Woody ran a 91 and loved it.
Yer durned tootin', sure as shootin', I had a real fondness for that tank of a stove.
I still haven't given up the dream of getting it back into my sphere of influence. It's still sitting in my MIL's old house, and I'd like to see it down the block at my wife's cousin's where he's still running an old Esquire smoke-blower stove from the last century. If only I can get him to let loose of a dollah.
1/4" plate-steel box with good engineering and build quality. I had a little trouble controlling the burn but eventually figured out that it's an easy fix to tweak the air controls to keep the cat from approaching the 1800* danger zone. And you need to make sure the ash pan gasket is sealing tightly.
Bypass door is a 1/4" flat steel plate that slides across the bypass opening..no gasket to be concerned with. Good door latch mechanism. Ash handling is not as good as the grate in the floor of the Woodstocks, but has a flip-up hinged lid and an opening a bit over 3"x5", so it was pretty easy to use. Ash pan wasn't huge, though. The blower was a bit loud, but tolerable on low, even in the small stove room it was in. Luckily, that small room had two doorways, because that stove tossed big heat.
I also like the primary air controls, airwash/upper air channel on the right slider, boost/doghouse air on the left slider that they call "shotgun air." You gotta love the manliness of
that!
The cat is pricier than the Woodstocks, at about $300. Burning 24/7 they will last several years.
They claim the box is 4.4 cu.ft. but they must have measured it before they put in the cat and its heat shield. I measured usable volume at about 3 cu.ft. The 74 might be closer to what they claim, I don't know. The newer model 91 I saw at the stove shop recently, they have replaced the plate-steel air control plates with sheet metal, but that wouldn't concern me at all.
Based on what I know from the 91
, Buck is a quality stove and I wouldn't hesitate to check their other models
.
Buy local, BuckStove is right up the road from you in Spruce Pine, NC.
If you can describe your room layout and sq.ft. to be heated, and your level of insulation and air-sealing, folks here can help you size the stove. Where in GA are you?