fire poking?

[firefighterjake]

Random thoughts . . .

I'm not much of a poker . . . I tend to live and let live . . . or rather burn and let burn. About the only time I play with the fire is if I need to move the coals around in the firebox to level them out or sift a bit of the ash . . . and when I do so I use a simple fireplace shovel to move things around.

I still have my poker . . . about the only time I use it is when I need to move a split in the firebox that has caught on fire.

 

[Jags]

I'm a little confused on all the Poking going on. I understand the occasional need to moves some coals for one reason or another, but what is with the poking? The only time I open the door is to feed the beast. I may choose to mess with the coals at that point, but once the logs are tossed in, I close the door and walk away.

What the heck are you guys poking at?? If its the logs - leave 'em alone, they didn't do anything to you.

Burn in peace, logs.

 

[branchburner]

I think some people might be talking about poking at logs in an open fireplace, to refresh the flames and get the fire put back together. I like to do that. With my stove, the back of the firebox has to be kept clear for the afterburner to work well, so I NEED to do that. Some poking is recreational, some is functional.

 

[turbocruiser]

Wow, with all the puns towards poking, I hate to add tongs to the question but I am currently researching what "fireplace tool set" to get for my wood stove and am wondering about tongs. Can anyone comment on the usefulness of tongs? Is this where the welding gloves work instead or is there a real reason to have a set that specifically includes tongs? Thanks.

 

[Milton Findley]

Wow, with all the puns towards poking, I hate to add tongs to the question but I am currently researching what "fireplace tool set" to get for my wood stove and am wondering about tongs. Can anyone comment on the usefulness of tongs? Is this where the welding gloves work instead or is there a real reason to have a set that specifically includes tongs? Thanks.

I have some tongs, and they worked pretty well for grabbing and moving splits when I was burning wood in the fire place. Now that I have a stove, they just hang on the fireplace tool rack.

I have found a use for the poker, and I use it year round now. In the winter, I run it past the doghouse to make sure the air intake is clear, and in the summer I have been using it to smack the various rodents I catch in my Conibear trap upside their haids. Only takes one smack with a poker. I have been thinking about using a 3 iron lately though.

 

[dafattkidd]

I use a shovel for the ash, a poker, and gloves. Gloves are the most important tool I keep near the stove. Tongs have proven to be useless and now sit in my basement.

 

[Jags]

I use a shovel for the ash, a poker, and gloves. Gloves are the most important tool I keep near the stove. Tongs have proven to be useless and now sit in my basement.

I'll second this. I have no use for any other tools than the 3 listed above. Shovel, Poker, Gloves.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I'll use tongs maybe once every 2 seasons when I get over zealous loading the stove and try to shove in one more that doesn't quite fit- by the time I realize this it's on fire and must be brought outside.

The tool I use 95% of the time is the shovel. I use it to clean, to rake, to peel bark off splits for fun...

 

[Backwoods Savage]

yea the poker is becoming obsolete with the new stoves. Only time I poke is if a log rolls on the glass or after a burn and a split is black and still intact. What you need is a rake, to rake the coals forward. You might want to check a thread on that, a bunch of us have made our own rakes to move the coals forward.

With all due respect, we've burned wood for a while now but have never found the need for anything but a poker for this.

When reloading the stove, the first thing I always do once the door is open is to rake the poker though the coals. Sometimes I'll shift the coals forward but most times I simply leave them where they are and do the reload. If it requires, then I'll just use the poker to slide the coals forward. That is best done by turning the poker handle so the pointed end is not down, but sideways. Then moving the coals is easy.

Gees Dennis, it looks like this is one time alot of folks are disagreeing with you. You learned to use firestarters this year, maybe you should try rake next. It is worth a try. You cannot tell me you can push the ash back and move the coals forward as easy with a poker as you can with a rake.

Reading through the posts I found the above quote and evidently did not see it when this thread was hot.

Golf, I do not mind at all that sometimes I do things a bit different. Would a rake work better or easier for moving those coals? Perhaps for some but it is such a simple, quick and easy job that I see no need for any additional tool. Unlike BB, I do use the poker at various times for moving some wood and, for moving or raking in the coals and it works.

Carry on fellas. I'm happy with my poker and also happy with my vertical log splitting.

 

[woodchip]

Wow, with all the puns towards poking, I hate to add tongs to the question but I am currently researching what "fireplace tool set" to get for my wood stove and am wondering about tongs. Can anyone comment on the usefulness of tongs? Is this where the welding gloves work instead or is there a real reason to have a set that specifically includes tongs? Thanks.

I still have the old set I used from our days of open fires, which include tongs, poker, shovel, and brush.

The poker that gets used more than anything else is not from the set, but a long one made at school in metalwork, seems to get to the back corners easily.

Never thought that when I made anything back in the 1960's that I'd be using it now

 

[mhrischuk]

I picked up two of these made by Dagan Industries Model 1105B

They are shorties... not the long conventional ones. They are solid steel and the best part. comes with a rake! I paid $46 a set... pretty cheap too.

 

[BrowningBAR]

I picked up two of these made by Dagan Industries Model 1105B

They are shorties... not the long conventional ones. They are solid steel and the best part. comes with a rake! I paid $46 a set... pretty cheap too.

Seems like a very good price since sets can easily run twice that, if not more.

 

[xman23]

I'd say I use my poker as Dennis describes. I don't mess with the fire, just use it when reloading. I do break up the last bit of the splits. I like to maintain a good coal bed and make room for the new load of wood. The bed of coals makes the reloads relight with no effort. My curved poker is the only tool in the set I use. Also I sometimes rearrange the burning splits, mostly to get good air flow in a cold stove start-up or move one that gets it's butt to close to my glass. I don't know if a rake can do all this. I won't say the rake is bad, just never had one and my poker does it all.

Tom

 

[pen]

The only reason I started using a rake is because my englander 30 has a baffle board that is heat tough but brute force weak. My friend with a 30 ruined both boards within a month of transitioning from old style stoves to this model because he was conditioned to just letting the poker fly as things moved. Because of this he and I have both moved to a rake and neither of us have broken a baffle board since.

pen

 

[BrowningBAR]

I have three sets of fireplace tools. It never fails that all three sets end up at whatever stove I'm currently NOT at.