The Clarks Ace Hardware Warehouse/Time Capsule Thread

southbalto said:

Lolz, all the MD folks are coming out of the woodwork....

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Out of the woodwork indeed. I've been to most of the other local Ace Hardware's...now I have another stop to make!

I had a feeling there was a lot of old junk back there. Every time I peer beyond the stove parts shelves I see this ...... abyss of a warehouse, and promptly turn the other way

99 lbs would kill for the green vc madison........

Might be a silly question but do you have any old inserts in the mix?

While I live a long way away from your location I have a couple of friends in the area who travel back to summer near us ever year. Both of them have trucks

We are interested in finding out about any old stock inserts you might have. I am not fussy about EPA or Non EPA or whether it is epa 1 or 2.

Wow Ellicott City! My Mom& Pops were married there in Jan '68 one month before his second tour to Vietnam . Maybe Mimi and I will have to take a day trip and visit your storeroom....er I mean visit you Jay ;-P
As a matter of fact Mimi ( my lovely bride) open the Michaels Arts & Crafts Store there. Road trip............

Hey I think it's kinda like Pickers is always fun to see whats hiding inthe corners , you never know what great treasure might be hiding. Keep us posted.

I had a Grizzly insert - the big one - still sitting up on the shelf when I sold Stoveworks.
I would not be surprised if it was still there! It was one of those deals where someone gave me $300 down on it and said they would pick it up within 6 months, then one year, then two years, then longer...then never......

Having been in business since 1979, we had really old stuff - a lot of VC heat shields, single pieces of enamel pipe, parts/parts/parts.......every once in a while we'd sell one or two, and I never liked to throw away anything since I had plenty of room.

I REALLY like the Stanley Waterford! So wish I could have that in my kitchen! since my home is smaller, I need a smaller stove!

How do you make a spring early summer rush happen? Show another fellow Marylander some love lol

Are you sure that stove isn't made by this fine German manufacturer? At least that's what the markings seem to indicate on the door below the glass.

Anything new? Was hoping for a glimmer of hope during these summer doldrums...

thankx 4 sharing, i enjoyed the pics

There is the Leprauchaun - thats my all time best wood stove ever!! Never ever should have sold it with the camp!

I finally did the log in thing for this site which has been useful for years - couldn't resist creating an account after seeing a photo of a brand new still-in- box stove that we put in a remote cabin 20 years and which worked miracles.

Here is where we put the stove:

(1) Old - very old - 900 sq ft single story cabin

(2) Cabin originally built of rough cut lumber - not a piece of insulation anywhere except someone had put vinyl siding over the wood. Only “insulation†was some gypsum wallboard, rough boards making up the walls and vinyl siding.

(3) Single pane windows - we did slap up some cheap storms on it.

(4) No foundation, no crawlspace, no basement - just sitting there on rock piers with the one side of the house 2 1/2 feet off the ground because the ground dropped away.

The bloody place gave new meaning to drafty - I have had 3 -season back packing tents that had fewer drafts and better insulation.

In order to be able to use it during the cooler months, we put in a little cast iron wood stove (early EPA) which was rated for 800 sq ft. at 33,000 BTU (but the stoves by that company were probably way way under-rated on power.)

It worked. No pipes froze. It burned small stuff (so the wood supplier gave us great prices because no one else wanted the little wood.) Stuff it up over a nice bed of coals, down the damper and it held a low burn, heat and coals all night so all you had to do was toss in some small tinder and up it came in the AM and was blasting heat within 15 minutes.


And it passed the ultimate test of extreme conditions. We had gone up to check the cabin in the winter and a record snow/ice storm hit. Normal winter temperature stayed above 0 - it hit MINUS 31 degrees. We were stuck at the cabin as our 1/2 mile driveway was blocked by a 3’ diameter oak that came down. Electric was out - ended up being out for a week. So no range to cook (electric), no refrigerator (at least that could go outside), no well pump (but we had a creek next to the cabin)—- and the only heat was this little stove.

So I cooked on top of the wood stove - even baked a cake on top. We had coffee and hot meals. We had hot water - I stuck a 20 qt pan on the wood stove and it heated it. And we had showers because I pulled the solar shower out of the pack backing equipment and hung it on a nail in the bath after filling it with hot water heated on the little wood stove.

And we were WARM - warm enough that we could wear cotton sweaters inside as if at home with central heating. That little stove kicked way beyond its rating - would run wide open with no problems and would held heat over night. (Although at minus 31 we did have to refill it around 3 or 4 AM where normally there were still hot coals in the AM)

Nothing fancy but it was the first company to use secondary burning. Simple damper system controlled it beautifully. Burned anything I put in it without fussing about whether the wood was 6 months old or 6 years old. Never had a fit or a snit and you couldn’t kill it unless you blew it up with dynamite.

We sold the camp several years back. Buyer didn’t want the stove (building new cabin) so we sold it. Last time I heard from the person who bought the stove, it was still going strong - no breakdowns, no repairs, no parts needing replaced - as of 3 years ago and the stove was pushing 20 years old.

It was a Waterford Leprechaun. Picked it beacause it outperformed a Morso (closest competito) both in performance and in $$$ of cost per btus.


I called Jay who started the thread to see what other Waterfords he has NIB. He still has the Leprechaun. Now it is too small for our set up or I would buy it in a heartbeat. Maybe I still will if he can rattle up another bit larger Waterford so we will end up running 2 (closing on new house. this month and it needs a wood stove…)


Solid, near-indestructible, cast iron, idiot-proof small stoves that do more than they should are hard to come by.

I should have kept that stove….....sigh….........


BTW< yeah, I know only warranty status is questionble since Waterford pullled out of the US and the only parts source for Waterford is Lehmans Hardware but since they don’t break down - or do so very very rarely - so what? We ran that thing hard - really hard and often wide open whenever we were at the camp and it ran pretty much the equivalent of 1/2 a heating season for nearly 10 years before we sold the place. Only thing it ever needed was a new door gasket available at any hardware store.

Jay I can totally tell you've been hanging out at Hearth.com, I stopped in there last night and found an Ash rake (first time seeing one of those in a hearth shop!!) and a bunch of Supercedars on the shelf :D

Bought the ash rake and a 7" pipe damper to try in my old Jotul downstairs... also like that you do carry some 7" parts!

That tall Morso is one beautiful specimen of a stove too.

Clarks ACE Hardware said:

Thanks Eric,

We actually had those ash rakes custom made for us. Every other ash rake on the market is less than 20".

The Super Cedars were a direct result of spending too much on here

....really it's becuase Stump_Branch suggested we stock them.

Glad you were able to make it this far east! Hopefully, I'll be in next time.

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Annnnnd ill be back in, in a few weeks to buy more...wife may like 'em more than me..

I took advantage of some of those 10% sales from the mfr and ended up buying two 100pk boxes of those SuperCedars... Finally used up enough over the past 2 years that I can (barely) stuff them all in 1 box, lol I'm pretty sure that qualifies this woodburning stuff as a hobby :D