Sigh. Always test cast iron of unknown history. Any wall mounting tips lol?
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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Cast Iron
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I'd wager it's mostly surface contamination, so maybe but it's not worth it - assuming you can even safely remove the lead without contaminating everything around you, you now have a bunch of lead to dispose of.
Once that's done and you have a pan with "undetectable levels" of lead do you even trust it knowing the pan's history?
Its a lot of tools, time, and testing, when you could just go buy an uncontaminated pan and move on.
This is something I would expect a chemistry type content creator like codyslab, nilered/blue, or E&I to do just to demonstrate how feasible it is.
With a cost breakdown and showing what chemical waste remains after the fact, it would be super obvious it's not worth it unless you have some sentimental attachment to it, like it was your great grandparents pan or something.
oh god, don't tell Nilered. He'll end up melting down hundreds of cast iron trying to get enough lead to make something with lol.
seriously though, whoever does it I hope they find some older ones to test as well and not just trying to replicate it with melting metals. Might be like trying to find a 4-leaf clover and they would be getting tons of people just shipping pans but I think it would be important to see the effects time had. Full testing including cutting open and seeing the results in the layers below the surface if they're trying to remove it.