So here is the pan I posted about a couple days ago. I put the pan in the oven and ran the self-cleaning cycle. When it came out I cleaned off the ash and I could actually tell that some of the texture around the edge was the metal and not food. The rest of the gunk was gone.
I put a very thin layer of canola oil on it and baked it at 450 for an hour. It looks beautiful now. I’m going to do a couple more seasoning cycles and then try to maintain it.
Thanks everyone for the advice!
Glad to see that you succeed in making it good again. Now it looks properly clean as i was writing about on your last post. All that black gunk is gone and it has a nice brown smooth surface.
Actually i found that cleaning it with water, a little soap and a soft brush in-between layers may help a bit in making sure that any seasoning that didn't adhere strongly gets washed off and making the surface ready for the next layer. But honestly the pan looks so good to me at this point so I'd probably just start using it like normal and as such it'll get cleaned with soap in-between the layers (if you choose to do that of course but I highly recommend) when you clean it after cooking.
My son saw the pan sitting in the kitchen and asked we had bought a new one. It does look very nice. Thanks for the advice.