Fixing a "warped" skillet...

[Rich]

If you were going to take a crack at this, (pun intended) how would you go about it?

I was just given 3 older Lodge skillets.  A #3, 5 and 8.

The 3 is fine but the 5 and 8 have a fair amount of warping to the cooking surface.

Anyone ever straightened a warped skillet?

[Harry Riva]

I've seen an aluminum pan that has had the warp knocked out of it and was told it will work on iron, but I haven't seen it done. The aluminum skillet was heated and put over a wood circle the same size as the inside bottom of the skillet and then set on a pedestal. Another wood circle the size of the bottom was put on the bottom of the pan (pan is bottom up) and using a very large wooden mallet an extremely aggressive hit was made to the wood template over the bottom of the pan. One hit and the pan was as flat as new. The piece was a fairly large ERIE sauce pan with an applied handle so the task wasn't taken lightly, but it worked fine. The person who did it had been told you could do the same ting with cast iron pieces and I always wanted to try it with a throw away piece in case it didn't work, but I've never got around to it. The process on iron involves getting the piece a dull cherry hot, and I'll be the first to admit that the process defies a lot of my logic but the person telling the the process said they have done it on more than one occassion.  I sure wouldn't try it on a 14 slant Erie but maybe it does work on iron. If so, I wonder what happens the next time the piece is used to cook with? Maybe Steve S. has run across this process?
Harry

[Steve_Stephens]

I have heard of people supposedly fixing a bottom warp on iron skillets but don't really believe it to be successful.  Sure would love to see it done.   You would definitely have to heat the iron but don't know if the dull cherry red would be at a high enough temp to work.  After all, cast iron was formed in the molten state.   And, getting hotter than dull cherry would invite a formation of scale which would ruin the pan.  Working iron cold can be done but always results in breakage.  T iron that is used to cast iron cookware just isn't malleable.

As far as aluminum, not much of a problem.  I have straightened several pieces with warped bottoms just by putting the pan on a flat surface and hitting (not too hard) with a plastic mallet going in circles slowly around the warp and working inwards towards the center.  Keep working the aluminum that way and it will flatten out.  The aluminum is quite malleable.  Heating might give better results but I always did it cold.
Steve

[Rich]

I'm guessing what causes a warp in the first place is too much heat.

Is it caused by putting a cold skillet on a hot burner or by just simply getting the skillet too hot?

Makes you wonder if it would just "snap back" if heat were applied to the opposite side...

[Greg Stahl]

Rich,
I'm driving up to see you WHACK that cast iron skillet with a mallet if you decide to do it.  My believe is that you'll have two half skillets, but if I'm wrong I want to be there as a witness!! ;D

[wfredr]

I have been waiting for the best location to reveal this humbling experience.  This is it.  
1. Start with a #7 LBSB skillet with a really bad downward bulge.  (unusable on a normal stove grate)
2. Heat entire bottom of skillet bright orange with welding torch.
3. Try like $^&$# to bend bottom back in line (made lots of smoke from burning wooden implements used to try to beat down bulge).
4. Fail completly.
5. Watch in amazement as skillet opens a 6 inch long crack directly across middle of pan, as it cools.

I think that it would not have cracked if the entire skillet had been heated in a forge, to a consistent temperature, and then been allowed to cool.  I am sure that the crack was the result of stresses built up because of the uneven expansion caused by uneven heat, and rapid cooling of the very hot middle of the pan.

Also, what kind of heat caused the warping in the first place?  I had an area considerably larger than the TM just short of a temperature needed to weld mild steel, and yet could not make any kind of dent in it (I did not pound on it really hard, I did not want to break it that way)  I wonder if someone had placed the skillet directly on or in a camp fire trying to clean it.

I still have the #7.  I may try again, since I can't make it much worse.  I am going to look up a black smith, and see if I can borrow some time in his coal forge to really heat the pan, and get more aggressive pounding on it.

More later.
Fred

[Rich]

Greg,

Would you be willing to pay an admission fee to watch me make a 2 piece skillet... ?   ;D  

Maybe we should get it on film to use as an educational tool here on the forum...  ::)

Fred,

Thanks for telling me how NOT to go about this...   ;)   Makes you wonder how a skillet can warp in the first place without cracking...

[Jerry Cermack]

I find this very interesting because I've always wondered about de-bulging a skillet. I have a #10 skillet with a very bad bulge in the center that I gave to a friend who owns a machine shop.  He was interested in the problem and loves a challenge and wanted to experiment with heating the skillet slowly in different stages and pressing it with a steel plate in a press?

I also had an 80 yr old man who was a welder  tell me that he could straighten one by placing in a hot fire bed with a heavy weight on top and let it set?.....

[Greg Stahl]

I think we ought to get together one day and try all of these.  Now I guess I have to buy some warped skillets, just to see what will work and what won't work.

[Paul Beer]

Hey, Would make a great semminar at the WAGS convention...if you can find a hotel where we can set up the forges and welding outfits and will handle the smoke and the pounding...could be fun...at least before the police the firemen arrive... :D

[Steve_Stephens]

I was thinking more of having a WAGS convention on a FARM.  With welding equipment, presses, lye tanks, power wire brushes, ovens, grinders, etc.     Maybe there could be an extra day of "hands on" topics and the soft people could go shopping or stay in their hotel room or go drink some tea.  It would be fun and we'd all learn a lot I bet.

How skillets warp.  Don't think any of us will try to find out on our nicer pans.  Warping is caused by uneven heating and cooling.  When I preheat a medium or larger skillet on my coil electric stove I often can see the bottom bow downward slightly but it is still alarming.  So far the warp has always gone away upon cooling.  If you were to heat really fast or to a very high heat that may be when the pan warps permanently.  Also, should you pour cold water in a hot skillet like when you put it in the sink from a hot stove it may cause warpage then.

Remember, though, that cast iron is not suitable to be forged or pressed.  You have to do that to other types of steel and iron.  Just heating cast iron to red hot is probably still not hot enough for the iron to become plastic so it can be worked.  I think you can try to your hearts content to get cast iron to move back to its original shape but you never will.  Once bent; always bent.

Maybe someone can tell us how he has taken out a warp.  I have heard of it being done but never have seen an example or had any proof of it being done.
Steve

[Paul Beer]

Steve, I think that is a great idea...it would be great to do some cooking in the ovens and really play with the iron...We could every body to contribute their wounded iron for the demonstrations...We could maybe get some power so we could hook up a stove and play with the cleaning cycle method as against the lye and other processes...Should be some places in the Seattle area...I have some places around Anacortes etc that I bet I could round up...Middle of August would be great....Paul

[Will Person]

Steve,

You want to have it on a farm?  Bring it out to Jenny's place.  But I will tell you,  That is where all my " other addiction"  is stored.   I would have to put you to work on the farm,  1920's style. [smiley=rolling_eyes.gif]

I just picked up a Wagner 1057 smooth bottom that has a little warp.  Would love to get that one flat.  


Will P.

[Rich]

What's confusing about all this, is what makes a skillet warp in the first place.  It sounds like a skillet always warps towards the heat source.

And it doesn't have to be cherry red to do so.  

Seems like if you could reverse the process, you could "coax" the iron back to it's original shape without having to hit it with anything.  

These old Lodge skillets I've got are actually kind'a nice except for the warping.  I'm going to do an experiment today and I'll let you all know how it works out.

First thing I got to do today though, is replace the snowblower I blew up during our last storm...   :-X   Got to go spend perfectly good "iron money" to buy another one...     >:(

[Steve_Stephens]

Steve,

You want to have it on a farm?  Bring it out to Jenny's place.  But I will tell you,  That is where all my " other addiction"  is stored.   I would have to put you to work on the farm,  1920's style. [smiley=rolling_eyes.gif]

 I just picked up a Wagner 1057 smooth bottom that has a little warp.  Would love to get that one flat. 


Will P.

Hey Will,
For a suburban guy who wished he had been born 50 years earlier I would LOVE to have a WAGS convention at Jenny's.  What's out there that you are addicted to?  Old farm tractors?   Got any Oil Pulls or Averys?  If so you have enough weight to run over all our warped skillets and PRESS them flat.
Greg,
What about having a WAGS convention that is not in a modern hotel and convention rooms?  There's nothing antique about those places and, while usually comfortable, I'd always opt for "rougher" accomodations such as a tent camp at a farm (may want to pitch the tents in the barn if it is raining, though).   Might take some extra work to put such a thing together along with a willing host with the right property but what a ball it would be.
Fred, good luck on your experiments on flatening your iron.  Let us hear your findings.
Steve

[Will Person]

Steve,

We don't have any Rumley's or Avery's.   But I do have a Friend with a Rumley oil pull model Y,  I think it is a 35-70 hp tractor.  I have 2 cylinder Deere's.  An A,B and G.  The B is a WW2  cast iron frame tractor. ;D  Got to have cast iron in all hobby's.  I have a 1924 Deere corn-binder, 1908 Deering grain binder, 1924 Case 22x36 thresher,  1942 New Idea corn husker-shredder.  I help put on thresheree's  Lot's of fun.  LOTS of work.  

Jenny's brother and father have  many other tractors out there,  Farmall's,  Case's,  Allis Chalmers, and Minneapolis Moline's.

Back to the real subject.  How can we get warped cast iron back to be flat.   If there ever is a way.  We will find it.   Qestions,  Does the skillet warp when heated fast?  Cooled too fast?  I have seen warpage down, and up.  If the warp is down.  Would heating pan up to a good temperature and poaring cold water on the bottom make it warp back?  It was cast flat.  How can we make it return?  You now have me thinking on how to get the warp out.  Brain overload. [smiley=bazooka.gif]

Will P.

[Rich]

  

I wish I had taken a closer look at the warp on the 5 skillet before attempting a fix.  The first experiment actually seemed to work some but can't be sure how much.

I turned the skillet upside down on the stove and got it good and hot.  Then I drizzled cold water over the hump.  When I got done, I thought I had improved the skillet by roughly 50%.  There is a severe 1 1/2 inch slump right in the center that wouldn't improve.  The problem is I don't know if it looked like that when new.

The 2nd attempt was to try to cool the entire bottom of the skillet first.  To do that, I got it real hot, slid it off the heat, took a soating wet paper towel and set it right on the bottom of the skillet.  No change.

The 3rd attempt was to let the skillet completely cool, then set it upside down over a real hot burner.  No change.

Not being one to quit when I'm ahead, I headed for the basement and propane torch.  I applied heat to the inside of the skillet in tight circles around the warp.  No change.

Then I got out the hammer...   ::)  You should have been here Greg.  The crack looks just like the kind you get in your windshield.  Spreading nicely in three directions...   ;D

But..... I did improve the skillet with that first attempt.  So there's hope.  If anyone's got any suggestions, I've still got an 8 skillet to experiment with.

[Greg Stahl]

guess there is hope, but from what I've seen and heard on this site and from others, I don't think I'd try any method on a warped Griswold spider skillet, #14 slant or another valuable skillet, unless I wanted two halves of the same skillet.  

I would however like to see the attempts and especially the facial expressions once the skillet cracks!! [smiley=bazooka.gif]

[Rich]

I agree.  I wouldn't want to be doing to a valuable skillet what I did to this one...

I had taken a piece of lead and used that to cushion the blows of the hammer.  There doesn't seem to be any way to forcibly move cast iron around.  It'll just crack or break.  

I wish there was a good explanation as to why it'll change it's shape when mistreated on a stove.  If you knew the why, you might be able to get it to go "home" if you reversed the process.

But it was fun to try...

[Steve_Stephens]

Back to the real subject.  How can we get warped cast iron back to be flat.   If there ever is a way.  We will find it.   Qestions,  Does the skillet warp when heated fast?  Cooled too fast?  I have seen warpage down, and up.  If the warp is down.  Would heating pan up to a good temperature and poaring cold water on the bottom make it warp back?  It was cast flat.  How can we make it return?  You now have me thinking on how to get the warp out.  Brain overload. [smiley=bazooka.gif]

Will P.

Will,
I'm suburban kid but have always liked old machinery.  No room for your kind of stuff in my garage but I do have a '22 Model T and a 1906 Cadillac.  Both are complete in very good condition but are projects to get running again.

On the iron warpage:  I am pretty sure that it is either very high heat and/or too rapid heating or cooling that makes the pans warp.  Maybe it even happens little by little from users who consistantly missuse their iron.  Reversing the warp seems like it is going to be about impossible but it is fun to see someone trying (Richard).  I've never put a worse warp in my pans from using them.  I would guess that certain stresses build up during warping and, when trying to unwarp them, the additional stress is too much for the pan so it breaks.  Best advice--don't acquire pans that are warped.  I always check with sellers to see how flat the bottoms are.   Most sellers haven't a clue about how to let you know so, even if they agree it is perfectly flat, it may come in with a small crown or bow.  It's a crap shoot on ebay but still the best way to find good iron.
Steve