VC defiant 1945 - longer burn time

[RandyBoBandy]

It’s pretty easy to get to the cat on the 1945. Even though I own one it’s in a cabin and gets minimal use so I’m not super familiar with taking it apart. I do believe the are wedges of some sort that have to be removed then the waffle looking flame shield can be removed. The cat is sitting just behind this. If it’s the original cat it’s probably a steel foil cat. You can very gingerly blow some air through it to get any fly ash out of it. Those keyboard compressed air cans can work well for this. I don’t think I have ever pulled out the fire brick to inspect the refractory box so I can’t help you there. When you did fire it with the damper closed did you see the cat glowing?

 

[TravisNY]

Ok I will purchase one and find a video or thread that explains how to install it

 

[TravisNY]

I didn’t see anything glowing while burning the stove. The manual says not to get the stove above 750 and my griddle was at 700 so I’m assuming inside it was warmer than that. I put a fan on the stove in an attempt to cool it down

 

[RandyBoBandy]

A lot of use the Auber Instruments AT100 paired with a K-type thermocoupler rated to 2000degrees. This is your best option IMO. the install will be super easy.

 

[Diabel]

What he said ^^^^

Great little tool.

 

[TravisNY]

Obviously I’m not an expert at this but I think I’m going to wait to take the stove apart (unless it’s a safety issue). I didn’t realize how shot the gaskets were until I just replaced them. I have a feeling this a pretty good reason the stove was burning the way it was

 

[Diabel]

You should be able to remove the flame shield easily in order to see the condition of the cat. I do it once a month to brush the ash off the face of the cat.

 

[RandyBoBandy]

Like diabel said accessing the cat is very easy. If you can put new gaskets on the doors and such you can get the cat out. The damper gasket is probably going to be the biggest b%#ch of them all. Start with your gaskets and fire the stove. Once your griddle top hits 400 degrees close your damper (primary air still wide open) give it about 10 minutes than incrementally start closing your primary air. Do this with about a half load so you can still see through the fire shield so as to monitor cat light off. Until you get a cat probe I would try and keep the cat glow at kind of a dull orange if that makes sense. If it looks like you are staring at the sun than chances are the cat is way to hot.

 

[RandyBoBandy]

@begreen or @bholler can we get this moved over to the VC thread so the remaining four Vc guys can chime in. I don’t think his 1945 falls under the classic stove category

 

[TravisNY]

Damper gasket actually doesn’t seem to difficult to me. I told the piece off that holds the chimney up to replace that gasket and it makes it a lot easier to access the damper gasket. Are these bad stoves or something? Doesn’t seem like many people use them. I’m impressed with how much heat it puts out and actually like it a lot

 

[TravisNY]

I meant to say “I took the piece off”...autocorrect

 

[RandyBoBandy]

There are a lot of people who do not like them. They tend to be costly to repair and easy to destroy if they are burned incorrectly. Hence my emphasis on all the thermometers to keep the burn tamed. If you develop good burning habits and learn your stove you should be able to get good use out of it. I think I’m on my 5th year burning my encore and other than tinkering with it and doing some gasket work it has been a good stove. It will not be my forever stove though. Once the internals wear out I hope to replace it. They are the most beautiful cast stove though IMO. Some of the pros here hate them due to their out of date down draft design and the newer ones have fragile internal parts that are expensive to replace.

 

[TravisNY]

 

[TravisNY]

Tore it down. What do you think?

 

[TravisNY]

 

[TravisNY]

And what do you guys think I should have paid for it? I’m thinking I probably paid too much but I love the look of the stove and the heat it puts out. Now I just have to dial it in

 

[RandyBoBandy]

I think the cat is toast. The flame shield is toast. If there are no holes in the refractory box that might be salvageable. Is the lower fire back warped? @defiant3 your expertise is needed

 

[Diabel]

Not looking good.

This is why people dislike these stoves. Improper operation lead to internal parts failure and very expensive repairs.

The cat is toast, flame shield too. If the refractory box is still in one piece then you saved yourself about 300.00. From the pic it looks like the stove sat outside for some time, judging from the stains on the refractory box.

Not sure but i would not spend a penny on this stove unless you commit to a complete rebuild.

 

[TravisNY]

So I just wasted a bunch of money on this stove in an effort to save me money on oil. Great

 

[TravisNY]

They offer two cats, ones metal and the other is ceramic, both are the same size. Which is better? What piece is the flame shield? I assume it’s the one that goes above the bricks and has all the pieces coming off of it

 

[RandyBoBandy]

So I just wasted a bunch of money on this stove in an effort to save me money on oil. Great

Yeah that sucks. Do you know the guy you bought it from or is a complete stranger? The inside of that thing is rough

 

[TravisNY]

I know the guy really well. He’s a good friend of my father and has always been really good to me and my family . He said he never had an issue with it but he hadn’t used it since he took it out when he remodeled his house in 2015, said it sat in his shop unused after that. He owns a well known forestry company in the area and is just a good guy overall, I really don’t believe he would intentionally rip me off

 

[TravisNY]

At this point I feel like I have to fix the stove. I can’t sell it to someone else like this unless they’re willing to pay close to what I paid

 

[Diabel]

Are you willing to invest around 700.00 and about 25hours of your sweat into this stove? On top of this you have to be somewhat handy with basic tools. If this is the case then you should start reading (on this forum) VC step by step rebuild. Once you go through this you will know how this stove needs to be operated and you will become a expert at it! Without destroying the expensive inner parts.

 

[TravisNY]

Definitely not willing to invest that kind of money. If the stove was fine then I would do all the reading (I did read the operation portion of the manual prior to burning). Guess I’ll throw it up for sale and see what happens.