Sanding, Polishing, & Seasoning Lodge Cast Iron Skillet

Have you ever felt frustrated when

seasoning

a

cast

iron

skillet

? The rough surface never seems to become smooth. I'm going to show you how to use some

sanding

discs and a little elbow grease. You can get this nice and mild, still accepting

seasoning

s and it cooks very well. Join me and I'll show you how to do it. I used this Lodge, bought it at Costco. It was a mix of pot and pan, and I'm going to show you how to make it nice and soft on the inside. Now there are some pitting and I want to make it clear to you that this is something you will want to do on a piece of

cast

iron

that maybe runs into the $50 range.

If you have a piece of cast iron that is of poor quality, it may be very rough on the inside or you rarely use it. It's worth almost nothing, it's a camping set, or it was a piece you were given that you never got the hang of, you didn't like the weight, or maybe you didn't like cleaning it, and I'm going to show you how to sand and polish it to a near finish. mirror and then I'll show you how to season it. I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary here. I learned a lot about this from some people on YouTube and some forums I've read.

If it weren't for these people, I wouldn't have been able to get the amount of information that is required to do something like this, and I really want to thank them because they didn't set out to put that in their videos. I just took everything they put out there and compiled it and I'll show you how I did it. I'm taking circular

sanding

discs starting at 40 grit and then I'll finish with 180 grit. In this video you'll see the paddling surface, so stay tuned and thanks for joining me. This is the mounting bracket we are using to do our initial sanding.

Now you'll notice that I'm marking the pot on that piece of wood and that is a very large piece of wood, it's a piece of scrap metal that we have. If you have something smaller than that, it will work. I just had it available and I'm going to put it in the vise and it will hold up nice and sturdy. Now, when I marked the holes, you'll see that little black pattern there. I used a pilot, drilled some pilot holes right on those center marks that will house the eyebolt and hook pattern I created. It's not, you know rocket science here.

You're just going to drill some holes. Make sure the holes are large enough to fit the hooks that are in place. Ultimately when you put this in, you're going to mount it, if they're not in the right place it's not going to hold the cast iron very well. Just below, on the bottom right, you'll see the bolt I'm putting into these holes. Now here is the above shot of the cast iron that is the frying pan. You'll see some pitting on the top right side of that pot, but it's pretty rough and that's from the sand casting.

You know, when people tell me how good it is. Lodge pans agree that the metal and shape are quite pleasing to the eye, let's tone it down. This is the mounting bracket, as you can see, which is held by that vise pretty tightly and it's not going anywhere. I put a little clamp on the back, but if you look at the back it's really simple, here we have a bolt and the eyebolts that turn into a hook. Everything passing through the back held by some nuts. Okay, just excuse my camera angles here, it's important that you see that we're going to be using this Advanti Quick Strip disc.

It's a little worn, it's rounded and if you want to start with a new one, that's great, but these things will last quite a while. I've made several pots or pans with that disc, I should say. Then we'll move on to these Diablo sanding discs. If you are going to use these, I suggest getting the 180 grit and then the 40 grit. I just bought a package that had the mounting bracket you'll see there for the discs. I will only be using the 40 grit sanding pads and the 180 grit sanding pads for this project, if you want to go higher you are more than welcome.

Now notice how I'm going up and down in that pan in no particular pattern. I'm just trying to get all that seasoning out, all those initial rough edges where all that sand casting is created, you know, those rough steel surfaces. I'm smoothing them out, that's all I'm doing here. Take your time and press hard if you want. What I found with the Avanti quick release disc is that it is no match for this cast iron. It will take away that initial roughness, but it won't bring it down the way you want to see that grit and it will just take it away.

I bought two sets of these at Costco for $50 and they were on sale. I suggest you don't do this on anything of value. Some people say don't do this project, you already know that, so waste it, just season it properly and you'll be fine. You know, I would say that the older cast iron that everyone loves so much was pre-sanded after the manufacturing process before it was seasoned and taken out into the field. You had the option of sanding it before seasoning it. For years people cooked on it and the surface was nice and smooth and took that seasoning pretty well.

Today's cast iron doesn't offer that and you know, some of them you know I have some Finex pans and they're machined smooth and when you get it home you'll see that it literally has a smooth machine like you. Meet uniform rings that grind in that pan. If we can look closer, sorry for the movement there, you'll see that I removed the initial roughness there, but there are still pit marks, like on the top right, you see that little darker pit mark there. But it's brilliant. When you do this for the first time, that shiny appearance will make you tingle inside.

Now here's the mounting bracket, just put that hook in there, that handle. Then we place the bolt on the other side with some washers and a nut and we are going to hold it in place. I didn't show them that I had readjusted that eyebolt or hook because the pan is a little deeper there but it works. only the same hole patterns are in the same place. I'm squeezing it. I'm not too worried about it bending. People said you're going to bend the handle and make it crack. We're not putting as much pressure on the cast iron.

The only thing we do here is hold it flat against that wood so it doesn't move. You'll see that initially I start with this Advanti Quick Strip Disc and it moves a little bit and I have to readjust the nuts and washers to be able to tighten. If I can suggest something, if you look at me right now, I'm wearing safety glasses, hearing protection and a mask, a breathing mask, and if you look at the OHS regulations, you know that safe exposure to dust is safe. Certain dusts are much more dangerous than others and steel and cast iron dust, when known to be dangerous on some level, is not nearly as dangerous as silica or asbestos, but when I first did this project , it was in my lungs and it didn't escape my lungs for a few days.

We're talking like rusty black mucus through the nostrils tasting like rust, it wasn't. I mean, it was kind of exciting at the time, but you know I should have worn a mask and I wanted to make sure I wore that mask this time. Not shown here, but after finishing this process I was covered in a film of steel dust everywhere. If I can at this point, I'll tell you that you know the Advanti Quick Strip disc gives you that comfortable feel of using that drill and you know I would say if you're going to do it, do it, but if not, the sanding discs.

That will be enough, they will simply wear out much faster than the initial

polishing

due to the rough surface you get from sand casting. Over time, I'll show you that you know the back shot here and similar to the pan, it's nice and smooth and shiny. It will make you feel like you have accomplished something, but don't stop at the Advanti. scenery. Get out those sanding discs and really work that surface to make it nice and smooth and the guys will say, why? Why make it so soft? There's no reason why we shouldn't buy stainless steel or you can buy carbon steel and you know you can do it.

I have no problem with you guys doing that. Out of curiosity I wanted to see if this could be done and I find that working with cast iron is not as difficult as it seems. You have to follow some rules, but being able to put it in and out of the oven and being able to put it on any type of stove, whether it's gas, fire, campfire, induction, it's very versatile and if you try it. Well, it will treat you well literally for your entire life. Imagine spending $50 on a piece of cast iron and you give it to your children's children, that's how long it lasts, so let's take a look here, see that it's nice and smooth, there are still those pits.

I didn't get it all that quickly. The strip disc just doesn't reach the corners as well as you would like. I got most of the seasoning and most of that rough edge I shouldn't say edge than the sand casting. This is the 40 grit sanding disc I used from Diablo. I bought all my stuff at Home Depot. You can buy them wherever you want, but you come and go as if you were sanding a floor. You're not going to do as much damage as you would when sanding a floor, but you will remove the metal and you will see the metal you know explode into these big puffs of dust that come out. -4C I think it was pretty nice outside that day.

Here I have a well ventilated room and I am using the doors literally wide open to the outside. You want to remove as much of that metal as possible. You will go through several 40 grit disc pads. I said earlier to use the velcro version unless you really like removing bits of sandpaper from the bottom of this rubber jig or mounting bracket because it will ruin your fingers. It ruined mine. I should have. Should have gone to velcro. But this time I didn't, I don't know why. I'm not showing you 180 grit sanding. I think I've shown you enough of an example of how to sand the surface.

Get comfortable with it. I'm going to show you what it looks like with the 40 grit. You'll see there are scratch marks visible inside there. Most of that sand casting is soft. In some of the deeper areas, you know, I spent a little more time and dug a little deeper there. You can go, you know you can take off half a millimeter and still be safe with that pot. I was good, you know? I'll show you what happens after one hundred and eighty right here. I washed them with soap and water, dried them and they came out nice and shiny, you'll see how shiny it is.

My first video, that's what I wanted to see. I was going for that stainless steel look, but you really don't want to end up with a shiny look. What you want to do is put this in an oven and clean one cycle of your oven. Let the oven heat up well. It's kind of annealing the tempered metal by letting it cool and then you'll get this grayish metal that results from that. Now after seasoning it, I'll show you the seasoning process here. It will be nice and with a gray patina. It will blacken over time, but it's beautiful that way, that's what you're looking for to make it nice and smooth.

The surface still has some imperfections and is not perfect. You know I'm still not a perfect person at this, but I'm happy with the results. If you're going to spice this up, I suggest you use the links you're seeing right in front of you on this page. “The Culinary Fanatic” “Boedy Pennington”, these guys have really great methods for seasoning and it's not all that oil and just letting it go, but a small amount of oil, letting it plasticize or season and then applying several coats of that. . Thanks for your time, thanks for looking and trying it yourself, it's worth it.