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I Forge Iron

how to make cooking utensils food safe


kyler

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1: make them from stainless steel---no finishes needed!

2: use pure paraffin wax---already used on a lot of foods and medicines, food safe!

3: "season" them with vegetable oil the way you season a cast iron skillet.

 

All but the first one will require the end user to take reasonable care and maintenance of them

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I don't think it's the steel that would affect anything, but its the rust that will develop if they're not taken care of.  Lots of food tools are made of steel / iron..  

 

Sadly today it seems that most people are not used to taking care of anything really so if you want to sell these, you should talk to your customers about seasoning/cleaning/caring for them and maybe type up a little handout to go with the tools.

 

~Steve

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If selling them for the historical re-enactment crowd---they should want it to be closer to the originals and even want real wrought iron. (Though few are willing to pay for it...)

 

If selling it to suburbanites then SS as in general they want to do no maintenance *ever*

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For what it's worth .....

 

Machined steel parts, intended for use in Food Service Equipment, ... or Medical Instruments, ... are routinely "Normalized".

 

Normalizing is a very basic heat treating process, that involves raising the temperature of the part above "critical" heat, and then allowing it to air cool.

 

It's basically the same process as "Anealing", ... and in the case of Food Service items, pretty much amounts to a through "sterilization" process.

 

 

A good source for small diameter, round, Stainless material, suitable for making Cooking Utensils, ... is old Oven Racks.

 

NOT Refrigerator Racks, ... which are often Carbon Steel, with a Chrome plating.

 

 

 

 

 

.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have some 5160 that came from drops at an auto spring fab. I want to make some hunting knives but I wondered if they are "safe" to use as, for example, a camp eating knife. Sounds like they are.

To sum up what I think I know as long as it is not something like easy machine able steel that has lead in it or it came from some other downright poisonous  type of manufacture it should be fine with the right care and seasoning. Is that about right?

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