Production Woodstock IS

Glad to hear it as I think my cat is past its prime as well. Side note, I wonder if Woodstock sells "stock" gasket kits for the Ideal Steel or if you have to buy individual lengths from a local hearth shop.

 

golf66 Are you being sarcastic? I am missing something, anyway yes they have gaskets.

Penny also said they were working on bringing cat production in house

 

Well, if you go to their store, it can be quite hard to buy gaskets. They seem to very happily just give stuff like that away! The only time I’ve been able to pay them for a gasket is when I’ve bought something else of consequence (e.g., glass).

 

Yeah, they will either sell you the gasket or just include it with the cat. but I think you have to ask for it and they do not automatically include one.

Brian

 

I'm not being sarcastic. Here is a screenshot of Woodstock's gasket replacement page where there is no mention of the Ideal Steel. While page 36 of the owners manual has gasket dimensions, purchasing them locally will probably require taking out a second mortgage on my house. A local hearth shop charges $39.95 for a can of Stove Bright paint and I want to redo all gaskets from top to bottom of the stove.

 

golf66, I never went to their Web page, thats interesting, I just call and give a card number and 2 days later I get what I need. The people I talk too are always pleasant and helpful. They often say take a picture and send it to them so they know what I'm talking about

 

Call them. They are very helpful! They have all thier colors in an aerosol can and only charge 10 bucks for them. I think they are so busy they just haven't thought about a web page update for the parts.

 

Cheapest price for that paint anywhere.

I'm gonna swing by there tomorrow and return an elbow I boughy last time, and pick up a cay probe.

Probably have a little chat with them about why only half of my cat is glowing again too.

 

Anyone else have any issues with the he heads that hold in the right and left burners not keeping them attached? It's almost like the bolts are too short. I'll see if I can take a picture later today. My other issue is the door handle never stays tight. It always loosens up within a day of tightening it.

 

Babaganoosh I thought those burners were supposed to be loose or spin, mine always have.

 

The round discs on my I.S. stove top are held in with 1/4-20 flat head bolts and nuts. Mine do not loosen and stay the way I leave them, if I tighten them (sometimes I just spin the nut on by hand an leave it). Other than those discs falling off when lifting and rotating the stove top, they do not need to be fastened at all really.

As to the door, I have two doors and one remains pretty snug for a long time on the rope gasket while the other one has about zero tension. It <seems> to seal OK but has absolutely no pressure when the handle is wedged into the receiver on the stove. Recently I took the glass out and found the gasket material around some of the glass had slipped out; replacing it restored the tension on the rope gasket because it made the glass holding frame and both pieces of glass stand further away from the door frame. Put another way, it made the glass and glass retaining frame thicker so the rope seal was further away from the inner door surface. That might be what happened to your door. ?? Not an awful job to check on that but of course the stove has to be pretty close to cold and you might want to block off the stove door opening while the door is removed so nothing blows into the house if you suffer a chimney downdraft or similar.

Brian

 

There's definitely not a nut on the back of the hex head bolts thru the burners.

They weren't always loose. The last time I went to pop the stove top to vacuum the cat the burners fell right off. I remove the center one with the helping hand tool but the side ones were always tight. Two previous seasons burning and they didn't move or spin.

Wondering what changed. Maybe there was nuts on the inside at one point?

 

And it's the bolt that goes thru the door handle that's constantly loosening up. The gasket still passes the dollar bill test.

 

Yes. I hate to be the one that has to break it to you my friend but it seems that you have lost your nuts..... And without nuts, the bolts become screws that just sit inside a clearance hole. Whatcha' need there is a pair of nuts to make things right- 1/4-20 hex nuts. Can get them at any hardware store as well as Home- Lowes and similar.

Brian

 

And that nut, going by memory here, is a split type self- locking nut. Because you cannot actually tighten that bolt, because it would bind the handle, the nut has to be of the self- locking type. So you tighten the nut on the bolt until the handle has a little drag to it but can still be moved readily and stop; the nut will bind to the bolt shaft itself and not loosen. It sounds like you may have the wrong type of nut on your door handle or it has failed (although I cannot imagine how a split- nut can fail ?? ).

A little attention to your various nuts and 2018 will shape up to be a fine year in your house I think. It sounds as though you may have 'nutitis', a chronic annoyance of or around the immediate vicinity of your nuts.

Oh yeah,

Brian

 

I don't think my nut is doing its job because it's constantly loosening.

Is there something attached to the bolts that run thru the burners on top?

 

Yes, nuts. The flathead screws go through the countersunk discs, through the clearance hole (they just fall right through) and then screw into the nuts below. As I said a few posts ago, it sounds like you have lost your nuts..... the ones Woodstock Soapstone installed under the stove top to tighten the bolts that go through the stove top and the two discs on each side of it.

As to the door handle, if you can turn the nut on the bolt without tools, it is NOT a self- locking nut and therefore, the incorrect nut. A self- locking nut requires tools to turn it onto a bolt and cannot be twisted on by hand. There are several ways to do this, one is a split nut where the nut top is crushed inward to make it 'too small' to fit the bolt. Another way is to use a rubber or nylon ring that grabs onto the bolt but that will not work on a woodstove because it will melt and then not self- lock anymore. If you do a Google search for 'self locking nut', you will see many variations on this, including the uber- simple ones with three stamped dimples on top; these dimples again grab onto the bolt when the nut is installed.

Nuts can also be self- locking if a pair of them are used and one tightened against the other but there is no room for this on an Ideal Steel- you just cannot get two wrenches, one on each nut, on the inside of the door.

Brian

 

I got some flex head wrenches for Christmas so I will try when stove door is not 500.

 

FYI IS cats are in, went down and grabbed 2 today.

 

It's been discussed but I'd just like to comment on how effective loading north/south is. I'm on the 3 year plan and starting next year everything is cut to just under 18 inches. That way I can load either direction. This year I still have a bunch cut at 20. I grabbed some shorter splits and made a few n/s fires lately and man I've forgotten how the stove goes into beast mode when loaded n/s. It gets hotter, the cat seems to run better, and the burn lasts longer. When I do n/s loads I usually put some thin splits up top e/w to take up the room produced from the angled plate up top. Load about an inch from the top and let er rip.