Hey guys, first time posting. I've enjoyed the site for the wealth of information of the past couple years. Finally gathered some pics of my own.
I have a '76 Grandpa Bear that I "inherited" from a friends lake cabin when they took it down to build up a new dwelling.
Was originally located in Wolf Lake, NY (sullivan co). Now it's located in the western Fingerlakes between Honeoye Lake and Canadice Lake.
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It was in really good shape when I first picked it up. Originally it was going to be heat for my barn/shop. It sat out in the barn for several years as I pondered about spending the money on a chimney stack.... After finally being handed a condensing propane furnace and installing that in the barn, I realized how dumb I had been for all those years... my house had a block chimney from the basement and I had been heating with electric baseboard. <sighs>
So anyway, the stove needed a good wire-wheel and paint. These are a couple after pictures prior to my install.
This is the same as the others pictured with the half round channel in the doors and the 1/2" round stock as the door seal.
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At some point this stove was a rear outlet stove, and someone welded up the outlet and welded in a vertical flue flange.
This is my second year running the stove to heat my house ~1200sqft ranch from the basement.
I finished my install last year already into the heating season, so I pushed myself to start making heat instead of making a shelf baffle for it. (After learning about them here)
So this year i finally took some time and built a baffle. Unfortunately I neglected to take pictures as i built the baffle only of the installed unit.
2 pieces of .25" plate 26.5"x8". Overlapped them by about an inch and welded some angle to the one so i could slip fit them together once they were in the fire box. Final plate worked out to be around 26.5"x15". I installed a 2nd row of firebrick in the back of the box to act as a shelf as seen in some other people's setups. Then I took my diamond wheel and cut 2 more bricks on an angle to allow the baffle to prop up inside the box. This leaves the ~2" spacing for proper exhaust venting for the 8" flue.
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The baffle seems to work perfectly!
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It definitely keeps more heat in the box and less heat loss right up the flue.
So far so good.[/quot
