• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

cleaning old iron pots

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

David P

32 Cal.
Joined
Feb 10, 2011
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
I have several old rusty iron pots I'd like to start using. What's the best way to clean them up and get them usable again. I don't have a sand blaster!
 
If they are really rusty, there has to be someone with an autobody, welding or machine shop in your area equipped with a sandblaster. If not or if the rust isn't too bad, you might just want to roll up your sleeves, throw them in the kitchen sink, and attack them with a brillo pad. You can also chuck up a wire brush in a drill or something and attack it that way.
 
You can put them in the oven on "self clean" and improve them greatly. Alternatively you can put them in a fire to burn off the crud and rust. Then hit them with a coarse bronze or stainless steel scrubber.
 
My Dad deals in old cast iorn skilletts and such, he has a large plastic tub into which he places water and red devil lye, in goes the skillett and a couple of days later out comes the skillett, nice and clean, no rust no crud. Be careful of this lye when working with it it will burn you.
 
For cast iron, put them in your wood stove. It will burn off all the old grease and oil. They come out looking like new. Then coat them with cooking oil and recure them in your oven. Just like new.

Mark
 
There is a product you can buy that is called "evaporust" it is non toxic, NO you cant drink it, but it takes rust off, you can fill the pot with it and let it soak, then dump it back into a bucket to re use it for something later, then wash the pot with water and dry it. I use it for metal parts when restoring cars, very very rusted gun barrels, etc. You can get it at hardware stores, or Tractor supply, costs $20 a gallon at Tractor Supply here in NC. This will work for you. Hope it helps you out.
 
you could use a dilution of muratic acid and water,it works great for rust removal, but be VERY CAREFUL.....a safer alternative is some white vinegar, the kind used for canning, just put some in a spray bottle, give it a good spraying, and scrub with an S.O.S pad, then rinse and dry well, coat with lard and throw it in a 375 degree oven for an hour. :thumbsup:
 
Corncob,Get some Easy-Off.Spray pan or pot heavily then put in sealed garbage bag.Let it sit for 3 days,then most crud will rinse off or soften.When cleaned up you will have to season them right away or they will start to rust again.Google seasoning cast iron for seasoning tips.Good Luck.
 
For cast iron, put them in your wood stove. It will burn off all the old grease and oil. They come out looking like new. Then coat them with cooking oil and recure them in your oven. Just like new

The above is the right answer. Once cured and used/properly cleaned (i.e no soap!) for a couple years the outside and bottom will build up a hard black coating that begins to interfere with even heating. That needs to be burned off as well. It sucks to set back the cure of a 1000 deer steaks but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

It is getting harder and harder to find good quality made in NA cast iron cookware. I grab every ugly yard sale piece I can find and restore them in the yearly 'garden fire'. The very awfullest pieces come out steel grey and ready for the cure.

BTW For such a PC/HC place some of those answers are :idunno: Muriatic acid, WD-40 ????
 
I second those who say burning off the black crud works best.

As for rust, a scouring pad and elbow grease. Good really smooth interior cast iron is hard to find. The inside of the old Wagner that belonged to my Grandmother is smooth as glass. I have an old cast chicken fryer skillet. (Like a regular skillet but 5 inches deep) That is getting nice and smooth like the Wagner. In between uses I have been sanding the interior with 400 grit emery cloth, then re-season and use a few months again. The inside was originally almost as rough as the sand used to cast it. After about ten years it is pretty good. We also use cast iron sauce pans when we grill, so I can put the beans right into the smoker and let them soak in
that hickory smoke flavor.

instead of burning the crud off in a fire, leave the cast iron in the self cleaning oven when cycling that through a cleaning cycle. Stinks a bit, but burns the stuff off as well.
 
Burning your old cast Iron is the way to go brow!

My grand Mother use to build a fire in the yard and in went the old Irons. they come out like new. I do the same when I buy and old cast Iron or want to refresh one I have. Burn the iron! :thumbsup:
 
My father used to tell a story that in the early 30 he and his brothers bought his mother one of the new aluminum fry pans. So she would not have to use the old heavy cast iron one.

When it got dirty she threw it in the coal stove just like the cast iron.

Needless to say it did not survive to become a family heirloom.

Thanks,
Foster From Flint
 
Once cured and used/properly cleaned (i.e no soap!) for a couple years the outside and bottom will build up a hard black coating that begins to interfere with even heating

Somebody said that on another post somewhere a while back. Today, like then, I nearly had kinpshens when I read it. :cursing:
I have a lot of cast iron cookware and love cooking with it.
Fact is, they pots, pans, or whatever, don't get really good until they have that big build up on the outside. You can tell a great cook just by looking at their cast iron pots and pans. That build up is a source of pride.
Don't mess with mine. :nono:
For cleaning, I use coarse brillo or stainless steel pads, water and soap and scrub like crazy. If really badly rusted an electrolysis bath would do the job. I have never had to resort to that even though I have a big tub set up for electrolysis derusting.
After cleaning I liberally rub inside and outside with lard from the supermarket and put in oven at about 300 degrees for an hour or more. I'll rub more on during the treatment if it looks like it needs it. After cooking, I just wipe out with rags or paper towels and let set until next time. The bottom is never, never-ever, scrubbed or cleaned. :shake:
 
My wife bought one of them flat glass top ranges. Cast iron don't heat evenly worth a manure on it. Told her as soon as the tenant moves, that oven/range goes to the rental house and we are getting a gas range.
 
rifleman and zimmer have good tips.
gas is the best for top cooking.
always re-season after yuou have scrubbed a cast iron pot/pan
 
BTW, just for you bargain hunters and flea market junkies. Not all cast cookware is black iron. Not counting the rare junky aluminum stuff, there were also cast bright steel pans. (My mother had one as long as I can remember) But the true treasure. Apparently, there was a practice of making some cast from platinum at foundries in eastern europe so refugees could smuggle their wealth to the new world as plain cookware. Saw a 9 inch skillet of platinum at a jewelry show 20 years ago.
 
Have a rusty ol cast iron kettle i got at a rondy cheap,google clean cast iron, i took the strangest one, cut a big spanish onion an rub the rust, clean with warm water, repeat,it only took one onion but it worked,you have to refresh with oil an fire but it seems to work
 
Back
Top