I need to revive old cast iron

I've taken some pretty nasty skillets that looked destined for the garbage bin, and I've thrown them in the egg for a clean burn to carbonize all that old stuff on them (800+ degrees for 30 minutes, then shut egg down and let cool. They came out looking like new after I got some 0000 steel wool and hot soapy water and scrubbed them till all the brown was gone. Then I throw it in either a warm egg or oven to thoroughly dry and heat up to accept the first seasoning layer. I've been using shortening and it's worked perfect. I know many people are using flax seed oil, but it peeled on me so I've gone back to shortening.

I was just looking that up this morning. It's been awhile since I've totally restored a piece of cast iron, so my memory was a little less than perfect. We went to McKinney this weekend for trade days and I scored a Griswold skillet for $5! Unfortunately, there is no seasoning on it and completely rusted. I'm going to follow this method to get this piece and another old piece in the garage back to good condition. Spray with oven cleaner and leave in a garbage back, then soak in water and vinegar and then do the reseasoning, but I'll probably do that part on the Egg so I don't stink up the house.

I just did a lid to my Lodge DO that sat out all summer and looked like Denver Bronco Orange.

Focker has restored some beautiful pieces and wrote a post of the process:

http://www.greeneggers.com/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&func=view&id=1227398&catid=1#

After a $10 sandblast.

It is a very controversial subject but I recommend that you go to one of the Dutch Oven Groups and search their data base.  Each seem to have their preferred method.  View them all and then you decide.

It doesnt matter how much I season a pan its one high heat sear away from needing to be boiled and then re-seasoned. I still dont understand the point of a seasoning if you cant hi heat cook on it without it ruining the seasoning. 

Wet and scrub minimally with soap, mainly to wash away impurities/bugs.

THE ULTIMATE WAY TO SEASON CAST IRON Published January 1, 2011. From Cook's Illustrated. We'd seasoned our cast iron the same way for years. But when we heard about a new method that creates a slick surface so indestructible that touch-ups are almost never necessary, we were intrigued. For years we’ve seasoned cast-iron cookware in the test kitchen by placing it over medium heat and wiping out the pan with coats of vegetable oil until its surface turns dark and shiny. When a pan starts to look patchy, we simply repeat the process. But when we heard about a new method that creates a slick surface so indestructible that touch-ups are almost never necessary, we were intrigued. Developed by blogger Sheryl Canter, the approach calls for treating the pan with multiple coats of flaxseed oil between hour-long stints in the oven. We carried out Canter’s approach on new, unseasoned cast-iron skillets and compared them with pans treated with vegetable oil—and the results amazed us. The flaxseed oil so effectively bonded to the skillets, forming a sheer, stick-resistant veneer, that even a run through our commercial dishwasher with a squirt of degreaser left them totally unscathed. But the vegetable oil-treated skillets showed rusty spots and patchiness when they emerged from the dishwasher, requiring reseasoning before use. Why did the new treatment work so well? Flaxseed oil is the food-grade equivalent of linseed oil, used by artists to give their paintings a hard, polished finish, and it boasts six times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids as vegetable oil. Over prolonged exposure to high heat, these fatty acids combine to form a strong, solid matrix that polymerizes to the pan’s surface. Although lengthy, seasoning with flaxseed oil is a mainly hands-off undertaking. We highly recommend the treatment: 1. Warm an unseasoned pan (either new or stripped of seasoning*) for 15 minutes in a 200-degree oven to open its pores. 2. Remove the pan from the oven. Place 1 tablespoon flaxseed oil in the pan and, using tongs, rub the oil into the surface with paper towels. With fresh paper towels, thoroughly wipe out the pan to remove excess oil. 3. Place the oiled pan upside down in a cold oven, then set the oven to its maximum baking temperature. Once the oven reaches its maximum temperature, heat the pan for one hour. Turn off the oven; cool the pan in the oven for at least two hours. 4. Repeat the process five more times, or until the pan develops a dark, semi-matte surface. *To strip a cast-iron pan of seasoning, spray it with oven cleaner, wait 30 minutes, wash with soapy water, and thoroughly wipe with paper towels. FLAXSEED OIL VEGETABLE OIL Even after a run in the dishwasher, the pan seasoned with flaxseed oil held on to its perfect seasoning. The pan seasoned with vegetable oil did not.

I'll second @aviator on that one.

"yeah it may have taken my parents 30 years to xyz But I don't want to wait and I want it now without all the hard work."

Sometimes old fashioned is the way to go. But heck, next pan I'll try this flaxseed oil method again.

@yzzi, there nothing "shortcut" about the Cooks Illustrated method. Think about how long you cook in CI each time and add it up. What, 15-30 minutes each time? With the aforementioned method, you are investing 18 hours of time into the seasoning process or basically 1-2 months of cooking everyday to get the minimum level of seasoning.

ive had good luck seasoning with lard. not a fan of the presesoned lodges they make now, ive had one start peeling from a cook with tomatoes, my fault, but it was alot of work trying to fix that, eventually had to grind that seasoning all off to stop it from flaking off into the food