In some recent warm weather, I took some time to overhaul the 22-inch I rescued last year. I found it abandoned among a yard full of junk when the neighbors were moving out. I don't know how long it had been sitting with the lid off, next to a soggy half-bag of charcoal, but there was a circle of dead grass under the lid. I gave the rack a quick cleaning and ran a fire to burn out any Evil Spirits, spiderwebs, bedbugs and Russian hackers. I cooked on it a few times and it was OK but still needing love.
I began with the wooden handles, which looked like they were part of an old barn. I took them off and sanded them with 60, 100, and 320-grit sandpaper. The outer gray layers of wood were crumbly but I was able to get down to solid wood. Then I rubbed them generously with "cutting board oil" so they have a nice luster again. The top handle still has a little bit of darkness on one end, and I'll just consider that to be Character.
I polished the lid with a cloth and Bar Keeper's Friend and rinsed it with water from the rain barrel (pure rain water, Mandrake). Based on a youtube video from a member of this board, I used a safety razor paint scraper to remove a lot of Unspecified Dark Material from the inside of the lid, since I didn't want it falling on my food. The vent was in good working order but it looked better after I scoured it.
The bottom vents were stuck partly open, and after a bit of trying them I found out they were STUCK with crust. At first I tried tapping on the tabs with a hammer but I quickly realized that was just bending the tabs. So I used locking pliers to hold the tabs, and tapped on the pliers. There was a lot of resistance, and i resorted to using spray grease to free them up so they could turn freely. Then I used engine starting spray to purge out the grease.
I pulled out the legs and used a stainless steel scouring pad to polish them and the shelf. The shelf hook had come out of the front leg, but with some bending and persuasion I got it to stay in snugly, but I could still pop it out if I wanted - I want to be able to take the legs off to transport the kettle. I scraped out the inside of the bottom, as I had with the lid.
The charcoal grate's wires were spaced wide enough apart to let briquettes fall through. I tried to replace it with another round grate I had on hand, but it was just barely too small to rest on the tabs. So I simply laid it over the original, at a right angle, problem solved.
Then I used the steel pad to scour the cooking grate. I didn't bother to take it all the way down to the chrome finish; I just made it smooth to the touch. There was no rust.
And that was it. Later I made a small fire of scrap wood in it, just to cook out any of the grease in the bottom vents. Now it's looking new and pretty and good to go.
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Topic: DaWeber code M gets a rehab (Read 3022 times)
