So I've come to the point where I have to buy a new skillet, and generally the only ones I can find with smooth interiors are used antiques, or VERY expensive pans. I can pick up a Lodge skillet for ~$20, but I doubt it would ever be truly non-stick without first sanding down the rough casting finish. Has anyone ever done this and have any tips for this kind of project?
You're much better off with a used antique. Deep clean it, season it, and be done.
They can bee had ridiculously cheap at good will or similar stores.
What exactly had you needing a new cast iron anyway?
Got a Kinect and a CNC machine?
Seriously though I understand you can do it with just a sanding block. I bought some CNC finished ones (Made in Portland) because I liked the very large coilspring handle and the octagonal shape better a lot better than the Lodge skillets I had been using. I've been debating attempting to finish the Lodge ones at some point.
Season it well and it will work ok as is. Otherwise I'd think about 250-300 grit
RevRico wrote: You're much better off with a used antique. Deep clean it, season it, and be done. They can bee had ridiculously cheap at good will or similar stores. What exactly had you needing a new cast iron anyway?
Near me, used antiques seem to be priced artificially high. Lots of older folks just searching for deals snap them up quick. I need one because I moved on from the previous female co-habitator, who owned the two that we had.
sobe_death wrote: So I've come to the point where I have to buy a new skillet, and generally the only ones I can find with smooth interiors are used antiques, or VERY expensive pans. I can pick up a Lodge skillet for ~$20, but I doubt it would ever be truly non-stick without first sanding down the rough casting finish. Has anyone ever done this and have any tips for this kind of project?
I got an Emeril Lagasse branded one for a wedding gift. Seems pretty damned smooth, though I've been seasoning the hell out of it for almost a decade.
In reply to sobe_death:
Ah, wasn't sure if break up or broken pan.
It's going to sound strange, but ask your friends or your friends parents. I've been surprised at what's been handed over at a simple suggestion. There's a bunch of people that own great cast iron and it just sits in their cabinet never getting used. Been seeing them on the local CL lately too.
I've sanded mine and it works great. From what I remember a flapper wheel was the way to go but I think I just used whatever pads I had for my RO sander.
I sanded mine and am happy with the results. I remember it took a while and I used flap discs to knock down the high points and finished with RO sander.
One of things that always turned me off to cast iron was the little black bits that can get transferred to the food (and the corresponding taste) plus the incessant fear of ruining the seasoning. At risk of starting a seasoning war, I also found a polymerizing seasoning technique that doesn't transfer flavors into the food, doesnt result in rancid oils (I'm looking at you, bacon fat!) sitting in the pan if I don't use it for a while, and allows me to actually wash it!!! After sanding and cleaning, I did lots of very thin coats of flaxseed oil baked on at high temp:
Cook's Illustrated Cast Iron Seasoning
There are grumpy folks who claim that washing a cast iron ruins the seasoning, but I've found with the above technique I can easily clean mine, so I say why not if you can have that capability? 
My lumpy lodge works fine, eggs skate on a good day, they smooth out with use if you use a flexible steel spatula in it.
That said, if I had access to a vertical mill or monster lathe I would have cut it down.
BrokenYugo wrote: My lumpy lodge works fine, eggs skate on a good day, they smooth out with use if you use a flexible steel spatula in it. That said, if I had access to a vertical mill or monster lathe I would have cut it down.
I can see it now... The machine shop workers come back on Tuesday to find me with a 12" pan chucked up in the lathe. "Sobe, you're drunk, go back to your desk" hang head in shame
In reply to sobe_death:
OR they're like "you really wanna get that berkeleyer shiny.....". My dad was a machinist. All the dudes I met got bored a lot and would do random E36 M3 just to see if they could.
I'm a machinist by trade, but I try to save my perfectionism for work. I'm not gonna take cookware in to work for a slight improvement in cleanup times. I only just crossed over to cast iron, with a Lodge pan from Wallymart, and I was afraid it was gonna be a nightmare for the first few uses. I soaked it in regular veggie oil for the first use, then just fried bread to clean up the excess oil. My first actual food was fried eggs. The residue wiped off before washing.
sobe_death wrote:BrokenYugo wrote: My lumpy lodge works fine, eggs skate on a good day, they smooth out with use if you use a flexible steel spatula in it. That said, if I had access to a vertical mill or monster lathe I would have cut it down.I can see it now... The machine shop workers come back on Tuesday to find me with a 12" pan chucked up in the lathe. "Sobe, you're drunk, go back to your desk" *hang head in shame*
My old, well seasoned Lodge pan works fine...but not as well as the ancient smooth one I inherited from my wife's grandmother. If I were starting out with a new Lodge I'd try to smooth it out too.
But....since you work with machinists, I'd seriously consider befriending one of them and offering a six pack to try and machine it down. Like mndsm said, everyone I know that runs those machines would enjoy dicking around with something like that, particularly in this inter-holiday time. Of course, if all you guys have is big CNC units set up for specific part production, that's not as easy to make happen.
The0retical wrote: I bought some CNC finished ones (Made in Portland) because I liked the very large coilspring handle and the octagonal shape better a lot better than the Lodge skillets I had been using. I've been debating attempting to finish the Lodge ones at some point.
Wow, those Finex skillets are dope. Priced like good drugs, too, though. I want!
m4ff3w wrote:The0retical wrote: I bought some CNC finished ones (Made in Portland) because I liked the very large coilspring handle and the octagonal shape better a lot better than the Lodge skillets I had been using. I've been debating attempting to finish the Lodge ones at some point.Wow, those Finex skillets are dope. Priced like good drugs, too, though. I want!
They're super nice as they should be for the price but there's a couple other reasons I bought two (the handle being one of them.)
I was a backer of the Kickstarter Campaign for the 12" version when Mike Whitehead (the founder) was trying to get the company off the ground. There was close to a year delay in getting the skillet produced and out the door but Mike was very very good at keeping the campaign backers in the loop making the delay tolerable. You really got the sense that Mike is a true believer of American made goods being exceptional as he wrote the backer the updates. I wish that the backer messages were public now that the campaign is over so everyone else could see that as it was highly interesting to watch the process of tooling up the factory to make the skillets.
I also bought the 8" version a couple of years later when Mike provided a pretty substantial discount for Kickstarter backers as a thank you.
Sobe: You should definitely put that skillet in a lathe before shift change and take video. I'd pay to see what the reaction is.
I just checked the Finnex stuff. Holy vrap Batman! $270 for a skillet!?!
I like the coil handle, but don't like the octagonal shape. Regardless, the price says it's a no-go.
In reply to DrBoost:
Yea they're pricey. I think I paid $140 for one of the first run ones without the lid. I actually do use the front and rear pour slots pretty often and find them easier to handle than the Lodge ones I own. It's not like I'm going to ever need to buy another though.
It's very likely confirmation bias (because again yes they are expensive) and I recognize that. The question then becomes what the consumable+opportunity cost difference ends up being if you're going to refinish a new Lodge skillet.
I'm going to smooth the bottom of our skillet. I had a DA sander. Any recommendations on grit?
Most of what I've seen is done with 80 and 120 grit flapper wheels to take off high spots then a wire wheel is used to burnish. I'd imagine you'd be able to do the same with DA.
I'm tempted to use the bridgport at work
Not to threadjack but along similar lines. Cast iron that is. My mom has an antique cast iron corn bread mold that makes corn bread look like corn. Years ago dad used it to make lead ingots, he cast his own bullets for black powder shooting. Always been told that once lead was poured into cast iron the cast iron is now toxic and unusable for food. Would sanding/machining a layer of cast iron off make the cast iron usable for food again? Probably a useless question since sanding/machining would get rid of the corn imprints but may be pertinent to the skillet used to melt the lead.
I've done this before. I used darn near 20 sheets of 80 grit on a palm sander. Came out with a much smoother finish.
The net result is that it only took a few times of use to really season it, but it loses that season easier IMO.
The way a cast iron pan gets seasoned is that it fills those pores with carbon. Little pieces of food, fats, sugars, and other stuff get down in the pores and turn into, well... charcoal basically. If you build that seasoning layer on rough cast iron, it will stay there forever, much like scuffing a paint job before the next coat. Starting with a smooth finish leaves less surface area for the carbon to fill and also less carbon in general.
So, doing it "right" takes more time, but it will be right. Sanding first will mean it won't season as well, nor will it be as bulletproof. Having said that, I think there is a happy medium. Lodge makes good beefy skillets, but they seem to be way rougher than something like a vintage Wolfgang, even on the non-seasoned parts. I would imagine that a little smoothing of the casting might be a good compromise.
^^Interesting
In reply to curtis73:
Interesting. I haven't had much of an issue with my Finex pans holding the seasoning but I can see the logic. It does wash off pretty easy though when I actually wash the pans. Part of the reason, as I understood it, that Finex CNC finished the pans was to ensure that they were flat as well as smooth. I actually appreciate that because my mothers old cast iron I used to cook on never seemed to lay flat but I suspect it wasn't terribly well take care of.
I have had a bunch of issues with my Lodge Grill Pan though. Everything seems to stick to that damn thing no matter how many times I have seasoned it. I was considering taking the time to smooth it simply because of that.
Supposedly some seasonings hold better than others too. I know Flax seed oil is highly recommended (that's what I use) but I've used olive oil in the past too.
Who needs to write a graduate paper on materials? We need science!
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