I’m back again, this time with a friend’s pan that he inherited from his grandmother. He entrusted this to me to remove the decades of use, to put it back into service after sitting on a shelf for years. This took four rounds of Easy Off in a plastic bag to remove the gunk, and then three rounds of seasoning with canola oil.
The before pics:
In addition to what the others have said. For stripping a really bad pan you can leave it in the oven during the oven’s self-cleaning cycle.