Seasoning my black iron pan

Just bought a black iron pan for $40+ from Pantry Magic in Holland V about 2 weeks ago.

Been eyeing it a long time because it is fully metal -> can transfer to oven from stove.

Just like a wok, a black iron pan needs to be seasoned before use. Pantry Magic will give out a sheet of instructions on how to season the pan if you need one.

1. Remove any stickers and scrub the pan with a steel wool to remove any leftover stickers.
2. Fill the pan with water and bring the water to a boil on high heat for 10 min. Pour away all the water and wipe dry and let it steam-dry for a few minutes.

3. Coat the pan with a layer of oil. I used a piece of pork lard for this as I don't want to waste any vegetable oil and besides, you can get a piece of pork lard for free from your local butcher! When you are buying some meat from the butcher, just tell him/her that you need a piece to season your wok when you buy some meat and you'll get it for free. And lard is actually more flavorful than vegetable oil~~ =P

The piece of lard:

Fry the piece of lard in the pan and the oil will gradually come out.

Coat the pan all over (interior and exterior) with the oil using a piece of kitchen towel.

4. Place the oil-coated pan on a 180°C pre-heated oven for one hour and leave it to cool in the oven for another hour.

5. Wipe off all the oil and lightly coat the pan with a layer of oil for storage. It is recommended to leave the pan overnight with the layer of oil before using.

See how shiny the surface is!

The instructions also recommend that the pan use only warm water to scrub clean from now onwards. Using detergent will remove the oil layer. In case the pan gets rusty, scrub off all the rust and re-season the pan again, steps 1-5.

And you're set! The pan is seasoned and ready to be used to cook your yummy dishes!

xbox360 SF4 joystick modification!

Last Saturday, my friend requested me to help him modify his xbox360 SF4 joystick as 1 of the buttons became unresponsive after 2 weeks.

How the original joystick looks like:
My job: To help him change out the 6 buttons to SANWA buttons.

Started to disassemble the joystick. This is how the interior looks like.

Notice that the buttons are soldered to the PCB. Time to do some de-soldering. This took me quite some time to complete as I took too long to realise that the solder sucker was clogged. -_-''

After removing the buttons, it's time to remove the metal plate on the top of the joystick. Removing the plate means that the decal on it will get slightly creased as there are 5 or 6 screws securing the plate to the joystick. Here's me trying to remove the plate with as little damage to the decal as possible.

The metal plate.

There are 2 small tabs on each of the holes, which need to be grinded down in order for the SANWA buttons to be able to fit in. Used a dremel tool I borrowed from my best pal for this job.

After grinding:


Soldered wires to the connections where the buttons were once soldered on.


Connectors were attached to the end of the wires, which will be connected to the SANWA buttons microswitch connectors.


Put in the SANWA buttons. There are 4 tabs on each button that need to be shaved so that the buttons can fit in easier to the metal plate holes.

Connect the wires to the microswitches. The microswitch connectors need to be bent 90° as the joystick do not have enough space.

Cover up the joystick base and VIOLA! Job completed!


Took me 3 hours to finish this job (within target). Later my friend called me and said that the joystick is working perfectly! Success!!