Share with me your knowledge of electrolysis for rust removal

Update time again! After one final round in the tank, the grill is ready for the seasoning process. First it goes in the oven to dry it out completely, increasing temp over about 30 minutes to about 270°:

Then everything gets a nice coating of melted crisco, which is then wiped off and back in the oven, slowly increasing the temp to 500° and then letting it all cool down in the oven:

 Not everything will fit in the oven at once, and I wanted to apply several layers of seasoning, so this took several days to complete. BEHOLD!

Good as new. Thanks for all of your help and advice guys! This has been a very fun project that I have enjoyed immensely! Now I just have to buy some charcoal and a nice thick steak!

Now I am so totally pissed I got rid of mine.

So when are you going to finally cook with it???

In reply to alfadriver:

Haha!

In reply to spitfirebill: Yeah, I'm kinda bummed about that too. They do pop up on CL from time to time. In fact, there's another one in my area right now. I'm very tempted to snag it and clean it up too. . I may need to find a self help group.

Every time this thread pops to the top of the list, I think you want to learn about electrolysis for removing something besides rust, and I get ready to yell "NOOOOOOOOOO!"

Does Cristco stop it from rusting?

In reply to trigun7469:

Seasoning is what protects the iron from rust. The process of seasoning can be done with many fats, but crisco is my favorite. When you cook in a cast iron pan, the oils that you cook with add to the seasoning over time and give it that dark black sheen. (Never use soap to clean cast iron unless you are getting ready to re-season it anyway).

With this grill, I plan on applying oil or crisco pretty much with every use, as direct flame can burn the seasoning off. I will also not be storing it outside, that's the worst with the humidity we have here.

Seasoning isn't just applying the oil, it's also heating the iron with the oil on it to smoking temp (around 500*), so that the pores of the iron open up and soak in the oils. Just make sure to wipe almost all of it off, or else you get "pools" of sticky mess instead of a nice sheen. Better to apply several very thin coats than to try to build up seasoning all in one shot.

For more info about the care and feeding of cast iron, check out another of my favorite sites: The Cast Iron Collector

stroker wrote: Okay, so let's a assume you had an entire unibody you could put into a pool. How big a power source would you need for that?

I've seen a thread online where a fellow put his whole car trailer in a temporary pool made from wood and a tarp. He used a welder as a power source.

If you do get another one, try out the molases method and give us a direct comparison of the two methods.

If I had to do a whole car, I would go with the molasses in an above ground pool. Out in the country and far from the house!

From what I've read on it, the molasses dip takes between 2-4 weeks for average surface rust, and it's stinky. I can say the electrolysis method is fast, doesn't smell at all, and is about as easy as it gets.

I thought I would bring this thread back from the dead to show off a few of the pans that I have acquired since I built the electrolysis tank. All of these pieces were bought locally off craigslist or flea market/garage sales, and all were stripped down to bare iron and reseasoned. This is not my entire collection, but most of these are what I would call "daily users", the cast iron equivalent to a daily driver.  For those pieces where I have been able to determine a bit of it's history or timeline I will share it. 

  
This is a #8 skillet made by Vollrath Manufacturing Co., likely between 1912 - 1939. In 1940, Vollrath diverted all of their production to wartime needs, and no cookware was produced for commercial sale. Above pics are before the electrolysis. Here is a pic after:

And here is a pic after the reseasoning process:
 

Next up is one of my favorite pans, rescued from the trash heap as it had been deemed unusable due to the fast that someone overheated it at some point in it's life and put a serious warp in the bottom of the pan, so it no longer sits level. These are called "spinners" in the collector world, due to the fact that with a warp outwards they will spin when placed on a flat surface.They are not typically highly desirable with this type of damage.  This one was made by Griswold, and this era of production was between 1920 - 1939 based on documented changes in the logo during production.
 
Ah, but she makes a fine batch of biscuits in the oven still, warp and all:



This one is known in my house as the "Egg Pan", (Coo-Coo Ca-choo)  # 5 Griswold frys up some amazing eggs over easy, among many other things. It's absolutely the perfect size for two eggs though. 
 

Another favorite of mine is a pan produced by Favorite Stove and Range out of Ohio. Ohio is a place where many foundries were based around the turn of the century in fact. 
 
This #7 pan was most likely produced between 1916 - 1934, when the factory closed permanently and the patterns were sold to another foundry. Prior to 1916 the company focused mostly on actual stoves and ranges and did not expand it's cast iron production into what is known as "holloware" until that time. 


Next up we have what is easily my oldest pan to date. There's no telling which foundry produced this griddle, but it was most likely made prior to 1890 since it has a gate mark on the bottom. Gate marks are the result of where the iron entered the mold on what would become the bottom of the pan. Once cooled, the flashing was broken off and the edge ground down. This production method was largely done away with around the turn of the century in favor of side gated molds, where the iron entered the mold along what would be come the lip or rim of the pan, and flashing could be more easily easily ground down. This new method ensured a smooth, even bottom surface of the pan, which in turn provides a better contact surface with the stove top and more even heat distribution due to the even thickness along the bottom. This one is not a daily user for me as I have another newer griddle that is the same size, but I would not hesitate to pull her down and heat up some lil' smokies or a bit of bacon if needed. She's still quite useful.
 


This next one is my "newer" griddle, likely produced around 1950 or so and which gets a lot of use around my house. Perfect size for bacon, sausage, or grilled cheese. Mmm, I am making myself hungry now. This piece is not marked with a logo, and while it does have some characteristics of a Lodge, I believe this one may have been made by Birmingham Stove & Range, or "BSR" due the fact that the handle is slightly different from the Lodge pieces I have seen, and also Lodge used to put 1 or 3 notches in the heat ring on the bottom of their pans, which this one is lacking any notches. Regardless, it is a very well made pan, with a machined cooking surface as smooth as glass, and a thickness that holds heat well. I love it!
 


Up next is a more unusual piece, called a Scotch Bowl, or sometimes referred to as a Yankee Bowl. These were generally used over a fire to heat soups or stews, any meal that required constant stirring, hence the rounded shape versus a dutch oven shape. These did not generally come with a lid since you would be removing it constantly to get at the soup to stir it. Mine interestingly enough found itself a lid mate along it's journey to me, a much older piece than the bowl itself. This lid likely went to a dutch oven originally, although I have not been able to locate much information about it's foundry whatsoever. Obviously they were located in Knoxville, Tennessee but production timeline remains a mystery to me for now. I can say that this piece is old, as it also bears a gate mark on the underside of the lid. 
   

Somewhat interesting to me is the handle on this lid, which demonstrates one of the early pattern styles used to overcome the challenge that a "looped handle" design posed to mold makers of the time. Since the pattern was pressed into sand molds and then removed, leaving a void where the iron would then be poured, a looped handle design posed an obvious problem: how to remove the pattern without disturbing the sand that surrounded it? One solution was to create a hinged pattern, where the handle was composed of two arcs that were attached to the pattern at each end with a hinge, and merely touched in the middle. This design would flop open as it was removed and not disturb the sand in the mold. Use of this type of pattern would leave a telltale seam at the center point, as seen here:

I've picked up a few other pieces of interest, a fish fryer that was designed to be used with my sportsman grill


A small dutch oven that was made from a pattern that was originally used by Vollrath but was then sold to another company who filled in the Vollrath logo but it is still discernable. This is called a ghost image. 
 
This pan also boasts another interesting solution to the looped handle challenge. This one was made by casting the handle separately prior to pouring the body of the pan. The handle was then set into the mold and the pattern placed on top. Then, the pattern was removed and the iron was poured. The molten iron from the body of the pan would fuse to the handle, leaving a ridge around the base of the handle. 



And or course, no kitchen would be complete without a few corn pone pans. While cornbread in a plain ol' skillet is divine, sometimes you want a little more crust on your bread, and that is where the corn pone pans really shine. It pays to have two of these babies on hand, as most cornbread recipes make enough to fill two pans. It's much easier to have two than to wait for the first batch to cool before sliding the second batch in the oven. 

For those who have read this far, you deserve a few parting shots of the goodness that comes from cooking in cast iron. 

In reply to EastCoastMojo :

That's really cool!

How do you go about reseasoning them?

How do you clean them after use?

In reply to Woody :

Seasoning is super easy. As soon as the pan is completely free of rust, place it face down in a warm oven (170°) to dry it thoroughly. Gradually increase the oven temp until you have heated the pan to 400°. Then melt some criso shortening in a pan on the stovetop. Use good oven mits when handling a pan this hot. Remove from the oven and place on a scrap of cardboard. Use a non silicone brush to apply the melted shortening to the bottom of the pan. Wipe off with a terrycloth towel that you don't care about. Thoroughly wipe off as much shortening as possible. Flip pan over an do the other side. Wipe off both sides again and return to the hot oven face down. Crank it up to 500° and let bake for 30 min. Remove carefully and do another round of shortening application, being sure to wipe off as much as possible. Any excess left on the surface will not polymerize and will result in "pools" of sticky fat that will flake off during use and you will have to start the seasoning process all over again. Bake for another 30 min and do a final round of shortening application. This is when it really starts getting smoky in the house. That means the fat is getting burned into the surface of the iron and you will get the dark, black sheen starting to come out. After a final wipe down, return pan to oven face down and turn oven off, letting the pan cool completely in the oven over the next few hours. Done. 

After use I clean mine with hot water and a scotch brite sponge. If there's bits stuck to the pan, a bit of veg oil and kosher salt make quick work of that.  Once clean I place it on the burner on low to make sure it is thoroughly dry.

In reply to EastCoastMojo :

Do you end up coating the entire pan (both sides and the handle), or just the cooking surface?

All of it. Every nook and cranny. You want a hard shell on the whole thing to keep rust at bay.

Thanks.

The search begins...

In reply to Woody :

When searching for a good user, the cooking surface matters more than a name. Many of the top brands produced versions of their top cookware withoit logos to be sold in hardware stores and other retailers at a reduced price without diluting the value of their main brand, with little to no difference in the quality of the actual product. Older pans have thinner walls and machined cooking surfaces that are extremely smooth. Check to see if rust has gotten so bad that there is deep pitting inside. Extreme pitting will ruin the smoothness. 

Be sure to check thoroughly for cracks, as that can make a pan unusable. Check to make sure it sits level. I bought a 12" marble tile from home depot that I can take with me when meeting someone to check that the pan sits flat and doesn't  spin. A spinner is not necessarily a deal breaker, but it certainly gives you some bargaining power. 

Automated processes became the norm in the 1950s, and is considered to be the beginning of the decline in overall quality in cast iron cookware. Good pieces were still made, but they were heavier than their predecessors due to changes in both manufacturing processes and lesser quality iron.

Starting in about 1960, the trade commission mandated that all products needed to be labeled with their country of manufacture, which led many companies to start putting "Made in USA" on the bottom of their pans (even though they could have just applied a sticker), so if you see this you can be 100% sure that the pan was produced after 1960.

A tip for those who have never used cast iron: the pan needs to warm up thoroughly before adding food. Place the skillet on low heat for 5-10 minutes to warm the pan, then add some oil and crank it up to whatever temp you will be cooking at for another 5 minutes before adding any food. If making cornbread, place the pans in the cold oven and preheat the oven with the pans inside. Add shortening or butter to each corn pone well, then add batter and bake. 

Happy hunting!

I live in the Knoxville area and can try to find some info, do you have a close up of the lid?

In reply to travellering :

Thanks, I appreciate any info you can dig up! The foundry is listed as Fair, Day & DeKlyne - Knoxville, Tenn.  

This is the best pic I have

Apparently someone has recently blocked the ability to paste (on android meaning a long hold) and I have no ctrl key on the on screen keyboard, so here'swhat I found from memory:

Fair, Day & DeKlyne Foundry and Pattern Co. was established in Knoxville on Jacksboro street around 1880, and was sold to Dixie Stove and Manufacturing in 1914.  

So therefore, your lid is at least over a hundred years old!

In reply to travellering :

Sweet info, thank you! 

Got a question about cast iron cookware. I know some have been used for lead casting and usually most people consider those pans contaminated and essentially trash. People that make/cast their own bullets for shooting often grab lead chunks wherever they can and would melt it done and cast into smaller more useful chunks and cast iron pans work really good for that.  My mom has a really old corn pone pan like yours above that dad had used to cast lead chunks in. Actually dad found it in a thrift shop and bought it specifically for this use and after he passed away mom found it and saw that it is really old, like prior to WW2 old at least. 

Is there any way to remove the embedded lead to make the pan usable again? Would this electrolysis procedure possibly do that? It's just wall decoration right now. Too afraid lead particles would get into whatever is cooked in it.

It is possible that electrolysis could strip it down and remove the lead, but I would be too scared to use it myself. Corn pone pans are so easy to find at yard sales and such, there's no need to risk it in my opinion.  

Ecm- how do you get the black crunchy E36 M3 off the outside of the pans?  I picked up several that look like they were never cleaned and there is 1/4"+ of buildup on the outside.  I need to clean them up.  I tend to buy any cast iron i can get my hands on.  I have much old stuff including a deep chicken frying pan with lid.  My favorite is my  wagner ware bacon and egg pan.  Square with 2 square egg wells and a long rectangle to cook bacon in.  

In reply to Patrick :

Easy off oven cleaner, you can pick it up in your grocery store. Place the pan in a kitchen trash bag, spray a thick coating on all surfaces and close up the bag. Leave it outside, the fumes are bad. I typically have to rinse and reapply after a day or so for the really crud covered pans. Wear good gloves and eye protection, oven cleaner is some nasty E36 M3.