How Can You Tell if a CI Pot is Safe to Cook With?

Whenever I see cast iron items at yard sales or second hand stores I always pick them up and check them out. I don't know what I am looking at usually but I do enjoy thinking about the history of the item and what it would tell me if it could speak. I had a great friend who has passed now that I would always call and describe the ci items to him and he would tell me which ones to buy for him.
Anyway to my point, I recently purchased a pot that I want to cook soup outside in. (You all are helping me identify it in another thread) How can you tell if it was ever used for something like melting lead or the like. How can you make the pot safe to cook in again if it has ever been exposed to something like that. Thank you.

You can get lead testing kits at home improvement stores like Home Depot. They're in the paint section.

Steve,
The quickest way, as Eric pointed out, is to use a lead test kit from Home Depot. However, a slower test, but one that is more accurate (lead tests only test for lead, this method tests for any toxin), is the following three-step process.

1. Identify a neighbor are not particularly fond of.
2. Cook them a meal in the suspect cast iron.
3. Observe test subject closely for adverse effects.

Thanks Spurgeon! That's my laugh for the day--good medicine. I do hope no one takes you too seriously:chuckle:

Thanks for the replies. I'll give them a try.

I'm assuming your wanting to cook in the Sperry kettle in your other post. I highly doubt a kettle this large would have ever been used to melt lead so that wouldn't be much of a concern to me. If a piece of iron has been used to melt lead it is usually pretty apparent. If there are traces of lead those spots usually get shinier the more you scrub the piece.

From what I can see in your pictures the inside appears to be in pretty good condition. I would start by spraying with oven cleaner, give it a good scrubbing and see what it looks like after that. The best way to get it clean enough to use is with electrolysis. Just get the kettle setting level in the stand, fill it to the brim with a washing soda solution, suspend your anode inside and then hook up the battery charger. Once it is clean then comes the fun part of getting it seasoned.

Great information Jeff. Thank you.

I found a link in here that describes the electrolysis process and will give it a try.