Have you ever been frustrated with seasoning a cast-iron skillet? The rough surface never seems to get smooth. I'm going to show you how using some sanding Discs, and some little elbow grease. You can get this thing nice and smooth, still accepting seasoning, and cooks really well. Join me and I'll show you how to do it I used this Lodge, I got this at Costco. It was a pot and skillet mix, and I'm Going to show you how to make it nice and smooth on the inside. Now there is some pitting and I want to be clear with you that this is something you're going to want to do on a piece of cast iron that maybe hits the $50 Range. If you have a piece of cast iron that is of poor quality, maybe it's very rough on the inside, or you don't use it hardly ever. It's not worth hardly anything, it's a camp set, or it was a piece that you were given that you just never really got the hang of, you didn't like the weight of it, or maybe you didn't like cleaning it, and I'm going to show you how to sand and polish that down to a near mirror finish then I'm going to show you how to season it. I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary here. I learned a lot of this from some people on YouTube and some forums that I've read. If it wasn't for these people I would not have been able to glean the amount of information that is required to do something like this, and I really do want to thank them because they didn't set out to put that on their videos I just kind of took whatever they put out there and I compiled it together and I'm going show you just how I did it I'm taking circular sanding discs going from 40 grit and then I'm going to end with 180 grit on this video you'll see the surface to row so please stay tuned and thanks for joining me. This is the mounting bracket that we're using to do our initial sand On. Now you'll notice I'm marking out the pot on that piece of wood and that is a very large chunk of wood it's a piece of scrap that we have. If you have something smaller than that it'll will work. I just had it available and I'm going to put it in the vise and it's going to hold nice and sturdy. Now when I marked out the holes you'll see that little black pattern there. I used you know a pilot, I drilled some pilot holes right in those Center marks That's going to house the eye bolt and the you know the hook pattern that I created. It's not, you know rocket science here. You're just going to drill some holes. Make sure the holes are big enough to fit those hooks that are in place. You know eventually when you put this you mount this on, if they're not in the right spot it will not hold the cast iron very well. Right below in the bottom right hand side you'll see the bolt that I'm putting in these holes. Now here is the before shot of the cast iron that's the skillet you'll see some pitting in there the top right hand side of that pot, but it is quite rough and that's from the sand casting you know when people tell me about how good Lodge skillets are I agree the metal and the shape is quite nice to look at we're going to smooth that down. This is the mounting bracket as you see that's being held in by that pretty strong vise and it's not going anywhere. I put a little clamp on the back but if you look on the back really simple here we got a bolt and the eye bolts that's made into a hook. All just going through the back held in 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 kind of used, its rounded there and if you want to start with new one, that's great but these things will last quite a while. I've done multiple pots with that one disk or skillets I should say. Then we're going to move on to these Diablo Sanding Discs. If you're going to use These I would suggest getting the 180 grit and then 40 grit. I just bought a package deal that had the mounting bracket you'll see that for the discs on there. I'll only be using the 40 grit sanding pads and the 180 grit sanding pads for this project if you want to go up higher you're more than welcome to. Now notice how I'm just going up and down on that skillet in no particular pattern I'm just trying to get all that seasoning all that initial rough edges off that where all that sand casting is created you know those rough steel surfaces. I'm smoothing them down that's all I'm doing here. Take your time push hard if you wish. What I found with the Avanti quick strip disc is it's no real match for this cast iron. It's going to take off that that initial roughness but it's it's not going to get it down the way you want to see that sand and just take it down. I bought two sets of these at Costco for 50 bucks they were on sale. I would suggest that you you're not going to put do this on anything that is of value. Some people say don't do this project this is you know so waste just properly seasoned it and you'll be fine. You know I would argue that the older cast iron that everyone loves so much, it was pre-sanded after the manufacturing process before it was seasoned and it went out in the Field. You had that option to get it sanded prior to seasoning. For years people cooked on that and the surface was nice and smooth and it accepted that seasoning quite well. Today's cast iron they don't offer that and you know some of them you know I own some Finex skillets and they're machined smooth and when you get that back home you'll see that it's it's got literally a machine smooth like very you know uniform rings that are ground into that that skillet. If we can take a closer look sorry about the jiggling there you'll see that I've taken off the initial roughness there but there are still pitting marks like in the top right hand side you see that little darker pitting mark there. But it is shiny. When you first do this that shiny look is gonna make you feel all tingly inside. Now here's the mounting bracket just put it that hook in there that handle. Then we put the bolt on the other side with some washers and nut and we're gonna hold it in place I didn't show you that I had readjusted that eye bolt or hook because the skillet is a little bit deeper there but it works just the same hole patterns are in the same spot. I'm tightening it down I'm not worried too much about it Bending. People said you're gonna bend that handle off and cause it to crack we're not putting that much stress on the cast iron. All we're doing here is holding it flat to that wood so it won't move around. You'll see that I initially start on this Advanti Quick Strip Disc and it moves a little bit and I have to readjust the you know the nuts and the washers in order to tighten down. If I can suggest anything 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 OHS regulations you know safety safe exposure to dusts. Certain dusts are way more dangerous than others and and steel dust cast iron when it's you know dust form it is hazardous at a certain level it's not as hazardous as silica or asbestos by far 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 rust it wasn't I mean it was an exciting thing at the time but you know I should have worn a masks and I wanted to make sure I wore that mask this time. It doesn't show here but after I was done this process I was covered in a steel dusty film all over. If I can at this point I'm going to say you know the Advanti Quick Strip Disc gives you the comfortable feel of using that drill and you know I would say if you're gonna do it, do it but if not the sanding discs will be enough they'll just wear out a lot faster than that initial grind because of the you know that rough surface that you get from the sand casting. Eventually I'm going to show you you know the after shot here and similar to the skillet it's nice and smooth and shiny in it you'll it'll make you feel like you've accomplished something but don't stop at the Advanti stage. Get those sanding discs out and really work that surface make it nice and smooth and guys will say well why? Why make it so Smooth? there's no reason why don't we just buy you know stainless steel or you can buy a carbon you know carbon steel and you know that you can do that. I have no problem with you guys doing that. For my curiosity I wanted to see if this could be done and I find that working with cast iron is not as hard as it sounds. A few rules you have to follow but being able to take this in and out of the oven having the ability to put it on any sort of stove be it gas, Fire, camp fire, induction, it's just so versatile and if you treat it right it's gonna treat you right for literally 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 the stuff lasts so let's take a look here see it's nice and smooth there's still that that pitting I didn't get all of it that Advanti quick strip disc just doesn't get the corners as well as you might want it to. I did get most of the seasoning and most of that rough edge rough shouldn't say edge that the sand casting. Now this is the 40 grit sanding disc that I used from Diablo. I bought all my stuff at Home Depot you can buy it wherever you wish but you're just going back and forth like you were sanding a floor. You're not going to do as much damage as you would sanding a floor but you are gonna take off metal and you'll see that you'll see the metal you know bursts out in these big puffs of dust that come out it's about -4C I think it was it was quite nice outside that day I have a well ventilated room here that I'm using the doors literally wide open to the outside. You're you want to take off as much of that metal as possible. You're gonna go through multiple 40 grit disc Pads. I said before use the velcro version unless you really do like peeling off bits of sandpaper off the bottom of this this rubber jig or mounting bracket because hit is it will ruin your fingers. It ruined mine I should have I should have went to the velcro I just didn't this time I don't know why. I don't show you the 180 grit sanding of this I think I've shown you enough of an example of how to sand the Surface. Feel comfortable with it. I'm gonna show you what it looks like with the 40 grit you'll see that there's the you know visible scratch marks inside of There. Most of that sand casting is smooth down. A few of the deeper areas you know I spent a little more time and got a little deeper on there.. You can go you know you can take half a millimeter off and be still safe with that pot. I was good you know I I'll show you what happens after the hundred eighty right here. I washed them with soap and water dried them and it's nice and shiny you'll see how shiny that is. My first video that's what I wanted to see I was looking for that stainless steel look but you really don't want to end off with a shiny look. What you want to do is put this in a oven clean a cycle of your oven. Let that oven heat up nice and hot. Kind of anneal the metal temperate by letting it cool down and then you're gonna get this grayish metal that results from it. Now after you season it I'll show you the seasoning process here. It's gonna look nice and gray patina. It'll blacken over time but that's beautiful like that is that's what you're looking to do nice and smooth. The surface still has some imperfections and it's not perfect you know I'm not a perfect person yet at this but I am happy with the results they're. If you're gonna season this I would suggest using the links that you're seeing it 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 about all that oil and just letting it go it's it's about a small amount of oil letting it plasticize or season and then doing multiple layers of that. Thank you for your time, thank you for watching and try this yourself it's worth it
