Whitfield upgraded burn grate

Hello, in my first season with the Quest Plus it was difficult for the stove to stay lit on the lowest setting. My stove is only heating a rather small appartment, so I rarely use the higher settings. My first consideration was to make the burn pot more narrow in order to "focus" the fire in center of the grate. I even made a thread about, and from the answers to this, it turns out that forum member Snowy Rivers has made some mods to the burn pot in her Whitfield Advantage II to enable it to burn nut shells. A very unusual type of fuel, but according to Snowy, it works perfectly and the nut shells contain a lot of heat!
The thread can be read here: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...at-lowest-setting-whitfield-quest-plus.48700/

In the mean time I have learnt a lot more about my stove and how to make it run stable on the lowest setting. The short version: Even a small amount of fines ( sawdust ) is enough to reduce the feed rate remarkably. And especially on the lowest setting, the fines will quickly block the pellet feed and eventually make the stove shut down. The fines have a tendency to accumulate, since they are stuck down there in an infinite loop.
Note: The rotation of the auger is by no means blocked by the accumulated sawdust ( that would be a disaster ), but still it's very annoying to come home to a cold house.
The remedy was simple: I bought a small handheld accu-vac that I keep close to stove. Whenever the hopper is getting near the empty state, I simply vacuum out the fines. This operation takes about a minute or so, and now I'm so happy to have a perfectly running pellet stove

This way, I avoided the need of making any mods of the burn pot.

Wow, you have one of the early Advantage stoves made from 1985-89. This is vintage stuff. Take care of her, and she won't let you down for many years to come. All parts should still be available.
You can, however, save a lot of money by making motor gaskets yourself. Don2222 made a very useful thread on how to do this using Lytherm sheets. His thread can be found here: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...ower-hi-temp-lytherm-gasket-from-sheet.86680/

I can understand from your posts that you like tinkering/modding your stove, so if you need inspiration, I would like to share a modification/improvement of the stove that has been puzzling in my mind for some time: An ash wiper to keep the window clean!

Several singlearm handoperated wipers are available on the market. In marine stores they have the Sea Dog Manual Windshield Wiper:
http://www.sea-dog.com/groups/1887-manual-windshield-wiper


And in a store for vintage autoparts they have this handoperated wiper assembly used in Ford cars from 1928-31:
http://lbcunited.com/earlyford2/pro.../3345?osCsid=af964f0283c5d308faef78073a913f0e



The rubber parts must be replaced with a heatresistant material. The Lytherm gasket sheets should be perfect for this if it is cut in the right sizes. The two rubber washers/gaskets sealing the wiper hub could also be replaced with some of similar size made of Lytherm. Thermo-silicone will be a perfect way to fix the Lytherm wiper-strip in the metal rail.

Imagine how wonderful it would be to have a perfectly transparent window just by operating the wiper now and then? And another benefit: The air wash slots could be blocked permanently, because they won't be needed anymore. This will also improve the draft.
Only thing is, the see-thru area will come to look like this. Is this wiper pattern bad? Not to me, it looks like a smiley