Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation New Waffle Maker

I picked this up for $5 at a barn sale outside Spirit Lake Idaho today. I need to get it to town for a fine media blast and oil. A good fit for the old Monarch wood burner.

Very nice!! Stove ain't bad either...

Nice. I'd probably use electrolysis to clean up the rust.

plain old Red Devil lye works great. Just remember to give it a vinegar bath afterward. That is a premo piece Ed.

tahe kosher salt and rub VIGOROUSLY into the iron to remove all the finish. wash and wipe with a LITTLE peanut oil put in a HOT oven for 90 min to cure

yep. That too!

Ed, any pics of the cooking surface? I assume it's small-dent waffles, not Belgian?

$5 ?!?!? Great find!

A thing of beauty right there! Thanks for the pic.

If you find another, I'll give you ten for it!

I use Kosher salt to clean my cast iron after use.

ED, build a campfire and get a nice big bed of hardwood coals. Bury the waffle iron in the coals and leave it there until the fire burns out, letting it cool slowly with the bed of coals. You'll burn the oxidation right off. Clean it up with stiff brush, season, done.

Hard to find hardwood in north Idaho. I assume a "pine-ish" fire will work?

It will, but it will take a lot of coals for a piece like that, and a bit of time. It's a redox reaction that you'll recall from chemistry class.

When I found this pan underfoot in camp one year, I did the fire caburizing redox treatment. It worked to a good degree, but not complete. I finished it in a gas grill on high. It just burns it all off similarly. Wire wheel on an angle grinder smoothed it.

The thing to note however, it would be worth another method to preserve the lettering on that piece you have.

Ed,

Yours looks like you've just got some light to medium flash oxidation. It shouldn't take much to clean up. The campfire method shouldn't harm the details. I'd use hardwood for its ability to build and sustain heat and cool slowly. Be careful /gentile with the brushing or use of abrasives. You could use a non-abrasive media blasting process like Soda or Super K. I wouldn't use crushed glass or bead, despite it technically being a non-abrasive, too aggressive.

I appreciate the help. I will go slow as I am not about the light the wood stove any time soon.

You could do that in a campfire.

Looking forward to seeing this getting on the job!

That was a very good buy. Congratulations

It now resides in a lye bath. I will leave it there for a few days and then take a peak. We shall see.

I use Apple cider vinegar to clean off any surface rust. Works very well due to being a mild acid. I have used it to clean up many things including an anvil from 1850-1870, and I have a shotgun soaking in it now.

It will bathe in vinegar after the lye treatment.

As Sam mentioned, lye is a good and popular way to clean up older CI.

Update as it goes along please.