Hey BG, ok, wait now I think we've all been talking two different things, if I led you to believe I was talking on cold starts I apologise, what I've been talking about is during reload. I'll have to go back through my posts and see if I've been misleading.....
Generally, with our climate, once the stove gets lit in mid October we normally don't do a cold start all season long unless we go away for the weekend. So cold starts for us are really few and far between, so generally they aren't on my mind (although the recent weather has had us doing more cold starts then normal so I'll say that with cautiously). What I was referring to was a reload routine say in the morning.
Lets say I get up in the morning, stove has been burning all night.....stove might be at 200-300F (dont quote that number, I haven't measure a morning temp in a while) and flue would be lower (Our flue thermometer, installed this year, is above our damper so it's common for us to see higher stove temps than flue temps after the flue damper is started into use). I'll open everything up (air intake and flue damper, rake the coals ahead (unload some ash first if required, maybe once a week), load the wood and close the door....generally go up and pour a mug of coffee. I'll come back down in a few minutes to start closing down. After the fire gets rolling the flue will certainly be hotter then the stove body so I'll close the flue damper to maybe 1/2, maybe more, at this point the flue may climb a bit but the climb will be slowed, after a few more, when the stove body is up around 600 I shut the air intake right down and then take it off "L" just ever so slightly, by this point the flue and stove are almost equal. I then set the flue damper further closed as much as I can to maintain the air jets and then that's it until the next load....from here the stove body may climb a bit but the flue will generally stay the same or even start to drop if I closed the damper a fair bit more after the final "close down".
With the flue damper I can control the flue temperature pretty quickly.
Now as you state, this can all change a bit depending on wood, outside pressure, etc etc.....
For example: Sometimes on really cold days I'll tend to close the air intake down first as I want a little more heat in the chimney....
On a -30 sunny high pressure day I may never end up closing the flue damper more then say 1/3 otherwise we can't draft enough to keep much going properly (outside brick chimney) but we only get a week or two a year like this......
Only thing I can think of is perhaps our IR gun is off and maybe we actually don't hit 600F?
I guess it would be a god excuse to get another. As I mentioned in previous emails I haven't been using the IR gun much because the routine is pretty repeatable each re-load.
The big thing for me (and call me old school) is watching that firebox, if it's full of flames, for me that's too much (either draft or intake).
In the case of a cold start, sure I can see the stove body taking much longer to reach temperature before the flue is long past a point where some control needs to happen (IE start closing something).
During a cold start I'd likely start closing the damper long before the stove body is heated otherwise that's a lot of heat running rampant up the chimney. But again, we might do maybe a half dozen cold starts in a season, if that even? So I've been more concerned with the day to day routines that I figured would have more of an impact on the final longevity of the stove's life.
I think in our case, what might make things different depending on if you have a flue damper or not, is our flue damper and having the flue thermometer above it.
If I were to, for example, run things and watch the two temps climb, if I close the flue damper even to just 1/2, I can fairly quickly control the flue temperature. If I close it even more I can almost reverse the flue temp increase (IE it will start to drop) yet the stove body will continue to climb.
Where as if I close the air intake on the stove, It generally affects both the flue and the stove temps.
Perhaps I grew up and have some habits from how I learned to run older stoves?
Please feel free to comment if you see anything I'm doing that sounds like a "ah ha, that's not right" situation.
But in my mind if the firebox is not full of flames and the stove top and chimney run less than 600 (actually once we're running the flue is generally only around 400-450, I like to try and let as little heat up the chimney as possible while maintaining a decent clear exhaust and enough draft to run the air jets) while the stove body is in the 600 range then are these not all decent indicators that I'm not overfiring?
Just want to say thanks to everyone on this board making suggestions (especially
@begreen and
@Hogwildz) etc. I apologise if my posts got a little frustrated sounding....doing my best to remain patient and ensure we learn what we can from the experience.
On a typical cold start I am starting to close down the air 50% by the flue temp of 450-500º maximum (double-wall probe thermometer). At that point the stove top might be only 250º. You can also do this visually without a flue thermometer. At this point, with dry wood, the fire is burning vigorously. Turn down the air 50%. Both the flue and stove temps will continue to rise. Secondary combustion will start. Let it burn this way for another 2-5 minutes, then turn down the air another 50% or more. Flue temp at this point may be 500º. Turn the air down enough to slow down the fire, but not to make it smolder. If the fire regains strength and vigor, turn it down more at that point until secondary flame is still present, but more lazy and ghost like. 
