Production Woodstock IS

Sorry to go on about it but...
exactly how did you fasten the "mod" to the radiator?
Does it close off the rear exit of the radiator - down to the sled?

 

It does not close off completely. I used a 2 in piece flat stock cut and trimmed to fit. Added two small 90° brackets to the falt stock then drilled two holes for 1/4 in threaded rod. Used two nuts on either side of the mod plate and left an extra 4in (I think) of extra and bent them up to pin it to the radiator. I have pics somwhere, if I can't find them I will take more tomorrow.

 

Somthing just like this.

 

I know you are talking to Erick but just to stick my two cents in.... I did not completely cover the rear exit (Easy Boys!) of the radiator, I blocked off the two inches. As to fastening it, I used two pieces of 3/32" SS wire, TIG filler rod actually. I believe Erick made a couple of threaded rod devices- his is the better way but mine seems to work well enough.

There is no 'trick' to what we did; merely changing the path of the exhaust gasses and making them stay in the stove longer will always allow the stove to radiate some of the heat that would have gone up the flue. To exaggerate the situation, given enough smoke pipe, the exhaust gasses would be nearly room temperature and ALL the heat would have radiated out through the pipe, hopefully into the space we are trying to heat. By the way, the original design of the Ideal Steel does a very good job of this anyway and this mod. merely grabs a little more heat but it does not make the stove, say, twice as efficient or anything even close.

For high quality thermocouples, Omega makes an excellent product at very reasonable prices. Not Chinese import reasonable of course but then again, they are a genuine scientific grade product. I have had a few of the Chinese versions fail but at $6 each, it is not much of a loss. Then again, the Chinese ones do not seem to take much heat in the cable beyond the thermocouple end itself so I always use a quality thermocouple to monitor the top of the stove where the conductors themselves will run really warm.

Brian

 

BDF is the originator of the idea, i was just first inline to get on the bus.

It's more like a restrict or plate for the flow through the back half of the radiator. Just makes the path of least resistance out the front of the radiator where the hot air stays inside and in contact with the stove surface longer.

 

The next mod. is to put a damper in the stove pipe, leaving it wide open to get a fire going and established of course. But then completely shut it (they do not really close off anyway but it does cut way down on exhaust flow), open the draft just a tad more than you normally would and again watch the flue temps. drop and the stove top temps. rise a bit more yet. I am not quite sure why this works but it certainly does and with temp. recording, it is easy to see. The stove will burn more evenly also, not reaching such a high burn in the first three hours or so but holding a higher stove top temp. toward the end of the burn (say, 8 hours or so).

Brian

 

After reading your next suggested modification, I wonder why I listened to WS on their suggestion to use double wall to my thimble at the chimney. If a damper on single wall pipe will give off some more heat from the pipe itself, and temps are cooler anyways, as well as the flue exhaust being cleaner, maybe I should go back to single wall pipe.

And with respect to yours and ericks mod on the radiator. Did either of you consider actually welding the rear piece of steel? My thoughts are if the radiators are warping from most IS owners reports would a fixed (welded) piece of flatstock help support the vulnerable section of the radiator?

I put the replacement radiator I got at WS Saturday in on Monday. I may take the old radiator to my welder and have him tack on a piece like in Hollywoods pictures.

 

Tacking the piece on the back of the radiator will not likely prevent warpage on the front edge. You would need something closer to the problem area.

 

I'ts a good thing we actually respond to each others messages on this forum...
Otherwise we'd be doin' stuff that would maybe work or not and have to suffer consequence of first trial.

"Copy-that" regarding the front of the radiator plate as area of potential warpage...actually saw that in the first in the series of pics of the radiator above (nice clear pics and cleaver fastening job). Clearly the FRONT edge of the radiator is taking the "heat" (pun intended). And with Brian's "block-mod" (culdesac-mod?) - the front edge of radiator plate should actually take even MORE heat. So....wouldn't be a bad idea to tack on the block-mod AND preemptively tack on a piece of angle or square stock as a stiffener up front (taking into account travel of the sled and top of stove closure). Tack stiffener onto top versus bottom of radiator plate - thoughts please....

Another thought: Regardless of top or bottom - maybe attach stiffener to front of radiator with stainless or galvi. stove bolts to reduce risk of cracked weld considering the expansion factor at that area of the radiator. That front edge of the radiator takes the "lions"-share of the abuse from the "cat "(there's a metaphor in there somewhere...

 

Atop the radiator would likely be best, so to not actually restrict the air flow and just redirect it with the mod on the back of the radiator. Clearance is going to be the issue. If you were to take a piece of what ever size brace material you wanted to try and just lay it in on top of the radiator and operate the sled to make sure it doesn't contact anything. I don't think It needs to be a big piece of material, maybe 1/4 flat stock on edge or even metal rod might do the trick. At that point it's all about clearance.

 

"...... Tack stiffener onto top versus bottom of radiator plate - thoughts please.... "

Oops. Considering Hollywood's earlier pics of the "new" radiator plate with the stainless shield mod from WS, any stiffener on the front edge of the radiator would have to be attached to the topside of the radiator as to not interfere with the stainless shield.
(foiled by my own design).

 

I gotta say here:
We are trying to solve a small piece of an already excellently operating puzzle. Whew!!!... I can barely imagine what the folks at WS go through on a daily basis when they are designing this stuff...
Not to mention the designers and builders in any industry attempting to make a product that is supposed to be operated effectively and safely by the dumbest of us.

 

The stainless sheet that WS is putting on the radiators now may force reinforcing pieces to the top side. And as Hollywood mentioned, sled clearance would be the next issue depending on stock size being used.

Since the radiators are a wear item, I'm sure we could find the right way to modify them and continue to make the upgraded changes each time we replace it.

 

I hear you. Interesting thing, my beta stove took waaayyyy more abuse for the time I had it. I buried the magnetic thermometers at least a dozen times. One of them was next to the cat port and the other just to the side of the top flue plate. I saw zero flaking or warpage on that one. I did ask if the changed the material and from the beta to production and was told they did not. this was an hour after they left the house from dropping off the beta to me. The first break in fire. The last thing they said was "try and break it" and I did try.

 

The title if this paragraph should be:
WS made a stove that can withstand the operating temps BUT sheet steel has it's limits.....
My magnetic thermometer is located just to the right of the cat probe port on the front of the IS above the door. And on larger or even moderate loads (without trying to run a hot fire) I see temps between 750 - 900 as a daily occurrence. I find it difficult to believe WS would make a stove that wouldn't handle this type of fire. Although, sheet steel deteriorates quite easily at the temps we run in the stove. Happily, the only broad peice of sheet steel (excluding structural steel channel) part of the IS in direct contact with fire is the top of the fire box. And the radiator that gets the brunt of the heat from the cat.
I have mentioned in the past that the stove I used before the IS was an Atlantic "box" stove - rectangular cast iron box with a door on one end and flu exit on the other. To increase the fire path I built a "shoe-box shaped box (with a homemade grate for the floor) out of the 3/8" diamond plate material you see on truck decks and dropped it into the cast iron stove. A box-within-a-box. The fire was in contact ONLY with the inside of the sheet steel box. Hot exhaust burned backward toward the door, over and around the sheet steel box and out of the stove (worked amazing well - to the point of causing the cast iron to glow cherry red. But never damaged it). Tremendous heat output!
After 10 and more years of burning (and throughout those burning years) that sheet steel box: pitted/peeled/scaled and distorted to the point where I either had to rebuild the sheet steel "shoe-box" or buy the IS (no brainer).
The moral of the story is:
Sheet steel is tough and will last. However, expect to see all the above listed dilatory effects on sheet steel caused by direct contact with the temperatures we are dealing with in the IS.
As it's been said earlier in this thread by a number of members: the sheet steel radiator is expendable. The improvements we are designing will work, are good and should definitely be incorporated into the stove to "stall" the hot exhaust long enough for greater heat transfer through the stove walls into the room. Though ultimately, the radiator is relatively cheap and easily replaceable; we should take advantage of the what we need to to further increase the efficiency of the IS while at the same time do what we can to preserve the integrity of the radiator as an integral part of the stove.

 

That was so well written that woodstove magazine could print it.

 

I mentioned earlier this week I cleaned the flue for the first time and got a bit more creosote than accustomed too but I don't think too much, especially with the teething issues learning to run the new stove, plus some loose pipe joints I neglected to fix until now that I am sure where leaking some room air into the flue (the inner pipe was like slightly warped inward so from the outside I could actually see into the inside of the flue pipes).



That is one year of accumulation from about 22' of pipe.You can see about how much the buildup is since the tee itself hadn't been cleaned (I mean the stuff clinging to the walls) it's not very thick, but perhaps a hair over 1/8" in thicker spots. I didn't fill up any measuring devices since I vacuumed it, but after leveling off and applying the formula of area of a cylinder I come up with .54 gallon or 8.5 cups. It really didn't seem quite that much, so my rough measurement might have been a hair off, but pretty close.

I've had the IS burning for a few days now, and tried softwood for the first time. Since my old stoves burned so much faster and hotter I never really even gave softwoods a thought. But summer of '15 I scrounged a bit over a cord of spruce. I've been pretty happy with the burns so far! Though all the knots and stuff make the spruce impossible to get a good tight fully packed load in. Trying my first longer burn of spruce today. The first time loading it, with maybe a 2/3-3/4 full firebox, I still got 6-8 hours running a hot fire, which is at least as good as my old stove got burning ash so thrilled about that. My house was down to 60F so I was keeping the fire up with secondaries going for the first few hours. So even in the dead of winter if it's a day I have off then burning spruce is certainly an option. And today I'll see how it does in a full cat burn which I loaded about 10:30 am. Modest outside at about 51F right now, but very windy in this drafty place and about 67 inside so need just a little heat. I've got the cat probe holding around 900-950 and just beside it 525 and average around 375-400 on the stovetop. Should be good to cruise around there today. On notch 3 (starting at 0).

I either missed or completely forgot about the mods to the radiator. I'll have to try that when I get the chance. I also forgot during the off season I was going to install a damper in the single wall. Man I've been slacking. Ok, once I get the pellet stove fired up and on a warmer day I can let the stove go out I'll try some of these mods. Maybe I'll finally break down and order one of the digital logging thermometers as well, will be nice to actually have data showing the mods are working.

 

I have to send my writers more heat....

 

Yep, what he said. Even the badly warped radiators are only warped from about the center forward- the rear is still straight so stiffening that (Easy Boys!) would not be useful.

Brian

 

OK guys dunb question.. how do you know cats in right side up? pulled it to give refresh and I usually put 1 way and put back..