Here you go...Fix yer sig...I'm just dyin' to know what that pic is...
Probably stupid questions,I don't think Matt's employer would appreciate his representation of their shop....
One wonders why people do stuff like that???
"iron mike's ironworks" as i have dubbed my little corner of the new ESW facility its not usually quite this clean but i abhor a dirty shop.
Very Nice Mike and really Huge! That has a high ceiling, is it hard to heat in the winter?
P.S. Did you get my Email and my msg from your Tech?
believe it or not its heated with the exhaust air from our compressor dryers. we use a crapload of air in what we do and the air has to be dry so we have these big dryer units which remove moisture from the air in our system (i dunno how it works) anyway the byproduct is a boatload of hot air, in the summer its ducted outside and in winter inside where it keeps the entire plant relatively comfortable in the winter. we have to run the dryers (especially with an air driven paint systems) so the heat we get from them is a relative "freebie" i mean its not 75 inside when its below freezing outside , but its usually at least 60 ish so a light jacket on the floor is quite comfy but not a necessity.
got your e mail dunno about my "tech" chris is the sales and service coordinator (my direct supervisor) he is a great guy BTW though i give him about 8 kinds of hell constantly he doesn't completely hate me
Just wondering how you clean up the fireboxes in your refurbishing process?
ohh, ok "by hand" lol. what i do to start with is empty the hopper, check it and fix anything i need to there including gasketry and such, check the auger blow out anything still in there i cant vacuum out. check the hopper lid fit and latches adjust as necessary. then get the stove up to chest level (my work table isn't in the photo above but i have a heavy steel table on wheels that i work off of) so, after se ash i can get with the shopvac clean out all the ash i can get with the shopvac, i have several "custom" (aka homemade) attachments to get into the wee places that a regular attachment cant reach. then, i attach a second shop vac to the exhaust blower and use diagnostic to turn the blower on (i highly recommend using drywall bags) as im doing this im putting 120PSI directed air through the exhaust pathway,(think leafblower on steroids) blowing out the unit completely,
after doing all this the fun part comes, i get out the "needle gun" a slag cleaner used by welders which has a bunch of 1/8 inch needles driven by an air hammer to loosen up anything which didn't just blow off, then wire wheel the living crap out of it a heavily abused stove can take me over an hour just to clean out the internals to my liking and if its looks like its gonna take longer or i don't think i can get it cleaned all the way out to my liking it hits the scrap metal dumpster. i have spent a couple hours on a stove then junked it before. while im doing this im checking for any damage to the firebox, popped welds warped firewall etc. fix if possible junk if not.
now , after the burning part of the stove is done i pull the moving parts and give them a going over, replace anything suspect (its nice having the parts supplier about 40 ft away ) after i reassemble the unit i dry fire it to check for noises squeaks etc (you know the drill).
then its off to the burn trailer where i get a squeaky clean stove dirty again , check the stove out put it through its paces. then shut it down , pull it back out and back to the workbench where i detail clean the unit again (or correct any issue i found in the burn test and burn it again) the clean it. after this is done the unit is prepped for paint (remove glass , trim circuit board is simply taped with painters tape. take it to the paint booth, shoot it inside and out yeah i paint the burn chamber , pot baffles and such, just looks better than the bare walls which no matter how much work you do will still look "used' (even though the buyer knows the product has been used before i still like it to look nice)
after paint i re-trim it reinstall the glass, fiberboard and such , crate it and stack it in the back to await sale.
in an average year i'll do a couple hundred units this way. on average a stove will take me about an hour(more or less depending on initial condition) not counting burn time. usually i will prep several at a time for burning then burn them all together. then maybe 30 minutes work additionally after burning per unit.
Wow, nice info. That is why your refurbished units look like new and work even better!
Here is my 3 hour work on a 25-pdvc that was about 6 years old an got some rusts! ! !
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...lief-and-smoothing-out-the-ruff-areas.110717/
Do you see much rust?
some, but mostly surface type i can get it off with a wire wheel or disassemble the stove clean it all the way out and run it through the shot blaster like we do a new unit (another handy perk) but im a bit picky as to what i refurb to start with and if its heavily rusted i generally will junk it as there are places in the stove i cant get to without cutting it open and im not going to do that, too much labor for a single stove. for the most part though most of my stoves that come back are either freight damaged new units or stoves which are bought taken home fired until they get plugged up from no cleaning and taken back to the store, along with the occasional bad motor or whatnot in which case the customer takes it to the store instead of calling us for a free part. once the store takes it we end up eating it
on occasion (though i like to think not a lot of times) we have a customer who works with us but still has multiple issues we cant seem to solve. on those rare instances we have replaced whole units. however any which come back to us in this manner NEVER are refurbed though i do perform "autopsies" on a lot of them to see if i can figure out what went wrong, would be dumb as hell for us not to do that, but every one of those gets scrapped.
Nice
I sure wish I could rummage through your junk pile, but I bet you get the scrap value for that anyway?
Looks like you could have a nice game of softball in that bldg....or "beerball" as the buddies an I call it.
beer pong at Mikey's place!
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