Back from the valley of the shadow of death

The project took a serious leap forward yesterday.

I unwrapped the package of ceramic blanket and laid out what was needed for the stove, 9-1/2" X 13-1/2"
Having never worked with this stuff I was not really sure on the best tool to cut it.

Tried a razor knife first, ahhhh, not so much.

Grabbed a pair of hand pruning shears and JOY, the shears easily and cleanly cut the ceramic blanket quite nicely.

Cut the piece out and stuffed it in the alleyway in the stove, Looking good.

I finished up installing the rope seal on the exhaust casting and getting the assembly ready to install.

Had a few little tweaks needed on the fan box as a result of the hack who violated the poor little creature before we got it.

Installed the proper fan motor venturi ring and the motor and exhaust impeller.

Bolted the entire assembly to the top casting and then started the tedious task of shoe horning the thing into to alleyway.

A little iggle and uggle and it was in place ready to be bolted down.

Attention then turned to finishing the new covers for the casting and the exhaust motor.

The originals had been removed and after the area was totally violated 3 pieces of sheet metal were screwed down to cover the area

That was a mess.

I copied factory parts as best as could be done within the constraints of available forming tools.

The original motor cover had complex bends and was likely die formed when new.

A cardboard pattern and a trip to the local steel shop got the two covers formed.

One piece on the motor cover needed to be fabricated to end up with the needed flange

I used a 3/4 x 3/4 x 1/8 angle and cut one side down in the mill to approx 9/16 wide.

After welding the piece on the finished part closely resembles the factory item.

Some paint to get the parts matching the hopper and interior color (Flat silver header paint)

A bit of attention to fine details seemed like a fine idea as the lid on these stoves makes a tinny clunk when it closes.

Added some little sticky backed felt buttons to the contact point to give a nice quiet closing sound.

Finished up the wiring of the low limit snap in the rear of the fan box.
Fork connectors were in sad shape, so replaced them with new.
The rubber grommet in the bulkhead was long gone and so stuck in a fresh one.

Hooked up the fan and tied up the remaining wires.

The back panel still needs paint, but the ID/serial # tags need to be masked off first.

The door seal, glass and just a few odds and ends are pretty much all that remains.

Gotta tidy up the fire pot and ash pan and the firebox area will be complete.

Should get the glass next week and if all goes well a fire can be tossed in and testing can be done

Here are a bunch of pix taken during yesterdays session.

I must say, this project has been fun, buttttttttttttttttttttttttttt a lot more physical labor than I would have liked to see.

Had the seller not been real flexible on the price and the drive was not nearly as long as it was this may have not happened.

This was a challenge for sure.

 

More pix

 

More pix

I must say, having a lathe, mill, wire welder and myriad tools really makes this sort of project far easier, and in some instances it would have been nearly impossible to achieve the results obtained.

 

The weather today sucks, with showers and sun breaks.

Just get tools out and ready to work and then it rains like crazy.
Did get a bit of work done.

Cleaned up the nasty grody fire pot and shined it up.

Even the stainless steel pot had been attacked by the combination of ashes and dampness.

Mostly just grunge though and the wire wheel and some elbow grease took care of it well.

The fire pots woven seal ring was missing and some sort of totally fried rubber ring was in it's place.

After getting things clean I went to stuff the pot back in with a good ring on the air pipe and the pot will not drop down on the locating tabs.


Hmmmmm.

All seems well, but no cigar.

A little grinding on the vertical locating face to allow the pot to have a tad more room and all is well.

Then the rains came again.

Decided to call it a day.

Need to paint and this weather is not gonna cut it.

Tomorrow is suppose to be better

 

Better weather today and work is progressing again.

A paint job on the back of the unit and some touch up work on a few spots that showed some imperfections in the bright daylight today.

Vent trim panel and the rear access panel now in place.

Still need to paint the control panel door and install it and the controls.

 

Finally getting very close.

Aside from window glass the little beast is almost there.

Got everything done inside and the controls hooked up.
Decided to add pellets and go for an auger prime up and basically test the feed rates, adjust the fan speed trimmer and generally see wassssssup.

Having an extension cord plugged into it is a good thing.

The systems powered right up and about 5 minutes later there were pellets falling into the pot.

All the feed rates are correct and things are good.

As soon as the glass is in we can toss a fire in the little beast and do the final adjustments.

Now it's time to relax and tomorrow start mowing the grass around here.

 

I like the pics of pellets dropping - who knew they were moving fast enough to give the camera fits trying to capture it?

 

Actually the biggest problem was guessing when they were going to drop.

Some feed cycles may drop several and others might drop only one piece or so.

Then trying to snap the pic so I could actually catch the catch them in midair before they hit the pile in the pot.

It takes a second or so from touching the "Shutter" button om my iphone 6 plus until the pic is taken.

The ones I did get I just held the button and shot an entire stream, then sorted through the bunch.

Was kinda fun.

Sitting there priming the auger and twiddling my thumbs and got the idea to try and photograph pellets dropping

Lack of better things to do I guess.

Gonna call the glass shop this morning and get the windows made.

Really getting itchy about firing this thing up.

Already got the bug to scare up another one.

 

Getting all antsy about getting the glass in.

Glass shop calls up and were worried that they got the dims. wrong on the glass sizes.

Yupp they did, but they waited to cut the stuff until they called me.

Got them the right stuff, but no glass today.

Tomorrow probably

 

Always good when they check to make sure they have it right.

 

I met with the fellow in the shop and laid the cracked pieces on their work table for him to measure.

He wrote the dims. all down and stuck his note on the "To Do" board.

He remembered that there were two long narrow pieces and one that was nearly square.

Really glad he called me.

I would have been a real beotch had they called me to pick up the stuff and find the wrong sizes.

I am definitely getting excited to see the little stove sitting with a nice fire in it.

Gonna be even better to see it sitting in the back of somebodies rig and their CASH $$$$$ in my pocket.

Basement is getting full of stoves.

My Son In Law brought over their Dirt bikes to store while their new house is being built, so space has dwindled a lot.

Then I move in 4 pellet stoves, ahhhh, actually 3 as the son in law brought me a lovely Austroflamm insert to find a new home for.

I have had tons of calls, but no takers as yet.

Inserts are a tougher sell than a free standing unit me thinks.

Ahhh well, life is good

 

LITTLE CREATURE ALL DONE.

Got the new glass today and buttoned things up a bit ago.

Tomorrow I will toss a fire in the little critter and make any final adjustments to the draft fan and pellet feed.

Been a great project "GLAD IT IS DONE"

 

That looks fantastic. If it burns half as good as it looks, someone will be extremely happy with it!

 

Thank you.

Let us hope that someone will fall in love with it and take it home.

Early May is not the best time to start pimping a stove, but ya never know.

Far more fun to install a stove when the weather is nice.

I installed our little Whit when it was 9 F outside and nasty.

A Sale is all going to hinge on what folks want and what they are willing to pay.

There is the crowd that will look at the Chinese made units that come on sale at Lowes for low $$$

I have no experience with these, but have heard some horror stories, especially with getting customer service ?????????????????????


Some folks have the attitude that if it's listed on Craigs list it's not worth much ??????


We will see.

I am going to fire it today and will snap a few pix.

A shame to dirty it up inside

 

Hey all

Tested the P2 this morning and all is just sweeeeeeeeeeeeet

Here is a video


I shot this on my iphone6 plus.

The stove is quiet, but obviously the mic on the phone is very sensitive..

 

Cannot see the video. :-(

 

Hmmmmm, interesting.

See if I can fix that.

Click click click, squeal, whirrrrrrr buzzzz.

Lets try this

 

Works now Thanks
Nice to see all that hard work blazing so it will keep a home toasty warm!

 

Yup.

To have it work flawless was a bigger plus.

 

Nice show you havery shared with us. Hard work. I hope you get some reward $$$ for your hard work. Market not so good for selling stoves now that oil is lower. Not sure about that on the west coast.