$5.00 & elbow grease

[salt and pepper]

OK, so this morning my GF comes home with a box of cooking utensil's, bowls, pans etc. And to my surprise 5 cast iron pieces. A bread pan, biscuit pan, dutch oven, 8" fry pan and a 12" fry pan. Now what was really cool was, she payed $5 bucks for all of them. What wasn't so cool was that they were a mess, I mean a real mess. I know for a fact that they weren't used in over 6 years. They really looked disgusting! Gunk, rust, dried out and down right ugly. I knew I had my work cut out for me.
I started by scraping all the gunk etc, Then filled the sink with hot soapy water and vinegar to soak. Next I washed them out with steel wool to rid the rust, or what I thought would get rid of the rust. Not so. The next step was to put them through the cleaning cycle in the oven. You would think by this time, they would be clean, but no! Once cooled it was time to sand the rest of the rust off. Starting to look better after sanding, I re-washed with hot soapy water. Pre heated the oven to 300 and put on a thin coat of oil and into the oven for 2 hrs, let cool and repeated the process again. Yes, this was an all day affair, but worth it in the end. I'll follow up with some pics.

[salt and pepper]

This is what it looked like after going through the oven cleaning cycle.More sanding to be done!

[salt and pepper]

The finished product after 2 seasonings.

[Cheryl J]

Holy cow, what a deal! I'm in love with that biscuit pan, I've never seen one like that before. Great finds!

[salt and pepper]

Originally Posted by Cheryl J

Holy cow, what a deal! I'm in love with that biscuit pan, I've never seen one like that before. Great finds!

I must agree, the biscuit pan along is around $40 bucks!

[Cooking Goddess]

Wow, what a great job you did restoring those pans S&P. I have two Wagner pans my Mom gave me when I was pregnant. They're almost 34 years old and the best CI pans I own (sorry Lodge).

[Rob Babcock]

There's nothing better than a smokin' deal on a fixer-upper! Well done!

[Aunt Bea]

Originally Posted by Rob Babcock

There's nothing better than a smokin' deal on a fixer-upper! Well done!

What he said!

[Macgyver1968]

This thread is Macgyver approved! Nice job...and I too am stealing that biscuit pan.

[Mad Cook]

Originally Posted by salt and pepper

This is what it looked like after going through the oven cleaning cycle.More sanding to be done!

Is it copper? It looks like a preserving/jam pan. If it's copper don't use it for anything acidic such as jam or chutney, etc,. or anything that requires long cooking. I know that brass and copper used to be used for these purposes but combined with fruit acid or vinegar they are not good for you.

I have one of my great grandmother's copper preserving pans - I use it as a cachepot for my aspidistra (which is a cutting from Great grandmother's plant!).