Quick Fix: How To Straighten A Warped Pan

"Bonk is a scientific term" Nothing but the most rigorous of standards in the video. 10/10

I owe you a pan. Thank you. I am looking into a new pan and came across your video. You saved me $100 bucks.

I just tried this on my favorite, vintage 3 quart aluminum pot/saucepan. I borrowed my brother-in-law's nylon-tipped hammer and metal ruler. Got the bottom of my pot/saucepan nice & flat. Sits sturdy on the counter and electric burner too! THANK YOU for sharing this video! 👍🏻 😃 😊

Here are the reason why your pan warped so you can prevent it in the future There was too big temperature changes in a short amount of time. So either you heated it up too quickly (this has become more relevant with the super fast and efficient induction stoves, gas can also be fast enough, but if you have burners having the pan be slightly warped isn’t as big of a problem as on a flat stove) Or the pan was cooled down from hot, to a lot cooler way too quickly. Here is what you can do in the future If you are using a induction or gas stove, get in the habit of when you put the pan in. Give your pan just a minute or two on a medium low heat, and give it one more step before goin to a high heat. Save the super quick power boost options for boiling water in a thick saucepan. Not your frying pan. If you tend to take your hot pan and immediately put it in the sink and wash it of with hot water, don’t. If you want easier washing up, instead use your kettle or something else and get some boiling water ready. And pour that over your pan in the sink. It will get most if not all of the stuff up. Do the last minor washing up a few minutes later (or after you finished eating) when the pan is cool enough to handle. So why does it warp in the first place? Most pans (except cast iron) are made by a flat sheet metal (it can be a sheet made of layers of different metals). That is cut and then bent into shape. So pans can relatively easy lose that shape they bent in. Because they weren’t cast or forged into that shape. And are often relatively thin (compared to say cats iron), because they need to be able to bend the metal into shape. When metal gets hot it expands, and when it cools down in contracts (not so much that we notice it by looking at it, but it will create tension in the metal of your pan), so big differences in temperature of the metal in how much it expands or shrinks creates tension in your pan, and that pressure/tension is what tends to causes a pan to bend. So uneven shrinkage and expansion of the metals in your pan is the problem. And for it to be even it has to happen sort of slow. The thickness of the pan, how and what shape the pan was bent into and what material its made of will determine how easily the pan will warp or not. Something to keep in mind with this fix of bumping in the warped bottom flat, is that when it gets warm the pan will expand and the bump will become more prominent. So even though you made it flat again in room temperature, it might seem to be warped again when it’s warm, to then become flat again when it has cooled down. Especially if it’s a thin pan. In that case it can help to put the pan in the oven at a medium heat (maybe around 120 Celsius). And then very carefully bump it flat while it’s hot. (Be careful with the rubber it might not be heat resistant, use a protective layer of something in between). I’ve fixed quite a few pans second hand, friends and families pans, but I’ve used a hammer with a plastic cutting board in between. Using a rubber mallet seems way better. And smart to use a ruler.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I just tried this right now. Took like 4 incredibly mild hits to fix a pot. There's all these other instructions out there that are way more complicated and dangerous. This was so easy.

I never would have thought this possible. I have an All Clad NS1 Nonstick double burner griddle that had warped and twisted so I tried bonking the opposing corners but no good. So I put a wooden stick underneath diagonally from corner to corner and stood on the corners that were too high. That worked too well so I had to reposition the stick and this time just pressed with my hands and voila, flat as could be. I was contemplating throwing out this $100 pan and yet I was able to fix it in just a few minutes. Thank you! Side note: I go to brag to my wife that I fixed the griddle and she says "It was warped?"

Thank you, John, for this simple video without so much talking. Nice editing 👍

So easy! This took about 5 bonks in 11 seconds. I'm not sure I believe it, and I did it. THANK YOU!

Oh my goodness, thank you! I HATE wobbly pans but I just lived with them. No more!

I just tried this on a warped 14" double handled Calphalon pan that I love. It helped it so much! Thank you! It sits well enough, now. It took a firmer hand than yours did because it's so thick.

I had a set of warped pots and pans at a house I rent a room in that had been bothering me for months. I folded a hand towel a few times and tied it to the end of a 16oz hammer I had lying around and was able to fix them in like 30 seconds. Surprised they're as malleable as they are. Thank you sir for giving me the courage to wack my pans with a hammer, you've cut my cooking time in HALF since the full bottom surface of my pots now makes contact with my electric cooktop.

Sir you are a pan saver, thank you for teaching me how to fix my wobbly cookwares.

Genius!!! I have been wondering for so long what I was going to do with this pan. I kept trying to prop it up on one side which works sometimes but it was very annoying. Thanks big-time!

It worked!!!!! Warmed up skillet gave 6 whacks with rubber mallet....DONE.Thanks.

Excellent video and thank you for publishing it. Searched this topic, your video came up first, my 12” fry pan “was” bowed or crowned, used your method... now water in the pan doesn’t run to the edge. Very jazzed! Thanks again.

I don't know why this never occurred to me but thanks for sharing, John!!

Very helpful; it worked for me. Thanks.

Of course! So easy, but I would have never thought of it. Instead I just use the darn wobbly things. I'm gonna go bonk some pans!

This, dear Epbot, is life-changing! What could be better than a STR8 PAN? So, I recently bought two pans to replace all the warped junk-ware I'd inherited. How can a brand new pan be heretofore warped right out of the factory, I pondered. It is henceforth fixed - thank YOU, Epbot. I'm thrilled, not so much for myself, but for all the fine folks I'll cook for to follow - and this will encourage me to cook for larger numbers! I bought two packages of 50 tiny clothes pins (good joke gift) to post the 50 most urgent things I need to do (to reduce the number from one million,) this was #28 on the list of things that I never knew were needlessly bugging me TO NO END! And it's not to say that the alternating heating elements on the stove are level with each other, because they're not, and can we fix that with a 'tap tap' of the mallet? Sure hope so, since a gas fire is not an option yet. So, you'd learned this from a metallurgic relative or buddy-o-pal? Very handy! YouTube is my daddy because of 'cool tricks' videos like this and thank you so much for posting it! Everything was repaired in less than two minute - AMEN. So, let all them nasty pans just try to warp! We're READY FOR THE WARPS and if it does happen, we'll all go BONKERS at WARP SPEED! : =]\..

I didn't want to believe it, but it worked!! Saved me from throwing away a 12" non-stick "Food Network" skillet.