Production Woodstock IS

Thanks for the replies guys....
I am still trying to decide if I want to have to fiddle with the puzzle of putting the soapstone liner back in. I will try to get a few strong backs. Mine isn't bad - still young enough. I might think about those dowels..

Getting excited. Chopped about 1/3 cord today and moved about 1 cord around the yard.

 

I used broom handles as dowels. Had one extra. I really only needed two dowels. While the stove, on it's 2 x 4s was on both dowels, I easily rolled the stove forward. When the rearmost dowel was at the end of it's travel - I tipped the stove forward to get the dowel out from the rear then tipped the stove backward to place it under the front. The stove pivoted easily. Used a small hydraulic bottle-nose floor jack under the stove legs to remove the 2 x 4's. Or you can just tip the stove east then west to get the 2 x 4s out. The bottle jack was handy when I adjusted the height of the legs. Jacked the stove, blocked up the stove, adjusted the leg height, then used the jack to get the stove off the blocks and lower it. be careful where you place any blocks under the stove as there is stuff under there: air intake on the left, ash pan housing (if you have one).

 

Now that BS has seen the flames above the cat pre-replacement valve, maybe we have no change in the valve opening and closing any different than the alarm clock valve?

 

The unregulated air intake hole under the door (it is centered with the door - you can't see the hole with the door closed but it is outside of the door gasket) was noted by another poster. I don't recall who mentioned it, but thanks. That "EPA air" enters a triangular channel inside the firebox that spans the door width. On the east end of the channel the fresh air shoots a jet straight back into the fire. For this load of splits, I can see it burning a hole into the split up front and placed to the far right. Ya can really see the jet burning into the split with a dark firebox / cat only burn.
I had been wondering why the fire in my IS usually burned better on the right ( east) than on the left and the glass stays more clear on that side. If both ends of that triangular EPA air channel should jet air into the fire, mine must be clogged on the west end.
I proved this air route by blocking the EPA hole with a bent metal plate - the glowing jet-drilled hole went dark.
Just mentioned this air path for those who like to know the IS innards.

 

Interesting, This is news to me. I'm not home right now but I'll take a look in the morning when I get back. What size is the hole?

 

Not sure if it was my post you are referring to but I did mention that hole and air path in an earlier post. Funny thing is that after a while of raking the coals forward to burn them down and loading the stove starting in the back, the ends of that piece of angle iron seem to be blocked by packed ash. I have been toying with the idea of putting a bit of compressed air to the hole (Easy Boys!) and seeing if and where the air comes into the firebox. It has been too hot in there to feel around for the exit manually for some time now.

I believe there are three ways for air to enter the stove that are not under the user's control, and two of them are fixed. The first is the hole in the front of the stove that we are talking about. The second is the secondary air feed on the draft control; when the draft control is fully closed, the secondary plate has a small rectangular opening left to ship air to the secondaries (the S.S. plate with the holes in it). The third air path is the combustor air and I am not sure when that closes or whether or not the air can actually get to the firebox under any conditions.

Brian

 

About 3/8" diameter. It really will not pass much air at all. It is just under the opening in the front of the stove and just above where the door gasket contacts the stove body.

Brian

 

Sorry, BDF Brian - tiny correction - the 3/8 hole is just BELOW where the door gasket contacts the stove body. Thanks if you are the guy who revealed this mysterious air path.
I could see how raking ash / coals forward could impede the air ports at (both?) ends of the triangular channel. My left/west port might be clogged, if indeed both ends are intended to provide that small bit of air.

 

I've ordered an IS, delivery is sometime mid January.
I cant seem to find any info on whether it has an OAK fitment, tried searching this thread seems my search words are to common. Any info or pics would be great.

 

The guys who actually have the stoves should be along to answer that.
So, come mid-January, we can have more pics and another report, eh?
Excited yet?

 

Welcome to the Ideal Steel subculture, Chestnut. Looking forward to pics and your impressions of this heater come Jamuary. It is a different animal than your Defiant.

 

In defense of the practice of load-it-and-forget it camp - I have done and still do this for overnight burns that begin with a 2"-3" (only) deep bed of coals after I've raked and dispatched the powdery ash through the grate down into the ash pan. Certainly not enough of a coal bed to impede primary air we are currently referring to. In the morning, instead of vigorously raking the coals and reloading, I open the stove (door and air) and gently place a few fuel pieces on top of whatever coal-like remnants remain from the overnight burn (looks like a skeletal version of the overnight fuel). Trying not to disturb the skeletal structure of those remnants. I find the air finds it's way to the back of the coal-bed through the skeletal remnants from overnight burns more effectively. The air gets through MUCH better if I don't disturb the skeletal stuff and allows better combustion resulting in less of a coal bed by the time I care to check the stove - which is sometime in the early afternoon.

 

Yes, the later IS stoves are all fitted with the lip to hang an OAK onto. I have the OAK on my stove and posted pictures of it in post #471 in this thread.

I can take additional photos or answer any questions you have about the outside air kit on the I.S..

By the way, I notice you are in RI also; I would ask whereabouts but it does not really matter because we are close no matter where in RI you live. (RI is only about 30 mi. wide by 45 mi. tall- how far apart can two RI'ers be?)

Brian

 

Look me up if you need a hand. My holiday schedule will be kinda weird, but I'm usually home a lot.

Don't have a whole lot extra, but I can bring some dry wood.

 

Finally- the temp. is going down into the teens tonight and I am just able to run the stove warm enough to burn the creosote off the glass.

Opening the draft from 2 to 3 notches to 5 notches (one notch less than 25%) maintains lazy secondaries in the stove and kicks it out of "cat." mode and into either secondary mode or hybrid mode. It is really easy to see when monitoring the firebox and cat. temps; normally my firebox is in the 450F to 600F range, is absolutely black (no flames anywhere) and the cat temp. is above or well above 1,000 F for hours on end. But tonight the firebox temps. shot up to 900F + due to the secondaries and the cat. temps are in the mid- 800F range. So while it is clear the secondaries are burning a large amount of the smoke, I cannot tell if the cat. is burning any smoke at all or if the temps. above the cat. are due to the firebox and secondary flame entirely.

Neat stove, neat behavior. I will load it at 8:30 or so, get the fresh wood involved and then set the stove for the night. Will post temperature curves in a couple of days.

Brian

 

Thanks, I might. But, I do have some dry firewood already!!!!! Split about a 1/3 cord and moved around a cord yesterday!

 

Well, Big box on back of my Truck says "Front of stove, Caution Heavy 700 Lbs!", about one month late, jury duty this week too! Now just how to maneuver it off the truck and up the hill.

 

Hi Brian , thanks for the info great pics, I am in West Greenwich, not to far from the I95 corridor. love it out here.

 

I am really looking forward to firing up the IS, the Defiant is a wood gobbling flame throwing monster.
It does bring a cold house up to temp very fast and it does burn cleaner than you would expect from a non EPA 35 year old stove, it does have a primitive secondary burn setup.
I keep her as sealed up as I can, rebuilt it a couple of times been burning her since 1993.
I am hoping with the IS is to use less wood and have a bit more controllability like a 12 hour reasonably level burn instead of 6 hours of flame thrower.
And of course I really like the concept and design.

 

Great- I am one town over in Coventry.

The I.S. has fantastic control and each change on the draft position will make a definite and immediate change. No problem running the stove at a rate below what I thought possible.

Now that the weather finally dipped down a bit, I am having to learn how to deal with the coals in- between the loads of wood. Looks like early evening is best for burning the coals down so the later night loading and the morning loading can be done without much or any tinkering with the coals or ash.

Brian