Black is the New Orange

Another glorious Friday and the wind has shifted and blowing from the North now.  Whoops!  I probably should have spent more time winterizing outside in the last few weeks...  But no.  Too many other things to do.  It'll keep.  I dumped the Halloween pumpkin guts onto the garden so next years garden is already planted!  What more is there to do?  

Except maybe put away the mowers for the winter...  Eh - it's not snowing yet.

Here's what I did over the course of the last few days.  I'm really kicking myself that I didn't take a before picture.  Meri had found somewhere, three cast iron skillets that were drenched in rust.  SO ghastly!  And that's what I should have photographed, but oh well.

Here they are at step 8 for the first time.

I looked up online how to refinish old cast iron pans.  I modified the routine just a bit.. 

Hope it works!

1) Place the pans upside down in the oven and set it on oven cleaning.  

(The handy woman's secret weapon!)  

Get your doors and windows open for this one!  It's a smoking hot mess...

Leon and I spent the morning outside during the worst of it and I worked from the car.

2) After things cool down, wash them off with a stiff brush and then let them soak in a pan of vinegar/water mixture.  I don't have the proper measurements of how much of each, mainly because the water kept accidentally seeping out of the sink so I kept refilling it every few hours and dumped more white vinegar in.  I'm out of vinegar now.

3) I scrubbed them again and then in order to rinse everything off, I put them in the dish washer alone with a bunch of coarse salt and put it on the pots and pans cycle for 2 cycles.  NO SOAP!

4) Scrubbed the heck out of them again in the sink.  I had wised up by this time and used rubber gloves so my fingernails wouldn't look so decrepit again.  They still do from the first scrub and no amount of showering, nail brushes, etc will fix them right away...  Eh - they'll eventually look better.  Use gloves people!

5) Rinsed well with really hot water.  As hot as you can stand.

6) Dried them with an old towel and rubbed hard to get as much of the old (still kind of orange) finish off.

7) Rub them down with vegetable oil or coconut oil.  Not too drippy.  

8) Place foil in the bottom of the oven if you want and then place the pans in the oven for curing.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.  Bake them 30 minutes face up then an hour face down.  

9) Let cool.

10) Repeat from 7 to 9 at least twice for a good finish.  You may need to wash and rub them in hot water between sessions if there is any gummy residue on them.

So the finished look, I hope, will be black and gorgeous.  Otherwise I'll do it all again... 

But AFTER Thanksgiving.