# My poor old pan: I know it can be cleaned up, but...



## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 1, 2014)

You can see from the attached photograph that there's a great pan hiding inside this old crusty mess. It's stainless steel, copper base, I think I know the brand (probably obvious, but not with all that guck on the bottom). I guess using it camping on a Coleman stove wasn't such a great idea...

I have tried everything I can think of to clean it up:


soap and water
every kind of scrubber known to man and beast
Barkeeper's Friend
powdered cleanser (i.e. Ajax, Comet)
Easy Off oven cleaner
steel wool
alcohol
acetone
CLR
You can see pieces of the guck have even fallen off, leaving a nice, cleanable pan underneath. It's the big carbonized deposits I can't get off.



I can't think of anything else to try. Is there any way to get all this stuff off the steel and copper and get it looking nice again? I've had it for many decades and I'd just buy a new one if it weren't for my sentimental attachment. Help!


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## Dawgluver (Nov 1, 2014)

I've had success resurrecting Lazarus pots by boiling in a mix of baking soda and white vinegar.  Maybe put your pan in a bigger pot in the mix and boil the heck out of it.


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## Andy M. (Nov 1, 2014)

Stick it in a trash bag with an open dish of ammonia.  Seal it tightly and leave it outdoors overnight.


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## Aunt Bea (Nov 1, 2014)

I have had a couple like that. 

I cleaned them in stages using Barkeepers friend or Cameo and a blue scrubber sponge.  I cleaned the bottom, for about 5 minutes, each time I used the pan over a period of months and eventually the bottoms were restored.  The Zen of pot scrubbing, Om, Om, Om!


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## Bigjim68 (Nov 1, 2014)

Andy M. said:


> Stick it in a trash bag with an open dish of ammonia.  Seal it tightly and leave it outdoors overnight.



I'd be careful immersing the handle in anything.


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## Andy M. (Nov 1, 2014)

Bigjim68 said:


> I'd be careful immersing the handle in anything.



Noting is immersed.  The pan sits in a trash bag along side of a bowl/dish of ammonia.  Overnight the fumes work on the pan to soften the deposits.


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## Bigjim68 (Nov 1, 2014)

Andy M. said:


> Noting is immersed.  The pan sits in a trash bag along side of a bowl/dish of ammonia.  Overnight the fumes work on the pan to soften the deposits.



I get that.  But I have no idea whether or  not the Bakelite would react with the ammonia.

There is no  reason,  however, that you could not tie the pot with the handle outside the bag.


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## Andy M. (Nov 1, 2014)

Bigjim68 said:


> I get that.  But I have no idea whether or  not the Bakelite would react with the ammonia.
> 
> There is no  reason,  however, that you could not tie the pot with the handle outside the bag.



Good point.


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## Rocklobster (Nov 1, 2014)

Take a torch to it. We used to clean the char grill grates by dropping them into the fire pit. The black burnt on layer used to burn and fall  off.  Just stick to the black parts and don't linger too long so you don't burn through.   It may work.


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## Katie H (Nov 1, 2014)

You're right.  There's little question it's Revere.

I bought a very, very old Revere griddle at a flea market years ago that looked worse than your pan.  What I did, and had to use several repetitions, was to slather it generously with Easy-Off oven cleaner (I know you said you've already tried that.), then covered the gunky areas with plastic wrap and, finally, sealed the pan (not the handle) in a tightly sealed plastic bag and let it "cook" for at least 24 hours.

It came as clean as when it was new.  But, as I said, it took several iterations of the process.  The handle CANNOT take the oven cleaner. Trust me, I know from experience.

Be patient.  It _will_ come clean.

Good luck and show us a picture of the sparkling new pan when your're done.


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## Kayelle (Nov 2, 2014)

I agree it's worth saving so let us know what works!

The good thing is, it doesn't have to look beautiful to give you the pleasure of cooking with an old friend. None of us with experience looks as beautiful as we once did.


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## Cooking Goddess (Nov 2, 2014)

Copper Glo was my absolute favorite thing to clean my Revere Ware bottoms and my copper bowl. Alas, it's been discontinued. I still have part of an old canister, but have been on a hunt for a suitable replacement. Wright's Copper Cream works OK, but like any of these products you also need to bring elbow grease. I recently bought a canister of Siege Copper Powder Cleaner but haven't tried it yet.

I also found this list on Wiki-How of seven different ways to clean copper. I know my Mom's go-to when she ran out of Copper Glo was the lemon-and-salt method.

Good luck! Revere Ware lasts forever. My Mom got hers in the early 1960s and I and both of my kids are still using the many pieces all these decades later.


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## Caslon (Nov 2, 2014)

Same here about Revere Ware.  I inherited 3 Revere Ware pots that date back to when I was a boy. They last forever.


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (Nov 2, 2014)

Andy M. said:


> Stick it in a trash bag with an open dish of ammonia.  Seal it tightly and leave it outdoors overnight.



+1
That's what works for me as well.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


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## letscook (Nov 2, 2014)

I had one similar to that not as bad - I used a paste of lemon juice (real lemons not bottle) and salt - I rubbed it all over then let it set for 10- 15 min and then used a non abrasive scrub pad (like the green flat ones)  and it came out good.


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## medtran49 (Nov 2, 2014)

There's absolutely no question, as somebody else mentioned, that it's Revere Wear. That's what I learned to cook on and my mom had her set as long as I can remember. 

Never tried the ammonia trick but have tried several of the others and they do work. Again, as mentioned, time and patience. 

Just an FYI, next time wrap the pot in heavy duty foil. Been there, done that with other pans. There isn't any appreciable difference cooking wise and then clean up is just a peel off and throw away.


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (Nov 2, 2014)

medtran49 said:


> There's absolutely no question, as somebody else mentioned, that it's Revere Wear. That's what I learned to cook on and my mom had her set as long as I can remember.
> 
> Never tried the ammonia trick but have tried several of the others and they do work. Again, as mentioned, time and patience.
> 
> Just an FYI, next time wrap the pot in heavy duty foil. Been there, done that with other pans. There isn't any appreciable difference cooking wise and then clean up is just a peel off and throw away.



A trick we used to use in boy scouts was to rub the outside of the pot with Ivory bar soap.  You had to take care to completely cover the outside surface.  When the cooking was done, the soot and grime simply rinsed off with hot water.

I like the aluminum foil idea.  I imagine it's easier than the soap trick.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


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## Andy M. (Nov 2, 2014)

I prefer the ammonia method as most of the work is done while I'm sleeping.


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## Bigjim68 (Nov 2, 2014)

medtran49 said:


> There's absolutely no question, as somebody else mentioned, that it's Revere Wear. That's what I learned to cook on and my mom had her set as long as I can remember.
> 
> Never tried the ammonia trick but have tried several of the others and they do work. Again, as mentioned, time and patience.
> 
> Just an FYI, next time wrap the pot in heavy duty foil. Been there, done that with other pans. There isn't any appreciable difference cooking wise and then clean up is just a peel off and throw away.



Back in the day, when I was a Cub Scout, we rubbed soap on the pan bottom when we cooked over an open fire.


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## Andy M. (Nov 2, 2014)

Bigjim68 said:


> Back in the day, when I was a Cub Scout, we rubbed soap on the pan bottom when we cooked over an open fire.



I remember this from Boy Scout camping trips.  However, if you cook over coals rather than burning wood, the soot factor is minimized.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 5, 2014)

Progress report: I've tried many of the suggestions, with limited success -- see attached photo.

I decided to shortcut the ammonia idea and just put some liquid ammonia in a Pyrex dish and set the pan in it each night. I attribute the cleaning of the copper to the ammonia.

I've been scrubbing it with Barkeeper's Friend which appears to be no different from Comet or Ajax to me: common powdered cleanser. If it has any magic qualities I haven't noticed them. I haven't noticed much change as a result of this scrubbing.

I've hit the pan with a propane torch, my nearest equivalent of setting it in the coals. (My only grill is propane fueled.) It appears that at times the thick black stuff crackles a bit. I think the ammonia loosens it some more and the BKF rubs it off.

So my progress is limited. It looks better but it will take many weeks at this rate to get the pan looking nice.


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## Andy M. (Nov 5, 2014)

Greg, try the ammonia as I suggested.  Don't immerse the pan in the ammonia.  Let the fumes come in contact with the pan surface.  Do it outdoors, it stinks.  Overnight should make a big difference.


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (Nov 6, 2014)

I agree with Andy.  Just after getting married (37 years back now) DW told me about the ammonia in a garbage bag trick for cleaning oven grates.  It worked far better than oven cleaner.  I've also used it to clean my Weber grill grates.  It took the carbon right off.  It's also removed the gunky coating from the outside of well used cast iron frying pans.

O don't know why the ammonia vapors soften the old carbon better that ammonia liquid, but it does.  I have literally wiped away the grim with paper towels after letting them sit in a closed, plastic garbage bag overnight, with a bowl of ammonia.  It just works.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


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## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 6, 2014)

Okay, thank you for the advice. I'll do it. I can't very well ask for advice and expect it to work if I don't keep an open mind. In fact I'll go do it right now, set it in my garage, and just forget about it until tomorrow.

It seems illogical that the fumes would work better but I hope they do. It looks like ultimately I can expect to completely restore this pan except for a few scratches, but it's going to require an onerous amount of work if I can't accelerate my progress.

As I said in the OP the brand is obvious, they were very popular in the '50s and my mom could have had it before that. It will be great to see the company logo come out from under that crud, although I'm not certain there is a logo. It will be a thrill if the logo pops out!


ETA: It's done, sitting in a corner of my garage. I propped up one end of the bag with a vase, set the pan bottom side up in the middle with the handle holding down a folded under corner of the bag and the dish of ammonia doing same on the other side of the bag, so that the bag doesn't touch the cruddy bottom of the pan. If I forget to look tomorrow then two days will probably be even better. I'll let y'all know how it works out.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 9, 2014)

I'm just updating the topic. It's night and not a good time to take photos. Things are progressing slowly.

I've been vaporizing it at night with ammonia in a tent, and Easy Off-ing it in the daytime. I'm measuring my success by what comes off in the water (how dark it is) when I scrub it after a session.

My results:

It doesn't appear the ammonia is doing much since I see little black when I scrub the pot down after an ammonia session. However it appears the ammonia has good results with exposed copper.

The Easy-Off works the best, and I've been seeing big black runoff after several hours of my pan sitting outdoors after a spray job. I'm beginning to wonder, stupid of me to have not thought of this before. I haven't made a big deal but I have mentioned once or twice, I make soap, and I probably have more lye on hand than anybody in the forum (except the few other soapers here). I'm thinking, I should just brew up a batch of maybe 20% lye and soak it in that. I've worked with lye up to 50% but I don't want to end up with just a handle! :laugh:

Anyway I can now see the printing on the bottom: [indistinguishable - probably an emblem] Revere Ware 1/2 Qt. - 92b, Clinton Ill., U.S.A.

Really, it's been my favorite sauce pan for decades, and my mom (bless her soul, she's gone) gave it to me, and I'd be happy enough to keep using it crud and all. But I really think that after maybe $50 worth of Easy Off I might get it back to almost pristine condition!

What do you think of using lye? And if so, what percent concentration? I'm thinking maybe somewhere 20% to 33%, the latter only if I watch it every 20-30 minutes. Heck, maybe 20 minutes at 33% is all it needs!


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## Andy M. (Nov 9, 2014)

Sorry the ammonia didn't work for you.  Keep us posted.  You have to save the pan.


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## Dawgluver (Nov 9, 2014)

Greg, do you have a Dremel with a wire brush attachment?  That might do it.  Use a light touch and don't forget the goggles.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 10, 2014)

No problem about the ammonia. As I said it does to appear to make the copper very bright, so it's good for that. This pan has an extremely thick coating of black stuff -- it's been that way for years -- and it is quite possible that it is just too thick for ammonia to work.

Yes DL I do have a Dremel and I've been a bit crazy buying all kinds of attachments.  I give your suggestion some thought, but copper is a pretty soft metal and I don't want to take any chances of unnecessarily scratching it.

At the end of each Easy Off session I've noticed the wash water is coming off with a brown color, so the lye in that product is working. It spent the night absorbing Easy Off after spraying it outside. I think I'll set it in a pan of 20% lye today and see how that goes. I'm pretty sure enough lye will eventually dissolve all the black crust. I should have thought of using lye before -- Easy Off is just aerosol lye, and lye crystals are far, far cheaper.

I'll try remember to add a picture later today. It has come a long ways since the OP. Enough so that I think eventual success is assured. Even crudded up this pan has worked nicely for decades, my favorite 1/2 Qt. sauce pan, but it will be even more pleasure if I get it looking like new, and with its long history in my use and being used by my mother before me.

It's funny, I think I can restore it to like new condition. That's amazing since it must be 50+ years old. I hope they had manufacture dates stamped in, I'd like to date this old pan.


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## Andy M. (Nov 10, 2014)

I thought this crud was a recent occurrence.  I didn't realize you've been using it like this for years.  What prompted your "come to jesus moment"?


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## Bigjim68 (Nov 10, 2014)

Greg Who Cooks said:


> I'm just updating the topic. It's night and not a good time to take photos. Things are progressing slowly.
> 
> I've been vaporizing it at night with ammonia in a tent, and Easy Off-ing it in the daytime. I'm measuring my success by what comes off in the water (how dark it is) when I scrub it after a session.
> 
> ...



Lye will work.  I use a box of drain cleaner in 5 gallons of water.  It will probably destroy the handle, although it doesn't destroy food safe buckets.  For your pan I would soak the bottom only in a couple of inches of liquid.  It will take a couple of days.  It is not going to hurt the metal parts of the pan.  In general, lye only attacks organic matter.

Used incorrectly, lye is nasty stuff.  Keep it away from the animals, and read the directions.


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## Bigjim68 (Nov 10, 2014)

Greg Who Cooks said:


> No problem about the ammonia. As I said it does to appear to make the copper very bright, so it's good for that. This pan has an extremely thick coating of black stuff -- it's been that way for years -- and it is quite possible that it is just too thick for ammonia to work.
> 
> Yes DL I do have a Dremel and I've been a bit crazy buying all kinds of attachments.  I give your suggestion some thought, but copper is a pretty soft metal and I don't want to take any chances of unnecessarily scratching it.
> 
> ...



I'd stay away from grinders.  Every so often, someone brings me a piece of CI that daddy has decided to clean with a wheel or wire brush.  It's gone.  This would be especially true of the copper bottom of the Revere.  It's a wash, not a plating, and is very thin.

If you are familiar with using lye, that's the way I would go.


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## Aunt Bea (Nov 10, 2014)

Greg Who Cooks said:


> I hope they had manufacture dates stamped in, I'd like to date this old pan.



This may help. 

Revere Ware History | reverewarehistory


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## CWS4322 (Nov 10, 2014)

You might want to try this for "abused" pans:

Revere Ware Parts :: Care and Cleaning


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## Zagut (Nov 10, 2014)

It might cost a few pennies but have it glass beaded.

Abrasive blasting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most auto body shops, machine shops, or metal fabrication shops would be able to do it for you and at a small cost if you're willing to wait for them to do it when they have another project that requires glass beading.

They can get very nice results. Sand or Bead blasting stainless steel

If you're really into DIY then a small sand blasting set up isn't overboard in price and can be used for many things around the house.
Blast-Out-of-a-Bucket Abrasive Gun

Good luck with your pot.

It's a keeper.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 10, 2014)

Andy M. said:


> I thought this crud was a recent occurrence.  I didn't realize you've been using it like this for years.  What prompted your "come to jesus moment"?



I saw God in the grease left after I made my bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich. Okay? 

Your question is specious. I like nice things. I realized I had a nice thing hiding under crud.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 10, 2014)

Bigjim68 said:


> Lye will work.  I use a box of drain cleaner in 5 gallons of water.  It will probably destroy the handle, although it doesn't destroy food safe buckets.  For your pan I would soak the bottom only in a couple of inches of liquid.  It will take a couple of days.  It is not going to hurt the metal parts of the pan.  In general, lye only attacks organic matter.
> 
> Used incorrectly, lye is nasty stuff.  Keep it away from the animals, and read the directions.



I'm a soaper. I buy lye in 16 pound batches. I know lye better than anybody on the forum except my fellow CD soaper members.

Don't worry, I know the handle would probably not withstand lye. Anyway I'm down to the bottom inch of the pan as being a problem.

I question your supposition that lye won't hurt copper. I saw blue when I hauled out my pan from Easy Off today and blue is the color copper lends salts.

But trust me. I'm an experienced RTCP soaper who master batches his lye at 33%. I've played with more lye in the last year than most people see in a lifetime. And using it to make soap, not to clear drains!

That is the irony of soapmaking, that mixing fats and oils with lye results in a product you enjoy rubbing on your face and body. It is an odd hobby but I enjoy it almost as much as cooking. I've been making soap for several years.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 10, 2014)

Bigjim68 said:


> I'd stay away from grinders.  Every so often, someone brings me a piece of CI that daddy has decided to clean with a wheel or wire brush.  It's gone.  This would be especially true of the copper bottom of the Revere.  It's a wash, not a plating, and is very thin.
> 
> If you are familiar with using lye, that's the way I would go.



Yeah me too. I know a grinder may scratch. Lye will eat organics, and may eat metal depending.... I'm worried about the copper. If I use lye I will keep a close eye on how the copper is faring.

We soapers use mainly stainless steel for mixing our witches' broth. Stainless resists all. The only other real choice is Pyrex, and many soapers (not me) shy away from glass. My Pyrex has never failed me, but I don't add water to lye powder.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 10, 2014)

Aunt Bea said:


> This may help.
> 
> Revere Ware History | reverewarehistory



Thanks Bea! I'm getting almost close enough to post the entire emblazon from the bottom of the pan.

I can already read most of that stuff where last week I couldn't even tell there was a trademark there.

But you can't mistake this stuff if you've seen any cookware out of the '50s. I so hope I can find a manufacturing date. It might even be from my grandmother's era in the '30s.


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## Greg Who Cooks (Nov 10, 2014)

Zagut said:


> It might cost a few pennies but have it glass beaded.
> 
> Abrasive blasting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> ...



Good idea! You figured out I'm a sucker for hobbies ------ how? But you are right, I know of furniture stripping and metal cleaning businesses within driving distance. A last resort.

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Just a last update, I'll have a much better picture to post tomorrow, including the manufacturer's emblazoned trademark data!


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