Reverse Warping

DerekQ

New member
I am fairly new to cast iron and have learned a lot over the past few weeks - what to look for, how to restore, season, etc.. Yesterday, I realized I made a critical mistake with my most prized skillet and I didn’t even know I did it. My girlfriend bought me an early Wager #7 skillet for Christmas, which is what has started my obsession. She paid a premium for it from a well known online dealer - which makes me feel horrible that I probably damaged it. Out of curiosity I tested my new skillet and it has decent wobble and is now a spinner. Maybe it was already warped, but considering how much she paid, I’m guessing I damaged it. After much research I’ve come to the conclusion there really isn’t much I can do to correct the problem. But I think I have a better idea now how it happened and how I can prevent it in the future. I have an electric coil stove unfortunately. I’ve never had the pan on high heat, at most a 4 out of 9 (high). But I have set it on the burner for several minutes to warm it up and waiting to time whatever it was I was cooking. I have also thought it helped to clean the skillet while it was warm, but I think I may have ran it under luke warm water when it was too warm. So I think it warped either because the electric stove got it hot too fast, sat too hot too long, or running water over it when it was too hot. Honestly I didn’t think I did anything so extreme to damage it - I had no idea how fragile these old cast iron pieces were.

Anyway, the main reason of this post is ask this community if anyone here has tried to “reverse warp” a spinner. My guess is the main culprit of my warp was running cold water in warm pan. So I was thinking of doing just the opposite and heat the pan up, and run water on the bottom side of the pan. The idea is to warp the pan in the other direction. Has anyone here experimented with this idea before? Have you had any success? At this point I’m willing to try anything besides hammering or sanding.
 
There's no reversing it, and it will break under impact before it bends. Besides warping, thermal shock can also cause a crack. Early thin-walled pans are the most susceptible, so extra care needs to be taken. My advice is to pre-heat empty pans in the oven, where the entire pan heats evenly.
 
There's no reversing it, and it will break under impact before it bends. Besides warping, thermal shock can also cause a crack. Early thin-walled pans are the most susceptible, so extra care needs to be taken. My advice is to pre-heat empty pans in the oven, where the entire pan heats evenly.

Thanks Doug. I didn’t realize that should do that. I guess I’ll just chalk it up to a rookie mistake and a hard lesson learned.
 
it's also possible that you didn't cause the warp.
did it sit perfectly flat before and now it doesn't?
some pans may sit flat until you heat them up and then develop a wobble or become a spinner no matter how carefully you heat them up... but will then return to relatively flat when it cools down.
 
it's also possible that you didn't cause the warp.
did it sit perfectly flat before and now it doesn't?
some pans may sit flat until you heat them up and then develop a wobble or become a spinner no matter how carefully you heat them up... but will then return to relatively flat when it cools down.

I honestly don’t know if it sat flat or not. My gf bought it for me for Christmas and we have been using it nearly everyday since. I just happen to notice it was a spinner a couple days ago. It may have been warped when she bought it, but she paid an arm and leg for it it from an reputable dealer, so I’m only assuming. I am still curious if it’s possible warp a pan but in the opposite direction. Like if pouring cold water into a hot pan warps a convex bow on the bottom, then wouldn’t pouring cold water on the bottom of a hot pan warp it in the opposite direction? I may just buy a cheap pan to see if I can repeat my processes to see where I screwed up (if I did) and test my reverse warping theory...
 
You'd be wasting your time and money. If it worked, we'd know about it by now, believe me.
 
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