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[Canadian John]

 There is a lot of info out there on removing rust from cast iron. Most of it good.. I would opt for electrolysis as a first choice.. However, before starting any sort of restoration, do a thorough examination of each

 item checking for cracks. They may not be hidden by rust and appear later. And, warpage. It is not repairable. Simply place the item on a truly flat surface and see if it can be rocked back and forth indicating a

 curved/warped bottom..This makes the cookware unsuitable for cooking certain items as it will cause them to run to the center.

 That's a nice find. Shouldn't be too hard to bring back to life.. It would be interesting to see how the restoration goes.

 

[BigDave83]

Again it all depends on how far you want to go. But a bit of warping could easily be trued up by a machine shop. I guess it all depends on if you are concerned about ruining the value of an antique or if it is something you just want to use. either way I am sure that if what you have in the pictures is old cast iron, it is probably far better quality than what you will buy at Wally World today. So more than likely  be worth the time and  maybe a few bucks to get into the shape you want it to cook with, at least that would be how I would see it.

[jdmessner]

My brother-in-law dropped off a couple more pans. The muffin pan should be nice once we get it cleaned up.

I have not made it to the store yet for the science fair supplies, but my wife got a head start by scrubbing a few pans with steel wool and baking soda. She then painted on navel jelly rust dissolver and rinsed. That got the initial layers off. The oven needed to be cleaned anyway, so we put some pans in there to bake. We'll see in a few hours how it turns out.

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[jdmessner]

Just a quick update, I hope to post some pictures later. Just because of the size, the number of pieces we have, and the time the electrolysis would take, we opted to try other methods first.

After doing some preliminary scraping and knocking off a few chunks of the initial rust, we put the pans in the oven and set it to self clean. It helped a little, but probably wasn't worth the time and energy. Dawn and baking powder make a pretty good cleaning combination. Soaking in white vinegar and water also helped to a certain degree. The Navel Jelly really cut through the rust, but left a residue that was hard to take off. We repeated those steps in various orders and the pieces were better, but we couldn't get them looking the way we wanted.

At that point I was ready to head to Menards and begin the science experiment. However, my wife did some digging on the internet and saw a video demonstration on YouTube for some stuff called Evapo-Rust. It is the absolutely great. I wish we had found it a week earlier. It is a liquid and is about $15 online for a gallon. You can get it at Ace Hardware but it was a few bucks more. It's nontoxic, can be reused, and does a much nicer job than the Navel Jelly. All you need to do is submerge the pan for a relatively short period of time (from just a few minutes to overnight). Rinse and a little light scrubbing; the results are amazing.

It is almost like Christmas. The rust was so bad we could not make out too many markings. As we started cleaning the brand names begin to appear. It has been an education looking some of them up to see where and when they were made. I don't know a lot about the history of cast iron, I have always just had pans that I enjoyed cooking with. Now my curiosity is peaked.

We did get some bees wax pellets to mix with flax seed oil to season the pans with. Hope to start doing some of that this weekend.

[Bar-B-Lew]

Great to hear.  Looking forward to you finishing this project and seeing what you cook in all of those different styles of pans.

[Canadian John]

  Most interesting. That's a huge project you have undertaken. The results should prove to be well worth the effort..Properly cared for cast iron cookware can last last for generations. "The more it is used, the

 better it gets".

[pmillen]

[jdmessner]

Cleaned with Navel Jelly
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Cleaned with Evapo-Rust
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[Kristin Meredith]

Wow, they look like new with that Evapo-rust.  Great find!!!

[Bentley]

So now the seasoning begins?

[Canadian John]

  A tip for washing bare cast iron. After rust, crud and old seasoning removal, prepare for seasoning by scrubbing with fine steel wool and dish soap, works great. A washing soda wash is the icing on the cake

 as a second clean.  Always RINSE WITH COLD WATER and dry immediately to prevent flash rust. The bare metal will flash rust the instant it is dried if it was rinsed in hot water no matter how fast you are

 or how dry the towel is.

  Cast iron needs to be clean and dry for a good seasoning bond, just like paint. As well the layers of seasoning must be as thin as possible..

 The cookware has come a long way from the original pics.




 

[pmillen]

A washing soda wash is the icing on the cake as a second clean.  Always RINSE WITH COLD WATER and dry immediately to prevent flash rust. The bare metal will flash rust the instant it is dried if it was rinsed in hot water no matter how fast you are  or how dry the towel is.

So that's where I've gone wrong.  Thanks for the tip.

[Brushpopper]

Thanks for the tip on Evapo-Rust, JD!  We have some things that were my FIL's and I'm the lucky fella who gets to clean them.  Of course, I'm not going to tell Bonnie how I did it and I'll leave the seasoning to her.  Looks like Tractor Supply has some in stock.

[BigDave83]

Never heard of Evapo rust. Just watched a little video on their site. I think I have some old cast iron around here. I may have to go find a gallon or 2. The video said it is reusable, as she just poured the stuff back into the quart bottle.

[BigDave83]

I have some skillets that have a good bit of build up, not rust, on the outsides. burn on grease I would guess. I just keep using them because the insides are nice.

I do not have a self cleaning oven. I had read where people just toss them in the fire pit with the hot coals to burn it off. Any other ideas?