the largest size skillet that will fit inside a 5 gal. bucket?
Click to expand...

The problem is the length across from the tip of the handle to the opposite rim, and the taper of the bucket at the bottom. I've only used a 5 gal as a rinse full of clean water. Trying to get an 8 or 9 in to rinse is really pushing it. I'm not so sure you can really submerge the entire thing. I didn't have it filled up to the rim, so I'm not positive how high you can go and get it fully submerged.

I used a shallow tupperware tote (I think 10 gal) which could easily hold up to at least a 12, and if you had sizes that nest you could stack a whole bunch of them in. However, that tote sprung a leak after about 6 months and made a real mess of my garage. I would make sure whatever you go with is as heavy duty as you can find, and keep a close eye on it.
 
I've been using one of these rectangular trash cans for my tank. Works great, easy to move around when full. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KDIQEE/ The narrow width keeps your iron closer to the anodes, which in my experience seems to speed the process up. It is deep and wide enough for a #14 skillet. The only thing that wouldn't work in this container is a dutch oven I think...
 
John E said:
However, that tote sprung a leak after about 6 months and made a real mess of my garage. I would make sure whatever you go with is as heavy duty as you can find, and keep a close eye on it.
Click to expand...

This reminds me of the Breaking Bad bathtub scene.
*** Warning - Kinda Gross ***
http://youtu.be/Q32LQYCO9AA

Character Jesse is told by Walt to buy specific type of plastic tub to dissolve a body. Doesn't buy tub, puts body and acid in bathtub. Bathtub is eaten by acid. Body & tub fall through second story floor.
 
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