Question about seasoning semi-plated cast iron

[Spurgeon Hendrick]

I posted a picture in the member’s only section of a nickel plated Griswold #8 I found.

Members can view it here: http://www.griswoldandwagner.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1545166347

Valerie’s comment about how nickel “tarnishes”, got me thinking ... should I do something differently when restoring a plated piece? Specifically, what should I do when the playing is badly compromised?

Here are some pictures of a “Sidney” skillet I worked on. I had thrown it back in the pile, in our guest room, because I wasn’t happy with the way it turned out. The cooking surface took the seasoning kinda weird. It’s dull and splotchy.

When the plating is in the condition you see on this skillet, I just season over it. Is there a better way? Can you polish the plating (on the outside of the skillet) and then apply so mineral oil to prevent the non-plated areas from rusting. Would that make the skillet look even more like a Frankenskillet?

Just curious what everybody else does with these.

[Valerie Johnson]

Looks like there is more plating loss on the skillet than remaining plating, I may be inclined to try to remove the remaining plating via electrolysis if it was my skillet, Of course if you were ever going to sell it you would want to disclose that to any prospective buyers but to me a nice clean non plated piece is more desirable than a piece with most of the plating missing even if that non plated piece was a piece that had the plating removed because it was damaged.

But that's just me

[Russell Ware]

When it comes to a plated piece that is well worn, you can either:
1. De-plate
2. Re-plate
3. Season and live with its ugliness

The cost of the first two will lead you to the third, concluding it is best to let these sleeping dogs lie.

[Spurgeon Hendrick]

Hmmm ... de-plating... I’ve never thought about doing that. I’ve been a “live with it’s ugliness “ kind of guy. Well, with the one exception of having the paddles of a Wagner wafer iron re-plated with nickel. I have a couple of platers I sell (mostly potassium cyanide, sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid) and one of them did the paddles for me. My only regret in having it done was ... apparently these days “satin” finish means “let’s polish it until you can see your reflection in the metal!” Haha! I talked to my customer about how nickel plating was done back then versus now (he’s been in the business for 50 years) and he seemed to understand (and know) what these pieces looked like. I even showed him some pictures. When I got them back, the paddles are super high-gloss shiny. Not what I was expecting. Ha!

[Valerie Johnson]

Here is a little you tube video on removing plating from some gun parts, It involves an electrolysis/sulfuric acid bath and works quite quickly.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INiyYbFUihA