Cast Iron Score

[SteveW]

A friend of my mom's brought this down from Ohio where I was born. It was with my uncles stuff at his business and his daughter got it for me. It is a waffle iron that was made for coal/wood stoves and patented in August 1869. The foundry was Foxell, Jones and Millard in Troy, New York. Not much info but found reference to a catalog in 1875 from them. I am missing the base that it sets on over the stove opening and the wire bail on the skillet that allows the lid to be lifted. Not much cleaning needed just a little rust and straighten the handle. I may make some sort of base to use it and the bail is no problem. Imagine waffles made on a 135 year old appliance.







This was larges of the 3 sizes they made

[Ryan_M]

Very cool. I might actually make breakfast if I had one of those things.

[F Bill]

What was the street address for the foundry in Troy? Lots of great stuff used to be made in Troy, among them the Troy Bilt tiller line.

[SteveW]

The Iron just has Troy N.Y. on it but a search turns up a fair amount on that company. They were a pretty big deal as I found out gov't contracts and other business dealing they were in. I couldn't find out how long they were in business though.

[johnrb3b]

That is so cool.
I love waffles.
I missed a chance to get one similar to that years ago. Still regret it.
It had a long handle on it like a regular frying pan. The lid pivot was at the base of the handle.

If you don't care about antique value, Amazon sells over a dozen different ones.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=cast%20iron%20waffle%20iron&sprefix=cast+iron+wa%2Caps&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Acast%20iron%20waffle%20iron

[SteveW]

This was the first one in USA. I saw one complete on E-bay buy it now at 314.00. Here is patent info

http://www.swarthoutfamily.org/Famous/jpg/patent%2094043.pdf

I will need to build a bigger ring as the original would rotate down into the stove with the burner plate removed and I can't do that. It's funny how one thing is an improvement and then someone else makes an improvement.

I picked up a Rome pie iron at Bass Pro a while back and have played around with it some. I thought they had a longer history but only since 1965 have they been around.

[SteveW]

Am cleaning it up now. I found some 1/8" rod that i will use for the eyelet to lift the handle. I am using electrolysis to test a few things. I have 4 rods in the corner and using bigger gauge wire #8 instead of #10. Also playing with amount of Borax needed. I put about a cup in and stirred it pretty good but am also "salting" it every 1/2 hour or so to see what that does. i believe it to create better action. I put it in at 5:30 tonight and had it bubbling in 20 minutes.




I am going to pick up some acorns tomorrow that are made to clamps wire to ground rods or rebar. I believe that is a better bond and will quicken the time.



Tied the halves open to get at all the parts



I will probably cut it off about 11:00 tonight and see what it looks like.

[SteveW]

Coming along nicely and putting some learning of electrolysis to good use.




that is after 5 hours, pretty good cooking





I was amazed at how much better it looked and I thought it was not bad when I got it. I rinsed it in laundry tub and dried it on the grill



that is one of the pieces from the corner. lighter rust will float and cling to it, heavier pieces fall to the bottom of tub, just a quick wire brush knocks it off



New clamps and they have made a big difference, they are called acorn clamps and we use them to clamp ground wire to rebar or ground rods.

I have it back on and will leave it all night, that should be enough to get it ready for seasoning. What I have learned is to dissolve the Borax in a cup of warm/hot water as putting it in cold first thing is it just settles at bottom. I also do think the salting is a good method once it starts to cook. I know the clamps have made a huge difference in pulling rust off. One thing that almost went wrong was I accidentally hit the 50 amp boost switch and somehow when I switched it back the polarity got reversed? I checked after 10 minutes and my Iron was bubbling and getting red attached to it. Unplugged and reset it so all is well. I am going to find some rusty vehicle stuff and do a cleaning after this, very happy with process.

It got up to 85 degrees today so outside work is pretty easy although when I was sweating it in an attic this morning it wasn't fun. It wasn't Fargo N.D. either

[SteveW]

great results





this is about 13 hours and couldn't believe how much more came off and how much action the brew made





rinsed and dried off. it's not really rust but the raw iron





Washed 1 time with hot water and scrubbie, towel dried then put in oven at 250 for about 30 minutes. After that seasoned with Crisco for about 40 minutes at 350 and just left to air dry in the oven. I will probably season 1 more time then run a batch. It looks way better than the picture shows. I have an old side shift t-case that is hopeless but am going to brew it to see what happens.

[Dennisanvil]

one thing that you can do to clean old rust cast iron cook ware is place in a small wood fire for awhile , pull it out and place it on a wood block to cool. when cool wash it and place in oven at 500 deg. before place in oven coat with a light coat of oil. place it upside down. it might take more then one time to get season. or place it in the wife self clean  oven. this is when she not home.it will smoke if there is burn on grease. Then re-season.this will remove rust that is on the pan . the rust wont hurt you. the rust will disappear when oiled.
dennis

[SteveW]

I am not a big fan of oil for seasoning. I know a lot of folks who do use it but for initial work like this I like Crisco. I do use oil on my iron between uses. Some years back I went hunting with a buddy who brought a load of old iron and he would chunk them in the fire at night and use sand to scour them out. It worked pretty good.

[Dennisanvil]

we use criso OIL to season our cast iron. use a thin coat.we did civil war for 27 years and cook over the camp fire.
dennis

[johnrb3b]

Well, having grown up in Iowa, we used bacon grease for lots of things, including seasoning the cast iron. In fact, when I make pancakes now on the cast iron griddle, I use bacon grease as my "oil". Makes the pancakes taste real good. 

[SteveW]

I thought there was a place where other hobbies were asked about but could not find it. I made this Monday morning for the guys at my brothers business. He owns and equipment rental outfit so I cooked for about 20+ . In a couple years I am hanging up tool pouch and looking at going into food vendor work so this kind of stuff and family nights at Church are my test kitchens.



These are buttermilk drop biscuits also called cat head biscuits because of how big they are. Very simple recipe and I will put them up against any other biscuits in the world. Cast iron drop biscuit pane made 35 of them



10" skillet cooked 2 dozen eggs in 2 batches. Just eggs milk and pepper. I think some of these cooks that use 20 ingredients are just silly



Sausage gravy in 12" skillet. 2 lbs sausage. I usually cook sausage and gravy separate then combine but saw a way to make gravy with sausage in skillet. It was very good although gravy got a little thicker than I wanted but know why so next time it will be right. Biscuits are so soft they have to be made day before to set up a bit although if you put a little honey on top and don't worry about trying to slice them my goodness it is best eatin in the world. 8-)

[SteveW]

Cleaning up a bit around the house. Decided to take an inventory of my Iron. I can put on a feast I think