rust prevention question

[daimon1054]

First I am new here and hope this is in the right area.
I am making a trailer with for tailgating, it will have a pit and burners on it and have a comercial grill (griddle) that I am going to add. The problem I see is protecting the cooking surface from rust. Everything else is stainless so just the cooking surface it bare iron. I need something that is non toxic and can be cleaned off easily. I did a net search and found squat.

[snotzalot]

First I am new here and hope this is in the right area.
I am making a trailer with for tailgating, it will have a pit and burners on it and have a comercial grill (griddle) that I am going to add. The problem I see is protecting the cooking surface from rust. Everything else is stainless so just the cooking surface it bare iron. I need something that is non toxic and can be cleaned off easily. I did a net search and found squat.

Olive Oil.

[tvand]

I like to cook with cast iron. The quick way to "season" cast iron is to smear it with lard and then take it to a high cooking temp around 400 to 450 and let the lard bake into the pores of the metal. This will leave a rust resistent coating that can be enhanced with the olive oil. There is a similar process for steel called Parkerizing, it's done with motor oil and leaves a rust resistant finish. This was named after the process discovered by the Parker shot gun factory. This was a popular finish on a lot of early cars and motorcycles.
Ted

[Kerry Pinkerton]

Ted, can you talk a little more about Parkerizing. I had a shotgun that had been Parkerized and the finish held up great, very resistant to rust.

Somewhere, I ran across a guy who was selling anvils and uppers that were parkerized. Down south we have a LOT of problems with things rusting and my demo wheels are especially prone to rust because they get handled so much.

I'm wondering:

1- Would Parkerizing stop the rusting?
2- How 'DEEP' is the Parkerized finish, ie, can it be polished?
3- Would it effect the resulting surface on the sheetmetal?
4- Does the process get hot enough to distort the rollers?

Yeah, I know....but it's 1:30 and I can't sleep.....

[tvand]

I read about the process about 15 years ago in an issue of
Classic Motorcycle I think that was the title.It told of a process where the ferros metal was polished then a mild acid bath then the parts were soaked in a hot motor oil, non-detergent I believe, for a time. From what I recall this allowed the oil to penetrate the metal. The result was a blackening of the metal similar to the browning and then later bluing of the gun industry. Sorry I don't recall more detail. Maybe a Google search or some of our motorcycle restoration friends know more. The author was telling that this finish was more accurate then the black paint that it was some times mistaken for. Also on early Indians and others cad plating was more common than chrome. I don't know how deep this goes but the story told of it lasting several years if the parts were out where they could air dry and not caked with mud.
Ted

[roger n cindy]

try ( www.calvan.com ) they sell kits for parkerizing in both grey and black.
roger

[Boogiemanz1]

You will want to heat this stuff up OUTSIDE! Some brands put off some bad vapors........you would not want this on the work surface I don't think............john

[tdoty]

Back to the cooking question - seasoning with lard and then coating with olive oil should work great. One other thing the overheated lard gives you is a coating of carbon that is relatively non-stick. One key to this finish - DO NOT SCRUB it to clean it. The carbon and oil will disappear and rust will take it's place. Want your day ruined? Let someone scrub your nicely seasoned cast iron cookware til it's shiny! Happened to me once :evil: .

Don't know about the parkerizing kits or if you would want it on the work surface, but the baked on oil should work well with little in the way of negative effects. Looks like it might be of interest for some parts on my A though :lol: .

Tim D.

[snotzalot]

Want your day ruined? Let someone scrub your nicely seasoned cast iron cookware til it's shiny! Happened to me once

That's what a sand blaster is for! We have gotten into using cast iron only in the house. Olive oil alone works well for seasoning. Coat all sides and the place in an oven at 350 deg F for several hours and you are good to go. I guess I'm going to use all my my stainless steel fry pans as shrinking discs.

Hey Stan, what do you use at the catering hall on the grill tops?????

[kustomizingkid]

Does parkerizing have a hardening affect at all or just rust prevention? I remember reading an article about a guy who parkerized the cam in his race car.

Brandon M.

[jaduncan]

late post here but ya can also try Brownells.com
Some of the chemicals might etch some metals

Allen