Regency 3100 cracks in secondary air

[Stihlkickin]

Hello all, new to forum so here goes my first post.
I bought a house last November with a regency 3100 (from 2015) that has had a hard life by the looks of it.
I put new firebricks in after cleaning the chimney and doing some small fixes to bring it up to code (passed wett inspection).
The air tubes and baffles were in poor shape but I figured I’d replace them this spring as I needed the stove for heat.
After ordering the parts (non returnable) I cleaned the stove and discovered cracks in the welds on secondary air manifold.
My question is has anyone else ran into this and is it repairable? If not I’m looking at a new stove? and am stuck with $500 in parts.
I asked a welder buddy of mine and he said possibly but would be very tricky to try and grind/ reweld.
Thank you all for your time in advance.

 

[begreen]

@bholler, have you seen this in the field? Can these areas be welded?

 

[bholler]

Yeah its common with many tube stoves of the era. Regency quad lopi etc. It can be welded yes or a plate bolted over them. But honestly I have seen regencies run for a decade like that

 

[Stihlkickin]

Would you say it’s worth repairing?
I’d have to hire a welder out at $100 something an hour and then install the new parts.
I talked with a shop owner today who would sell me a pacific energy summit LE for around $4k and take the parts I have for my regency on trade to knock $300 more off the stove.
I’ll easily have $1k into that regency just to get it back up to snuff.

 

[begreen]

You could run it for a season and see how it performs. Or replace it now and start off with a clean slate. The Summit is a good workhorse. A key determinant will be having fully seasoneed, dry wood for this winter. The best stove will underperform with poorly seasoned wood.

 

[Stihlkickin]

I ran it last season and didn’t know what to expect from a stove with secondary burn.
I grew up with old timers (the brand). Loved it, way cleaner burning, longer burn times, plus glass to actually watch the fire.
The wood itself shouldn’t be an issue, stacked in a field to get full sun/ wind for 1.5 to 2 years, bore kill white ash, sugar maple. Then into the woodshed in August/ early September.