Yikes... 1035F on outside of stove!

[Ashful]

Stove is back together, and had small break-in fire tonight. I have to admit, having had it apart and back together again, I am always super-impressed by the quality of these stoves. Very heavy castings, that fit together as if they were machined, not just cast. Very impressive quality and workmanship.



Let me know if you want to see photos of the innards.

 

[aansorge]

... or two.

I started a companion thread to this, about how to cut down 20 cords of 20" length splits. The Ashford spec's 16" preferred, 18" maximum. Opinions vary on how I could handle this transition. My Jotuls take up to 22" splits, so I've been cutting mostly 20 - 21 inch lengths.

Blaze King lists the internal dimensions as 20 wide brick to brick and 20.5 inches north south brick to glass.

 

[Woody Stover]

Let me know if you want to see photos of the innards.

Of course we want more innard pics...

 

[Ashful]

Inside of firebox, showing damaged catalytic chamber, with andirons, rear burn plate, cat chamber cover, and cat all removed:



Two bolts to lift off entire top of stove (gasketed):



Inner burn plates removed to expose catalyst housing:



Cat housing removed:



Back of cat housing:



More later...

 

[mellow]

Good lord that looks complicated. I will stick with my steel stoves

 

[Ashful]

So, she's back up and running several days with the Jotul OEM cat, which happens to be a vintage Corning Long-Life. Hit 1812F last night, and opened the stove up today to check, and the cat is fine. No gasket expansion, no curling of the metal can, which definitely happened to the Condar and Applied Ceramics (respectively) at the that temperature.

Trouble is... Corning doesn't make cat's anymore. It seems Prototec has taken over their OEM business, and Condar (who canned a lot of Corning's combusters back in the day) has taken over the after-market.

I think my next step is to get on the phone with the folks at Condar. Their can and ceramic held up great, but their damn expanding gasket broke my refractory. My pre-purchase call to their tech guys generated a response that this cat does NOT use the expanding gasket they advertise, but I seem to have proven otherwise.

 

[jharkin]

Joful

Im away a while and I miss all the fun... err terror. Sorry to hear about your woes.. Glad to hear you figured it out.

I would never have thought you would give up on the F12s before I gave up on my Encore... Amazingly I only had one scare with it this year, again due to debris from the rebuild jamming the primary open. Now I think I finally got it cleaned out for good.

Anyway, just thinking that if I can get a VC under control I'm sure you can get those fine old Jotul's to play nice. Ill be watching the updates.

 

[Ohlson35]

Inside of firebox, showing damaged catalytic chamber, with andirons, rear burn plate, cat chamber cover, and cat all removed:

View attachment 153297

Two bolts to lift off entire top of stove (gasketed):

View attachment 153301

Inner burn plates removed to expose catalyst housing:

View attachment 153298

Cat housing removed:

View attachment 153299

Back of cat housing:

View attachment 153300

More later...

Thanks top is off and the rear plate is wedged in ,as if stove is off center

 

[Ashful]

Very weird. You did take out inner side plates? They both just lift out, no bolts.


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[Ohlson35]

Very weird. You did take out inner side plates? They both just lift out, no bolts.


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Yes something is up,I've wrestled withe ithe and my wife said and said just remove that thing..looks like it will work,in the am, thank you for your fotos and advise.