Skillet & Stove

FINEX Cast Iron Review: The 12-Inch Octagonal Skillet

An eight-sided pan with a coiled stainless handle and a stone-polished cooking face. Two of those three features earn their money. Here is what FINEX publishes, what it doesn't, and who this pan is really for.

By Stephen V.Last updated How we pick

How this is funded: we earn a commission if you buy through our links, at no extra cost to you. It never changes which pan we recommend, and we’ll happily tell you to keep the skillet you already own. Full disclosure.

#1Our take

FINEX 12-inch Cast Iron Skillet

The most designed object in cast iron: an octagonal pan with a coiled stainless handle, a machined cooking surface and a flaxseed-oil pre-season. The eight pour points and the spring handle are real, usable ideas rather than styling. At its price it is competing with Smithey and Stargazer, not with Lodge, and it is the only one of the three whose published weight we could not pin down.

Strengths

  • Octagonal rim means eight pour points instead of two
  • Coiled 300-series stainless handle sheds heat faster than solid iron
  • Machined, polished cooking surface, pre-seasoned with organic flaxseed oil

Trade-offs

  • Two published weights exist for this pan and they disagree by nearly double
  • Costs roughly nine times a classic Lodge 12-inch
  • The coiled handle is a genuine nuisance to clean around
MaterialBare cast iron
Diameter12 in
WeightNot published
Oven-safe toAny oven temp
Induction-readyYes
Made inUSA
WarrantyNot published

Spec note. FINEX's own site publishes the octagonal shape, the machined and polished easy-release surface, a handle wound from 300-series stainless rod with a brass-toned end cap and a helper tab, an organic flaxseed-oil pre-season and 100% US manufacture. Weight is the problem: the Amazon listing states 6.68 lb while FINEX's own site describes this pan as about 13 lb. Those cannot both be right, so we publish neither and the weight row reads 'Not published.' No formal warranty term is stated beyond the maker's 'Guaranteed Good Forever' phrasing.

Specs read from the manufacturer and product listing, on August 18, 2026. “Not published” means the maker doesn’t state that figure.

The pan that started on Kickstarter

FINEX tells its own origin plainly: the company began with a search for cookware it wanted to use, and the 12-inch skillet was funded on Kickstarter before it was a product line. That matters, because it explains the pan. This is not a foundry adding a premium tier to a catalog — it is a design object that had to justify itself to people paying up front, and it shows in how many decisions are visible from across a kitchen.

Three of those decisions are worth taking seriously: the shape, the handle and the surface.

The octagon is a real feature

A round skillet has two pour points if you are lucky, and they are wherever the maker put the spouts. FINEX’s patented eight-sided rim gives you a corner every 45 degrees, so the pan pours from wherever your wrist happens to be. If you have ever tried to tip bacon fat out of a heavy round pan with one hand while holding a jar with the other, you already understand the appeal.

FINEX also claims the flatter sides make things like cornbread easier to release, which is the sort of claim that sounds like marketing and is actually geometry: a straight wall is easier to run a spatula down than a curve. What the shape costs you is a small amount of flat cooking area versus a circle of the same width, and the fact that a round lid will never quite fit it.

The handle: genuinely different, genuinely fiddly

The coiled stainless handle is the pan’s signature. FINEX says it is wound from 300-series stainless rod, hand-polished, finished with a brass-toned end cap, with a helper tab at the pan end for two-handed lifting, and that the design is borrowed from antique wood stoves. The physics is sound: a coil has far more surface area than a solid bar of the same mass, so it sheds heat to the air much faster than cast iron does. On the hob, that is the difference between grabbing the pan and reaching for a cloth.

Two honest caveats. First, an oven does not care about surface area — anything that has been at 400°F for half an hour comes out hot, coil or no coil. Second, coils collect grease. Cleaning between the windings takes a brush and a minute, and a stainless handle is the one part of this pan that cannot simply be re-seasoned back to health.

The surface, and what polishing is worth

FINEX machine-smooths and then stone-tumble polishes its cooking surfaces, and pre-seasons with organic flaxseed oil. From new, that surface releases food more readily than a sand-cast pan and wipes out with less effort. It is the same advantage Smithey, Field, Stargazer and Lancaster sell, and it is real.

What it is not is permanent superiority. Seasoning is oil polymerized into a hard layer bonded to the iron, and it builds into the texture of a sand-cast pan over months and years — which is precisely why hundred-year-old Griswolds feel like glass. A polished pan hands you that head start on day one instead of after a year of cooking. If that is what you want, it is worth paying for; it is just worth knowing what you bought. We work through the whole question in pre-seasoned vs bare cast iron.

The number nobody will confirm

Here is the spec-sheet problem. The Amazon listing for the 12-inch FINEX publishes an item weight of 6.68 lb. FINEX’s own site describes the pan as about 13 lb. Both cannot be true, and the gap is not a rounding error — it is the difference between the lightest 12-inch pan we cover and by far the heaviest.

We publish neither. The weight row on the card above reads “Not published,” which is what an unresolvable conflict looks like when you refuse to guess. If weight is the deciding factor for you, buy a pan whose maker states it cleanly: Lodge publishes 7.89 lb for the classic 12-inch, Stargazer 6.5 lb for its 12-inch, and Smithey about 8.7 lb for the No. 12.

Who should buy it

Buy a FINEX if you have used cast iron long enough to know you like it, you want a polished surface without waiting years for it, and you will get pleasure out of the object itself — which is a legitimate reason to buy a pan you will own for the rest of your life. The octagon and the handle are not gimmicks; they change how the pan is used every day.

Buy something else if this is your first cast iron pan, or if you are equipping a kitchen rather than furnishing one. A classic 12-inch Lodge sears identically for a fraction of the price and is a better pan to make your mistakes on. And if it is specifically the smooth surface you want at a sane price, a machined 12-inch at about 5 lb does that job — the rest of the middle tier is in best smooth cast iron skillets.

Frequently asked questions

Why is the FINEX skillet octagonal?

FINEX says the patented eight-sided shape is not just styling: the flatter sides make it easier to release something like cornbread, and every corner is another pour point, so you can tip soup or fat out of the pan from wherever you happen to be holding it. In practice that is the feature people notice first and keep noticing.

Does the FINEX spring handle actually stay cool?

Cooler, and for longer, than solid iron — that is what a coil does, because it presents far more surface area to the air than a bar of the same mass. FINEX describes it as inspired by antique wood stoves and says you can fry an egg without mitts. Treat that as a stovetop claim only: any handle coming out of a 400°F oven needs a cloth.

How much does a FINEX 12-inch skillet weigh?

We can't tell you honestly, and that is a finding rather than a gap. The Amazon listing publishes 6.68 lb; FINEX's own site describes this pan as about 13 lb. Those figures disagree by nearly double, so our spec table reads 'Not published' rather than repeating either one. For scale, a classic Lodge 12-inch is 7.89 lb and a Smithey No. 12 is about 8.7 lb.

Is FINEX worth the price?

It is worth it if you want a designed object that also cooks — a polished surface from new, eight pour points, and a handle that behaves differently from every other pan you own. It is not worth it if you are buying performance per dollar: it costs many times a Lodge that sears identically, and the polished finish is a head start rather than a permanent advantage.

Does the coiled handle make the pan hard to clean?

Yes, mildly, and nobody says this in the marketing. Fat and dust collect between the coils and it takes a brush rather than a wipe. It is a two-minute annoyance, not a reason to avoid the pan, but it is real — as is the fact that a stainless coil will not take the oven-and-oil re-seasoning routine the iron happily does.

Sources

  • FINEX Cast Iron Cookware Co. — Cast Iron Skillet — FINEX's own skillet page: the octagonal pan shape, a machined and polished easy-release cooking surface, handles wound from 300-series stainless rod with a hand-polished brass-toned end cap and a helper tab, pre-seasoned with organic flaxseed oil, 100% made in America, sold in 8, 10, 12 and 14-inch sizes with the 8-inch listed at $150 (accessed August 18, 2026)
  • FINEX Cast Iron Cookware Co. — About Us — FINEX's own account of its design decisions: the company started on Kickstarter with the 12-inch skillet; the patented octagonal shape is not just for looks, the sides make cornbread easier to release and each spout is another place to pour from without dripping; the stainless spring handle is inspired by antique wood stoves and stays cool longer; the cooking surfaces are machine-smoothed and stone-tumble polished, with a flaxseed-oil pre-season (accessed August 18, 2026)
  • C&EN (American Chemical Society) — The chemistry of cast-iron cookware — ACS explainer on seasoning as polymerized oil bonded to the iron surface (accessed July 20, 2026)
  • America's Test Kitchen — The Science of Seasoning — How seasoning forms — oil polymerizing into a hard, plastic-like layer — and how too much heat depolymerizes it (accessed July 20, 2026)
  • Lodge Cast Iron — How to Use Cast Iron Over Any Heat Source — Lodge's own heat-source guidance: preheat for 3-5 minutes on medium-low and cook most things at medium-high; iron is ferrous, so cast iron suits induction but wants lower settings than other cooktops; on glass, lift the pan rather than sliding it; on a gas grill preheat 5-10 minutes at medium-high, then turn the heat down because the iron holds it (accessed August 18, 2026)

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