Blaze King Princess - Weird burn?

[bobdog2o02]

So i noticed something really strange tonight that I haven't seen before, this is the sequence of events.

I had been burning down a heavy load of coals for about 2 hrs, all raked to the front with the bypass closed and stat wide open. The coals were throwing enough heat to keep the cat healthily in the active area, and the stove top was running about 350.

Once the coals were burned down ( stove top was 250ish) enough to get a decent load in i raked them around the floor of the stove and managed a full load of mostly medium splits but there were a good amount of smalls, it was the last batch of a 1/4 cord before moving more wood into the house tomorrow. This load was N/S with a random mix of white oak, maple, bradford pear, cherry, and english walnut(it was diseased and the wood was worthless for furniture).

Closed the door and waited for good flames then closed the bypass, had almost instant light off. I then set the stat to 3 and waited about 3-5 minutes then dialed it back to the "N", lowest silver area of normal which is my normal cruising spot. This is my normal experience with my stove and schedule. I usually see the stove top temp rise slowly with good active cat until 400, then the flames die down and the cat glows and the stat does its thing........

What i experienced tonight was trippy. There were lazyish blue/red flames dancing around the box, then the flames would go out...... No biggie I thought, the cat is doing its thing. Well i look up to see the cat and.... on just the right 3rd THERE WERE FLAMES COMING FROM BETWEEN THE FLAME SHIELD AND THE CAT WTF. Yup all the smoke was hitting the hot surface of the cat and igniting in a ball of flame before going through it.

I opened the bypass and shifted the load with a poked and set everything back in, seemed to have stopped the issue but man, should i be worried about flame impingement with that kind of thing happening.

 

[rdust]

Hot cat lighting up the smoke and creating a fire show, I don't think you had anything to worry about. The cat is designed to be in a wood stove, it can handle it.

 

[bobdog2o02]

I'm used to seeing that in FRONT of the flame shield, not behind the shield right at the cat. Ive never seen the cat SOOOO bright red.

 

[NinjaTech]

I have seen that before with mine too actually. I had worried about it also, but it's pretty rare and I doubt that small amount of time that is happening will hurt the cat. I know on initial run up on a new load flames make it past the shield. The cat isn't going to fall apart if flames touch it once in a while, just as long as it's not a constant thing. That's what the flame shield does, helps prevent that but doesn't always completely eliminate it. I think under the right circumstances the flame shield can act like the flame holder in a jet engine. It will create a protected area for a flame to maintain itself.

 

[Krogoski]

Our Ashford does the same thing if I reload hot. Last nights reload was a hot one and I got the same phenomenon. The length of time it stays in that area depends on stat setting. If I bump it up, the flame will migrate out of the "Flame Holder" and down to the load. If I bump it down, it'll snuff itself out after a half hour or so. If left alone, it will sit there and create a trippy light show for an hour or two, the flame will migrate out and down the drift back up over and over. I've not worried, I'm sure it's behavior that has been witnessed by BlazeKing.

I worked in the Diesel Catalyst market for 6 years including 2005 and the Great 2008 EPA struggle. Diesel Oxidation Catalysts (DOC, the closest relative to what we have) aren't as fragile as you imagine.