I have A cast Griswold Griddle, was cooking some Sausage this morning and heard a Large Pop, I fig a bird had with one of the windows! but went to flip the patties and saw a large crack going thru the bottom of the Griddle! never had known of this Happening! it was a made in the USA Griddle! has this happened to anyone else? Kinda Bummed me out!

Holy schit!


Did you spell "happanding" for reals?

Bet it had an existing fracture that finally found the right conditions to crack.

Might be a bit hard to replace too...

Not while cooking. My neighbor was distracted and put cold water in a hot DO once.

Same result.

I have a cast griddle, a good one, not sure of the make as it is 630 miles away. It broke years ago, I brazed it on the bottom side. It gets used at times.

Something wrong with cast iron? Has to be fake news!

I have an old Wagner griddle that has a hairline crack about 3" - 4" long running from the outside edge on the bottom side inward toward the center. The crack is not visible at all on the cooking surface. It was my mom's griddle and no telling how long and often she cooked with it. It's obviously been cooked with quite a bit as the cooking surface is smooth and well "seasoned" looking. No idea when or what caused the crack. Never have tried to cook anything on it myself yet.

Yup, at sometime in its life in probably got dropped on a hard surface or tossed over too hot a fire.

Heat it up....weld with low hydrogen and peen the ever living hell outta it.

Getting it real hot in one area, while much cooler in another can do that to bigger cast grills.

Big Jim know how to weld.

DC reverse polarity??

That's a tragedy for sure. I've got 2 old round Wagner's that are still going strong.

I’ve welded a couple, but used a nickel rod. I’ve never tried low hydrogen on cast iron.

Other than brazing, a high nickel content rod is all I ever use on cast iron.
Just by it's nature, most all cast iron is under a lot of stress to begin with. That's why sudden changes in temperature create such havoc on it, much like glass.

Several years ago, my good wife bought me a 14" el-cheapo cast pan from Cabelas. The cooking surface was rough as gravel and hard not to get food from sticking to it and on the bottom there was a huge casted embossed Cabelas logo which caused the pan to rock back and forth all over the stove. This went on for a few months until I got sick of it and down into the basement it went. I took a 5" grinder and cut off the stupid logo making the bottom flat as it should have been and polished the cooking surface very smooth. with a 5" flapper disk. Got it seasoned up and now it is now second to none for cooking, but I'm quite anal about looking after it. Not bad for a cheap pan made in china.

It pays to rub it with chalk to find the true end of the crack and drill a 1/4 inch hole off the end of it to relieve stress. If it’s very thick, I like to gouge both sides of the crack with 3/32 6010 on dc neg at about 150 or 160 amps...that also pre heats for you. Then weld it with nickel rod, alternating sides, about an inch at a time toward that hole, not heating it too much but not letting it cool either. Peen the bead when done and cover it with something so it doesn’t cool too soon. Pain in the ass, but usually works.

Hmmmm.....what ever the welder was set to from the last time!


I think you are correct though.



We never bother with any of that nickle crap.

We seem to off of griddles, and on to welding cast of all types. Carry on.

Ya, they crack, good news is you can find another at a decent price.

https://castironguys.com/product-category/type/

Had a cast iron skillet pop like that one time. I was frying bacon in it at Mom and Dad's on an electric stove. The only thing I could figure, was it had been hanging in a cold closet that butted up against the stairs into our unheated attic. Scared the crap out of me when it blew, I remember that for sure. Not trying to hijack your thread, but I've got a pressure cooker explosion story too. The damned safety valve blew and an entire chicken was blasted out through that little hole, bones and all. We were picking bone fragments out of the sheetrock for a week. Dad ended up ripping out the whole kitchen and redoing it. As for the pressure cooker, it became a glorified pot.

Gas weld with a carburizing flame, pre and post heat keeping the entire pan hot... stich weld using a coat hanger and when done bury in sand. will need some grinding an polishing and a lot of patience.

Phil

Yep, have one like this G #9, sitting in the easy chair waiting for it to come up to heat for tortillas and heard a loud pop, I assumed it was the glass top stove or the griddle and it's now missing a 1.5" x .75" chunk of the rim.

Ya beat me toit, Wabbi. This^^^^.

Ive heard those tops get too hot too quick.

Yes fellows it was on an Ele, glass top stove , I hate it and will never buy another one! A lady I no told me she had heard that the glass tops get to hot to quick to use cast stuff on.!

The REASON they crack/break is that cast iron needs to be brought up to temp a little more gradually than just cranking it on high...

We have a glass top. Wonder if a slow warm up would be better.

Our electric glass top stove has three different size burners -- two small, one each - medium and large. May be that because of the size of direct heat contact surface of a cast iron griddle, it could possibly crack if heated over a too small burner on an electric glass top stove due to the smaller area of quick, intense heat buildup.

Edit: Also, our electric stove has a black glass top which makes it difficult (for me) to tell if a pot or pan is centered directly over a burner. And as glass tops are so slick compared to traditional open top burners, the slightest bump can cause a pot/pan to slide off center of a burner.

I have a pre 1900 Griswold that developed a crack. Small, but if I used it, it leaked grease. It's a wall hanger now. A REALLY good welder that knows cast iron can repair it, but for me it wasn't worth it.

That would more than bum me out.

I have a 24"x12" griddle which rests across 2 burners & stays on the cooktop at all times. We cook 90% of our short order grub on it. I would lament its loss.

I also have a very large griddle that covers all 5 burners on my 30" cooktop. It weighs about 35 lbs & it has been responsible for many large family feedings.

Yes mine will be a wall hanger too about a 5" crack. its square about 10" across with about an inch side walls! realy liked it! but from now on im going heat the rest of them up slower! as I had it on high and had just turned it down to med. a min. before the POP!