If ya can't buy it, ya build it.

The Whitfield Prodigy, a much maligned "little" pellet stove built in the early 90's was actually a great stove in its final incarnation.

The early ones did not have a draft fan and relied on a tall flue and natural draft to keep the fire going

The second incarnation "Prodigy 2" saw the addition of a draft fan in the exhaust housing up on top of the stove running right through the hopper.

Parts for these little guys have long since evaporated, especially "hard parts"

Recently I ran across a sale on ebay with a good top casting and the fan box

Fan box was rusted beyond use, but provided the needed data to build a new one


Here are some pix of the results.
The black one is the old used one and the other can be seen in various stages of contruction.

Currently it's nearly complete, needing only a couple holes (that hold the box to the casting elongated to allow the box to be adjusted after it is sitting on the casting.

There is the usual flat rope seal between the two.

There are a couple pix showing my operational stove (Has a brand new fan and draft motor installed)

 

Snowy, are you doing the metal working/fabrication?

 

Good to see a will to get the job done, bravo. We have all these ideals and knowledge, we just have to find a way to slap it together
Time for

 

I said it before and will say it again-Snowy needs to change her handle to MacGiver

 

Was in the metal trades for many many years.
Started out as a youngster wanting to work on cars (And get paid for it) and spent a few years in college and tech schools.

Then reality slammed into the back of my head that I was not going to get a job easily.

A friend put me to work in their business working on Rock Crushing equipment, and there I stayed for a couple years.

Went to work in the mill industry in 73 and served my apprenticeship in both the Fab shop and machine shop. Got my journeyman's ticket in 77.

Stayed with the Co until the fall of 90.

Got a bug in my butt to do something else.

Got into dump trucking, bought an old Pete 10 wheeler and got my feet wet in 91
Wanted a better opportunity so I bought a Transfer truck (Dump truck with trailer that loads the trailer box into the truck for easy unloading)

That got me into a far better place $$$$$$$ and then in 95 I bought a brand new Western Star 8 axle transfer setup and life was good.

Stayed with things until 99 and the gravy train started to go away.
Collected a group of loyal customers together and served them as an independent contractor from 2001 to 2012 when I retired (Health issues)

Also ran a gun shop from 2003 to 2013 and then brought it home and we still do some sales and such.

During the early days of the gun shop I bought a Bridgeport type mill and a Lathe to do specialty work on custom gun stuff.

Today the machines are basically idle except for the occasional stove project or as has been the case the past few days, my Son in law and I are restoring an old (1954) army 6x6 and we needed to repair a warped (read this as train wreck) exhaust/intake manifold.
Here is a real train wreck in the mill the other day.
Trying to save this mess so the rig can be in a local Christmas parade.

The machines always seem to come in handy, and without them many things would not be possible.

A varied and interesting life I have had.
A couple million miles as captain of a big rig was a great experience.

Ah yessss.

Now it's just memories.

Snowy

 

I like the way you think Snowy.

When we bought our stove 11 years ago I decided servicing the stove on the floor wasn't practicle with my bad knees. So I walked out to the shop and put my shear, brake and welder to work. Now it's 12" off the floor and that makes it a lot easier on my old body... nearly 43 years and 4.5 million miles on my clock...

BTW... my local dealer Earth Sense Energy Systems in Dale, WI was a long time Whitfield dealer IIRC and they still offer some service parts for those stoves. I believe they bought out all the remaining parts inventory when Whitfield went bye-bye.

 

Great idea getting the stove so you can work on it, cause it will need it sometime.

I have always hated the idea of a stove being snug in a corner or ?? cause ya can't work on it.

When I built the raised hearth back in 2010, I said no !#%^& way am I NOT GOING to be able to get at this beast to wrench on it.

Sooooo

Set this sucker up so I can crawl all the way around it EASILY
Real easy to get all the way around this beast and clean and service anything needed.

Plenty of room to put the shell buckets during the off season or hide other stuff.

I just noticed, this piccy was taken before the vent was even installed.

Here is a later pix with the vent installed.

I still have not removed the chimney from the old Earth Stove we had in the area.

Ahhh well, in due time, it's only been 5 years

 

Some peoples homes aren't large enough to allow a sidewalk all the way around the stove... Gotta play the cards you're dealt.

 

True

Then you add a QUICK disconnect flange to the vent so you can wrestle the beast out to get at it.

Both ours have a 4 bolt little flange that I installed.

Picked them up at a local stove shop, Very handy to keep from needing to disturb the silicone sealed and or taped pipe joints.

Little flange has a white high temp gasket like they use on the exhaust fan housings of most stoves.

Sidewalk ??? I like that

 

Been pretty lucky so far, both stoves pushed as tight as allowed to back wall and neither have had to ever come out yet... prolly shouldn't have said that.

 

There, you had to go and say that. You best get yourself some new tail pipe gaskets

 

Fantastic job.
The only thing I would add is silicone mounts on the exhaust fan, that way the stove will purr like a kitten. Super easy compared to your titanic effort so far.

 

Chickenman what's up! Newbie on this site....but welcome. How is the stove buisness ? Sorry for the hijack

 

Welcome aboard!!!

 

Welcome to the forum Chickenman and rafmt!

 

x2!

 

Hiya rafmt.
Headin into summer so stoves are done for the year. I did put a bit of a spiel on my other post. Was a slow season, we sold about normal but all our dealers were down. Not sure why. The wood stove guys had a blinder of a year, must have been their turn I suppose....