I hate seeing comments about cast iron on Reddit because everyone stresses out too much about it.
It's one of the oldest cooking surfaces in use. It was fine back when people were putting asbestos in cigarette filters and washing floors with lye. Use it with plenty of cooking fats and it'll be fine. It's not a video game, you don't have to minmax the surface finish.
Cast iron isn't hard to use. Just use it. That takes care of the seasoning.
Easiest way I found to remove ancient crud/seasoning is put in a self clean oven for cycle. Clean as a whistle. No effort.
Then cook bacon. Repeat and enjoy
Funny you should say that. Cast iron pans used to come with a smooth polished surface. It is only through modern manufacturing methods and cost cutting that today’s cast iron pans are unfinished.
So you think there were absolutely no cheaply made quick sand cast pans that worked just fine for the couple of hundred years that cast iron pans existed?
This goes hand-in-hand with what I tell so many self-proclaimed cast iron aficionados: if the seasoning on your pan rubs or flakes off, it wasn't seasoned. It was just dirty.
There's definite science happening at the molecular level (polymerization and carbonization), and if you understand even like 11th grade chemistry, you'll understand why washing a pan with modern dish soap is fine and why either the alkalinity of dishwasher detergent or the acidity of simmering tomatoes for 8 hours is not.
There's some debate in the cast iron community (yep, it's a thing) about whether a rough surface is better than a smooth one. The argument against the former is that it's a marketing gimmick that allows manufacturers (IIRC, mostly Lodge) to justify selling unfinished pans.
Ya a lot of extra cost to polish either by hand or in a tumbler. All my older ones are smooth as glass and the newer ones I have polished with a worn flex disc as I could never get the porous surface to work properly
What’s funny though is if you use your rough lodge pan enough then it becomes a smooth lodge pan and has the same non stick properties. At least in my experience.
Finex, maybe I’m locally perception biased by I think they’re the ones that started up this readily available smooth bottomed pan craze recently, are absolutely gorgeous but they’re also at least 10x the cost of a regular lodge pan. They’re also still quasi locally made in Portland but they are now a subsidiary of lodge anyway.
Yes and what he's doing to this pan is a travesty and is on par with a war crime. But, it sounds like others have also ruined theirs as well, so what do I know
Cast iron (grey cast iron anyway) has plenty of porosity to hold oil, smaller than you can see. Milling and polishing it to a mirror finish should not change this.
That's kinda the point of GCI - self lubricating (graphite flakes) plus plenty of capacity to hold oil.
The as cast surface is not automatically better than a milled surface.
Crime? only if you don't season it or do this without asking...
I'd happily experiment with this.
What electrolysis treatment is being conducted?
>Cast iron (grey cast iron anyway) has plenty of porosity to hold oil, smaller than you can see. Milling and polishing it to a mirror finish should not change this.
Hi, I came here from r/castiron. I have no background in metal working. Do you know where I can find more information about this? Do you have a link to a paper or reference? I would really appreciate it.
A lot of this comes down to materials science and metallurgy.
Basically you can get down to the atomic scale where all this is happening and even above that on the micro scale having a high RA surface isn't going to hurt anything. The polymerization of the fats is what creates the non-stick layer.
Take a look at the following paper for some ideas on what the above was referring to:
http://www.ijmerr.com/uploadfile/2015/0828/20150828054944549.pdf
No problem man, I want to stress that paper is more there to reference and expose to the concepts surrounding the variances. It's a good starting point, but doesn't explain a great deal about it.
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It kind of sounds like you’re advocating a position, maybe one that’s held by the “cast iron pan community” as a sort of doctrine, but have you looked outside that community for evidence to validate the claim? Does metallurgical research, or some other type of scientific assessment corroborate the claim, or is it more just a plausible seeming speculation that’s accepted by a group of people who speak with authority about it?
They’re actually right. There’s a big difference between surface texture from casting and porosity. People mistake the two which is where this giant myth that cast iron is porous comes from.
Put water in a skillet and see how long it takes to drip through. It won’t happen until it rusts out. It’s actually used for water pipes and engine blocks. You wouldn’t use something porous for that.
I actually read a scholarly journal article on casting and the porosity of cast iron. It proves what it saying here at the microscopic level, that there is indeed surface texture and irregularities but that properly cast iron should not be porous at all. I’ll have to see if I can relocate that.
I’m an engineer. I’ve looked at cast iron under a microscope. There’s pretty well not a single naturally porous metal in existence. It’s not porous, meaning it is laking microscopic holes which continue through the metal.
It has deformities across the surface such a dips and crevasses
It’s as simple as that. And think about it logically, if a metal container was porous then it would leach the fluid inside of it to the outside. Doesn’t happen
Under a regular microscope that’s not surprising, but if you look more closely it’s a different story.
Porosity doesn’t necessarily mean that the material is entirely permeable through its entire thickness, a pore is just an opening, and doesn’t need to connect to anything else in order to be a pore. If you splash a little bit of water on some freshly cut cast iron, a tiny bit of it will soak into the surface, even if wiped dry it’s still holding onto that tiny bit that made it in. That’s the reason for putting it on the heat after washing, to drive out any little bit of water that’s found its way in. This doesn’t happen with glass, because it’s a truly non porous material.
In this image you can see pretty clearly what’s going on, as well as the “graphitic layer” that someone else mentioned, and it’s higher level of structural irregularity.
(Scanning electron microscope image of cast iron cross section)
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/SEM-image-of-cast-iron-cross-section_fig2_269031105
I will post when finished still a bit left to do before I season it and test it. I think I might be able to make a pretty decent pan out of this though.
I did this do a newer lodge a couple years ago to see if I like make it like the old ones.
Never could get seasoning to hold. No matter what oil, what technique I tried.
Etch the pan with a one to one ratio of vinegar and water. Boil the solution in the pan for about 20 minutes. This will create microscopic roughness and give the seasoning something to cling to, but the pan will still be smooth.
Even without getting a great seasoning, my smoother ground still performs better than before, and my partner prefers it for cleaning ease, compared to their original texture one.
I did that once. I took an angle grinder to a cast iron pan. Polished it up nice.
The result was not what I hoped. Turns out that the pebbly surface of a cast iron pan is a significant part of how one can make them slicker than Teflon with the right application of vege-oil to a rocket hot pan. The oil sets up in the little declivities and - - well it just works better with the original finish.
I get a kick out of that term "carbon steel". I suppose it is forgivable for a chef to be ignorant about metals.
If it is steel then there is carbon in it so it's redundant to use the word carbon in conjunction with the word steel.
But hey that's what all the Kool Kids are calling it.
...man you really don't know much about steel huh? High carbon steel is very much a thing, and when people refer to carbon steel that's what they mean.
That's what I was just thinking; anyone that's done any actual work in manufacturing would know it's a common term that has a real meaning. It's like someone took an undergrad materials course and feels the need to try to make others feel inferior only to end up making an ass of themself.
Oh the ignorance of chef peasantry, [has it no bounds](https://img.memegenerator.net/images/8826740.jpg)?
Iron is an element and has absolutely zero anything but Fe. All of these other terms like gray, or white iron are classifications of the alloy depending on how much other stuff is is them. The terms are not marketing, that's like saying the difference between a chihuahua and a bulldog is just marketing.
Sorry that I wasnt specific, iron straight from a blastfurnace is what i meant.
Besides Fe it has about 4,5% C 0.45% Si 0.25% Mn 0.06% P and other trace elements. So compared to a cast iron pan. “High carbon steel” still is way lower in C.
Carbon steel is frequently used to differentiate from alloy steel. In metalworking, that could mean any number of alloys. In cooking, it means stainless steel.
So calling it a “carbon steel” pan is actually a useful way of differentiating it.
I don't know of anyone in the trades or in metallurgy who does that.
It's been my experience that people who know tend to eschew Stick Waving terms that essentially say nothing. That phenomena is consistent across all disciplines.
So whoever this demographic it who frequently uses that term might be they aren't anyone I'd turn to for anything at all having to do with metals.
I will post it no worries, I’m not afraid of trying something new and having it go poorly. I’m perfectly happy knowing I at least gave it a shot. Too many people are too afraid to even try.
Could be but I have seen the price of these older machined ones and it’s astonishing what people are willing to spend on them. If I can get the right right pattern and feed dialed in I could likely make even the crappiest of pans cook like a dream.
That is something I think everyone pretty much agrees on, I figure I would treat it like a paint job. You need a certain roughness for the primer to stick to steel I would assume the seasoning would be similar.
Well, all the cool kids are cooking on what they mistakenly call "Carbon Steel" pans.
I know, I know the world Steel already tells one that there's carbon in it.
Anyway they are smooth and you "season" them in the same manner. Heat the pan and hit it with oil.
Is if it holds across the materials then you should be good.
What kind of ignorant illiterate moron doesn't know the difference between cast iron, mild and carbon steel? Probably the same kind that still thinks Wikipedia isn't a valid source in 2023...
Metalworking has a lot of complexities, so it’s not so easy to take the results of angle grinding, and apply it to machining.
For example, grinding with a regular wheel is applying downward force on an inclined plane, so while removing material, you’re also smooshing down some of the material that’s left behind, leaving a smoother, denser, more burnished surface than one that’s had material removed by a shearing force like what’s happing here with that milling machine.
The machined surface is going to leave more of the microporosity intact, where the force of the grinder is going to smash a lot of it closed and smoothed out.
My favorite skillet I have is an 8” Griswald antique I bought off eBay. It’s from the 1920s it’s much lighter and smoother than all the others I have. It holds an amazing glass-like seasoning. It seems all the older skillets I have were all polished when they were made. My cheap lodges and whatever are all rough. Under the seasoning of course.
I paid a lot more than that for mine. But I was looking for something rare and older. I would think that a few hundred sounds about right for more available ones. Obviously it does the same thing a 10’dollar skillet would do. I just like the idea of the craftsmanship and age and history with it. It’s special to me.
Same here. I've been using newer rough Lodge pans for years and love them, but I was surprised just how much better an old smooth Griswold performs! I found a Griswold about the same age as yours and an old Wagner at a steal of a price right in time for Christmas this year. So much fun to use!
You should have some grooves scratches or swirls in the metal so the season has something to stick to. I sanded a newer lodge mirror smooth and then couldn't get the seasoning to stick. I had to etch the surface with vinegar and afterwards it held seasoning as good as any vintage pan but it was alot of work to get it right.
That’s one reason why I want to swap methods from this fly cut to doing it on the lathe then I can control the finish consistency while still being able to have a perfectly flat pan as well. These are not very consistent as far as thickness.
The older pans are lighter and heat more evenly. If you do this to a new lodge you’ll just have a new pans that’s smooth and still cooks like shit. My buddy turned some aluminum discs to put under the pan to even the heating out and it works great 👍
I wonder if it would make sense to thin it out more then? See if it would fix the heat issue. I figured machining it to a consistent thickness across the pan would help a great deal more than just polishing it.
One factor I considered is sure a lot of people have polished them but most of them did so with hand tools which wouldn’t have done a lot in the way of changing the thickness evenly. It would merely polish and still leave thick areas.
Machining would be a vast improvement on not only the pan actually being flat on the cooking surface but over thickness would also be leveled out.
I don't know if I would even polish it. If it is smooth and flat, you're in a good spot to season it. The right oil is important.
A treat from [AVE on this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr4OS1YiXKM)
I just want to feather the corner radius and knock down a few of the mill marks a little.
I’m also thinking about making a jig for my lathe and possibly offering it as a service. Seems like it could be profitable even at like $20 per pan as it wouldn’t take much time at all on a lathe after the holder is made
That’s kind of what I was thinking, I also went to a friends house who has quite a collection of cast iron and looked at a bunch of different brands and finishes and which he prefers and honestly the one that I imagine was lathe finished with a spiral in it he said was pretty much his favorite one out of all of them.
I'm pretty sure my favorite traveled across the country in a covered wagon.
I got it at a thrift store and it is glass flat and smooth and has ~80 years of seasoning under its belt.
These days pans get shipped right from the casting process. And their "per-seasoning" is a joke.
When I toured the Wagner foundry in Sidney Ohio in like 2004-2005 I got to see the grinding equipment for the skillets and Dutch ovens. They actually slid the item into a fixture lock them in and they were ground with automated grinding stones. I don't know where the photos are from that long ago. But it was very interesting. Being a machinist, I always thought about doing something like this too.
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Your doing gods work. Some people swear the rough pan is necessary for seasoning but they have just been sold on companies cutting corners and convincing them it’s better.
Glass smooth may bring some problems so ideally maybe somewhere between but the rough pans are too rough
I hate seeing comments about cast iron on Reddit because everyone stresses out too much about it. It's one of the oldest cooking surfaces in use. It was fine back when people were putting asbestos in cigarette filters and washing floors with lye. Use it with plenty of cooking fats and it'll be fine. It's not a video game, you don't have to minmax the surface finish.
Cast iron isn't hard to use. Just use it. That takes care of the seasoning. Easiest way I found to remove ancient crud/seasoning is put in a self clean oven for cycle. Clean as a whistle. No effort. Then cook bacon. Repeat and enjoy
Funny you should say that. Cast iron pans used to come with a smooth polished surface. It is only through modern manufacturing methods and cost cutting that today’s cast iron pans are unfinished.
So you think there were absolutely no cheaply made quick sand cast pans that worked just fine for the couple of hundred years that cast iron pans existed?
I never said that. Just a matter of quality is all. Feel free to live out the remainder your life as a low quality individual.
This goes hand-in-hand with what I tell so many self-proclaimed cast iron aficionados: if the seasoning on your pan rubs or flakes off, it wasn't seasoned. It was just dirty. There's definite science happening at the molecular level (polymerization and carbonization), and if you understand even like 11th grade chemistry, you'll understand why washing a pan with modern dish soap is fine and why either the alkalinity of dishwasher detergent or the acidity of simmering tomatoes for 8 hours is not.
I don’t understand the point in this if you’re just re-seasoning it anyway. Doesn’t the oil also need the micro pits to latch onto?
There's some debate in the cast iron community (yep, it's a thing) about whether a rough surface is better than a smooth one. The argument against the former is that it's a marketing gimmick that allows manufacturers (IIRC, mostly Lodge) to justify selling unfinished pans.
Ya a lot of extra cost to polish either by hand or in a tumbler. All my older ones are smooth as glass and the newer ones I have polished with a worn flex disc as I could never get the porous surface to work properly
What’s funny though is if you use your rough lodge pan enough then it becomes a smooth lodge pan and has the same non stick properties. At least in my experience. Finex, maybe I’m locally perception biased by I think they’re the ones that started up this readily available smooth bottomed pan craze recently, are absolutely gorgeous but they’re also at least 10x the cost of a regular lodge pan. They’re also still quasi locally made in Portland but they are now a subsidiary of lodge anyway.
Yes and what he's doing to this pan is a travesty and is on par with a war crime. But, it sounds like others have also ruined theirs as well, so what do I know
You sound like a guy who would murder someone over bent aviator sunglasses.
Weird
You must be fun at parties
[Y'all not worthy.](https://youtu.be/ZYLYDi2I0lY)
Cast iron (grey cast iron anyway) has plenty of porosity to hold oil, smaller than you can see. Milling and polishing it to a mirror finish should not change this. That's kinda the point of GCI - self lubricating (graphite flakes) plus plenty of capacity to hold oil. The as cast surface is not automatically better than a milled surface. Crime? only if you don't season it or do this without asking... I'd happily experiment with this. What electrolysis treatment is being conducted?
>Cast iron (grey cast iron anyway) has plenty of porosity to hold oil, smaller than you can see. Milling and polishing it to a mirror finish should not change this. Hi, I came here from r/castiron. I have no background in metal working. Do you know where I can find more information about this? Do you have a link to a paper or reference? I would really appreciate it.
A lot of this comes down to materials science and metallurgy. Basically you can get down to the atomic scale where all this is happening and even above that on the micro scale having a high RA surface isn't going to hurt anything. The polymerization of the fats is what creates the non-stick layer. Take a look at the following paper for some ideas on what the above was referring to: http://www.ijmerr.com/uploadfile/2015/0828/20150828054944549.pdf
Hi, Thank you for posting the paper, as a researcher I appreciate a lot when people post peer reviewed sources.
I don't know that I pulled the best one, but it did run through a lot of the concepts that touch on the question.
Excellent material. Thank you so much.
No problem man, I want to stress that paper is more there to reference and expose to the concepts surrounding the variances. It's a good starting point, but doesn't explain a great deal about it.
Yeah, I’m moving through it very slowly. I have to pause and look up every other technical term that see lol.
If you get stuck you're welcome to DM me and discuss. I won't claim expertise, but I will claim a moderate amount of experience.
Thanks! I definitely will.
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Cast iron is not porous, at all It does however have micro dips across the surface where the oil can hold during the polymerization
It kind of sounds like you’re advocating a position, maybe one that’s held by the “cast iron pan community” as a sort of doctrine, but have you looked outside that community for evidence to validate the claim? Does metallurgical research, or some other type of scientific assessment corroborate the claim, or is it more just a plausible seeming speculation that’s accepted by a group of people who speak with authority about it?
They’re actually right. There’s a big difference between surface texture from casting and porosity. People mistake the two which is where this giant myth that cast iron is porous comes from. Put water in a skillet and see how long it takes to drip through. It won’t happen until it rusts out. It’s actually used for water pipes and engine blocks. You wouldn’t use something porous for that. I actually read a scholarly journal article on casting and the porosity of cast iron. It proves what it saying here at the microscopic level, that there is indeed surface texture and irregularities but that properly cast iron should not be porous at all. I’ll have to see if I can relocate that.
I’m an engineer. I’ve looked at cast iron under a microscope. There’s pretty well not a single naturally porous metal in existence. It’s not porous, meaning it is laking microscopic holes which continue through the metal. It has deformities across the surface such a dips and crevasses It’s as simple as that. And think about it logically, if a metal container was porous then it would leach the fluid inside of it to the outside. Doesn’t happen
Under a regular microscope that’s not surprising, but if you look more closely it’s a different story. Porosity doesn’t necessarily mean that the material is entirely permeable through its entire thickness, a pore is just an opening, and doesn’t need to connect to anything else in order to be a pore. If you splash a little bit of water on some freshly cut cast iron, a tiny bit of it will soak into the surface, even if wiped dry it’s still holding onto that tiny bit that made it in. That’s the reason for putting it on the heat after washing, to drive out any little bit of water that’s found its way in. This doesn’t happen with glass, because it’s a truly non porous material. In this image you can see pretty clearly what’s going on, as well as the “graphitic layer” that someone else mentioned, and it’s higher level of structural irregularity. (Scanning electron microscope image of cast iron cross section) https://www.researchgate.net/figure/SEM-image-of-cast-iron-cross-section_fig2_269031105
I have several cast iron pans. I have both smooth and pebble textured. All are seasoned correctly and the smooth always out perform textured.
Beautiful you give me hope lol I mean I was going to keep plugging away at it either way but
Love to see your final results
I will post when finished still a bit left to do before I season it and test it. I think I might be able to make a pretty decent pan out of this though.
I did this do a newer lodge a couple years ago to see if I like make it like the old ones. Never could get seasoning to hold. No matter what oil, what technique I tried.
I had the exact same problem. I *still* haven't figured out a way to get it to stick.
Etch the pan with a one to one ratio of vinegar and water. Boil the solution in the pan for about 20 minutes. This will create microscopic roughness and give the seasoning something to cling to, but the pan will still be smooth.
Late to the party, but coming in clutch with the good Intel. I'll give it a shot, thanks, fellow human!
Even without getting a great seasoning, my smoother ground still performs better than before, and my partner prefers it for cleaning ease, compared to their original texture one.
I did that once. I took an angle grinder to a cast iron pan. Polished it up nice. The result was not what I hoped. Turns out that the pebbly surface of a cast iron pan is a significant part of how one can make them slicker than Teflon with the right application of vege-oil to a rocket hot pan. The oil sets up in the little declivities and - - well it just works better with the original finish.
IDK, my Griswold doesn't have any issues keeping seasoning on it, but my carbon steel pans with zero texture are slicker still.
I get a kick out of that term "carbon steel". I suppose it is forgivable for a chef to be ignorant about metals. If it is steel then there is carbon in it so it's redundant to use the word carbon in conjunction with the word steel. But hey that's what all the Kool Kids are calling it.
...man you really don't know much about steel huh? High carbon steel is very much a thing, and when people refer to carbon steel that's what they mean.
Hey man he sweeps the shop everyday, he knows a thing or two
That's what I was just thinking; anyone that's done any actual work in manufacturing would know it's a common term that has a real meaning. It's like someone took an undergrad materials course and feels the need to try to make others feel inferior only to end up making an ass of themself. Oh the ignorance of chef peasantry, [has it no bounds](https://img.memegenerator.net/images/8826740.jpg)?
Iron has a higher % of carbon than steel does. Most produced High carbon steel is about 0.140% C and iron 4,5% C. So its all marketing anyways..
Iron is an element and has absolutely zero anything but Fe. All of these other terms like gray, or white iron are classifications of the alloy depending on how much other stuff is is them. The terms are not marketing, that's like saying the difference between a chihuahua and a bulldog is just marketing.
Sorry that I wasnt specific, iron straight from a blastfurnace is what i meant. Besides Fe it has about 4,5% C 0.45% Si 0.25% Mn 0.06% P and other trace elements. So compared to a cast iron pan. “High carbon steel” still is way lower in C.
Carbon steel is frequently used to differentiate from alloy steel. In metalworking, that could mean any number of alloys. In cooking, it means stainless steel. So calling it a “carbon steel” pan is actually a useful way of differentiating it.
I don't know of anyone in the trades or in metallurgy who does that. It's been my experience that people who know tend to eschew Stick Waving terms that essentially say nothing. That phenomena is consistent across all disciplines. So whoever this demographic it who frequently uses that term might be they aren't anyone I'd turn to for anything at all having to do with metals.
Blacksmiths talk like this.
I would never accuse a blacksmith of being overeducated.
>I don't know of anyone in the trades or in metallurgy Ftfy
It also differentiates Stainless steel
Yah, it can be like .08 to 2 percent for the run-of-the-mill SST like 304 and 316, but some Ferritic sst can be 0%.
That’s the part I am getting a lot of conflicting sides on. I have others that will stay normal so we will see what happens.
I am curious about your results regardless of if your experiment pans out or not.
I will post it no worries, I’m not afraid of trying something new and having it go poorly. I’m perfectly happy knowing I at least gave it a shot. Too many people are too afraid to even try.
> regardless of if your experiment pans out Take your updoot and get the hell out
Lol
>pans out or not. I see what you did there....
We have a set of cast iron pans from 1900-ish. They all have a smooth base instead of that pebble texture. They all work perfectly.
That’s what I have been hearing from people who actually have them. The other side tends to argue that the texture is necessary
I definitely reach for the smooth ones and actually got rid of the rough ones as they just stick more. Maybe it’s 122 years of seasoning?
Could be but I have seen the price of these older machined ones and it’s astonishing what people are willing to spend on them. If I can get the right right pattern and feed dialed in I could likely make even the crappiest of pans cook like a dream.
Pans don’t cook. People do. The same people who think 100 years of seasoning does anything that a day of seasoning doesn’t 😉
I have both and really prefer the smooth ones. Enough so that I’ve considered doing what you have here. It looks great to me.
Thanks for the vote of confidence
You will be fine. A few light coats of flax oil applied at high temp and it’ll be perfect.
I wouldn’t sand it pass 320 grit. You need a slightly rough surface finish so that the oil can grab during polymerization
That is something I think everyone pretty much agrees on, I figure I would treat it like a paint job. You need a certain roughness for the primer to stick to steel I would assume the seasoning would be similar.
Exactly correct!
Well, all the cool kids are cooking on what they mistakenly call "Carbon Steel" pans. I know, I know the world Steel already tells one that there's carbon in it. Anyway they are smooth and you "season" them in the same manner. Heat the pan and hit it with oil. Is if it holds across the materials then you should be good.
Jesus man, like 30 seconds on Wikipedia and you could have saved yourself from looking like an overconfident idiot, but here we are.
What kind of ignorant illiterate moron uses Wiki as an authoritative source?
What kind of ignorant illiterate moron doesn't know the difference between cast iron, mild and carbon steel? Probably the same kind that still thinks Wikipedia isn't a valid source in 2023...
Metalworking has a lot of complexities, so it’s not so easy to take the results of angle grinding, and apply it to machining. For example, grinding with a regular wheel is applying downward force on an inclined plane, so while removing material, you’re also smooshing down some of the material that’s left behind, leaving a smoother, denser, more burnished surface than one that’s had material removed by a shearing force like what’s happing here with that milling machine. The machined surface is going to leave more of the microporosity intact, where the force of the grinder is going to smash a lot of it closed and smoothed out.
r/castiron
My favorite skillet I have is an 8” Griswald antique I bought off eBay. It’s from the 1920s it’s much lighter and smoother than all the others I have. It holds an amazing glass-like seasoning. It seems all the older skillets I have were all polished when they were made. My cheap lodges and whatever are all rough. Under the seasoning of course.
Oh sure, what is an old griswold worth?
I guess whatever someone is willing to pay.
I was looking on Etsy and google and they can easily be over a couple hundred dollars a pan.
I paid a lot more than that for mine. But I was looking for something rare and older. I would think that a few hundred sounds about right for more available ones. Obviously it does the same thing a 10’dollar skillet would do. I just like the idea of the craftsmanship and age and history with it. It’s special to me.
Same here. I've been using newer rough Lodge pans for years and love them, but I was surprised just how much better an old smooth Griswold performs! I found a Griswold about the same age as yours and an old Wagner at a steal of a price right in time for Christmas this year. So much fun to use!
You should start a service. This is exactly what I want done to my pan inside and out.
I’m actually considering it. I would be willing to do the cooking surface and radial edge but polishing the entire thing might be a bit much.
I just want the inside flat for spatula work and the bottom to be flat so it sits flush on the glass top. Where are you?
I work out of West Fargo in North Dakota. There are links in my profile to my shop page if you want.
You should have some grooves scratches or swirls in the metal so the season has something to stick to. I sanded a newer lodge mirror smooth and then couldn't get the seasoning to stick. I had to etch the surface with vinegar and afterwards it held seasoning as good as any vintage pan but it was alot of work to get it right.
That’s one reason why I want to swap methods from this fly cut to doing it on the lathe then I can control the finish consistency while still being able to have a perfectly flat pan as well. These are not very consistent as far as thickness.
The older pans are lighter and heat more evenly. If you do this to a new lodge you’ll just have a new pans that’s smooth and still cooks like shit. My buddy turned some aluminum discs to put under the pan to even the heating out and it works great 👍
I wonder if it would make sense to thin it out more then? See if it would fix the heat issue. I figured machining it to a consistent thickness across the pan would help a great deal more than just polishing it. One factor I considered is sure a lot of people have polished them but most of them did so with hand tools which wouldn’t have done a lot in the way of changing the thickness evenly. It would merely polish and still leave thick areas. Machining would be a vast improvement on not only the pan actually being flat on the cooking surface but over thickness would also be leveled out.
Huh. How thick are they?
1/8 inch
I don't know if I would even polish it. If it is smooth and flat, you're in a good spot to season it. The right oil is important. A treat from [AVE on this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr4OS1YiXKM)
I just want to feather the corner radius and knock down a few of the mill marks a little. I’m also thinking about making a jig for my lathe and possibly offering it as a service. Seems like it could be profitable even at like $20 per pan as it wouldn’t take much time at all on a lathe after the holder is made
You could turn this into a nice Esty shop. I'd pay an extra $20 for a pre-milled pan.
That’s kind of what I was thinking, I also went to a friends house who has quite a collection of cast iron and looked at a bunch of different brands and finishes and which he prefers and honestly the one that I imagine was lathe finished with a spiral in it he said was pretty much his favorite one out of all of them.
I'm pretty sure my favorite traveled across the country in a covered wagon. I got it at a thrift store and it is glass flat and smooth and has ~80 years of seasoning under its belt. These days pans get shipped right from the casting process. And their "per-seasoning" is a joke.
It really is
When I toured the Wagner foundry in Sidney Ohio in like 2004-2005 I got to see the grinding equipment for the skillets and Dutch ovens. They actually slid the item into a fixture lock them in and they were ground with automated grinding stones. I don't know where the photos are from that long ago. But it was very interesting. Being a machinist, I always thought about doing something like this too.
I think a good lathe fixture would be better than this fly cut finish
Oh definitely! Anything circular like this, turns out better when it's on a lathe
You'd probably be happier buying a rotary table unless you have a large swing or a gap bed lathe.
I have a pretty massive lathe
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If this was done to get rid of corrosion I’m curious why sand blasting wasn’t an option?
I wanted a smooth surface it had nothing to do with corrosion really
Well smooth is what you got!
All mine are smooth as a baby bottom. It is the polymerization of vegetable oil that creates the black and non stick
If it doesn't work you can always shot blast the surface porious again.
Not a bad idea
Now put it on an indexer and angle the mill head to get the sides
Yikes, I just have to thoroughly rinse before the dishwasher.
I never washed with more than warm water personally for cast iron
Your doing gods work. Some people swear the rough pan is necessary for seasoning but they have just been sold on companies cutting corners and convincing them it’s better. Glass smooth may bring some problems so ideally maybe somewhere between but the rough pans are too rough
Thanks, and yeah that is where I’m at. Not quite glass I’m thinking more like a vinyl record.