Production Woodstock IS

Responded to your earlier message, thanks again for your help.

 

Feeling better about the issue now, easily repaired. 1st year production glitch

 

Not sure every IS stove is having this problem. But if you do experience it, the fix is fairly easy.

 

My issue was the same as Fanaticals, the seized up parts were on the forward end of the carriage. The heat was responsible and the steel moved slightly. The fix is minor, if it happens to anyone else you can see the problem right under the top cover.

 

UNH, great looking stove, really like the personal touches, very unique.
The colors go well in that room and I like the corner install, the slate looks great against the lighter colors.
Thanks for the heads up on the paint curing tips. If anything, WS should add that to their directions
just so folks avoid leaving anything on the paint.
And lastly, heads up on the carriage assembly seizing up when you burn a little hotter and longer.

 

Any chance you have a photo or maybe a description of what the end of that operating handle looks like? I mean inside the stove. Can you see the end of the operating rod (the one that sticks through the stove itself) inside the firebox? I am curious as to where a hole drilled straight through the operating shaft would end up inside the stove: in the firebox or somewhere else?

Brian

 

BDF
This is not the greatest shots, sorry
Top pic is where the rod comes into the upper part of the stove and controls the carriage. The bottom pic shows the by-pass handle on the outside of the stove to show proximity.
Closest access to the firebox for a probe would probably be about 2-3 inches below the handle in the same line as the rod going through the stoves side.

 

I think I missed it. What was the actual fix in this case? And which part was bound up?

 

Brian,

If you look at both pics addressed to BDF above your post you can see where my problem was.
The plate that carries the cat in it is hooked onto the piece of round stock, this is the piece that slides back and forth above the firebox.
If you see where the hook latches onto the round stock there is a 1/4" welded washer attached to the round stock. Where the hook and washer meet was where I was seized up. My washer on the left was welded on crooked and the hook on the plate moved with the heat and forced the two pieces of steel together. I'm not sure if this was the same parts that fanatical had a problem with or not.

 

Great- thanks!

So it looks like the operating shaft that passes through the stove wall enters the area that feeds the airwash to the stove. In other words, the box that is just above the door opening and below the sled (the part that moves back and forth)?

It looks like there is a piece of linkage that rotates about the operating rod itself, and that has a ring welded onto it that actually carries the sled through its arc when the operating rod (and handle of course) are moved. Yep, I can see where a little shifting in the parts due to thermal expansion could cause binding. The good news is that as someone else already said, I think that assembly will wear in, increase the clearance and get better with time.

Thanks again,
Brian

 

I couldn't have said it any better, you got it right.

 

First time I have gotten the cat to glow! Stove top sitting at 550.

 

I just looked at mine, nada. Stove 600

 

Wow! During testing I had the stove top MUCH hotter (and definitely hotter than I would run my own stove) and never saw that. Probably not a bad thing though, it's what I would expect to see.

 

Mine did that also. Maybe 4 splits on a small bed of coals and the cat took off with a dark firebox. Everything was good... Still experimenting.

 

Where did you have the air control set during this and what fuel were you using?

 

You have to actually bend down and look up into the firebox to see it and the firebox probably needs to be pretty dark to see it. I saw the glow from the cat after I loaded 4 splits of really dry cherry on a small bed of coals and cut the air down to about 5%. stove was heating up pretty good at this point from the cat burn alone.

 

I think the ceiling / sled design is different from the last one I had. I was looking closely at it from the inside last night.

 

Similar to what Unhdsm said, I had about 6 smaller splits of pine. I had slowly been reducing the air setting and first noticed it when I had it around the 1/4 setting.

I also noticed some flames at the very top of the fire box in the area where the smoke moves to the back of the firebox. Would this be creosote burning up that had built up on the stove internals during low and slow shoulder season burns?

 

Right, I think with the sled assembly there's only one exhaust opening in the top of the stove, and the cat is moved into and out of the exhaust stream. So they include a surface meter (like they did with my Fireview and Keystone) but it is to be used on the pipe, not the stove top? Their procedure for the stone stoves is to have the meter on the stove top, then close the bypass when the stove top is 250. But I generally go by the flue and "exhaust probe" meters, keeping them at a certain temp for a certain amount of time that I know will achieve light-off, since the stone stove top lags behind the internal temps of the stove and I can usually light off below 250 stove top.
I'm curious, has anyone measured the distance from the front of the stove (where I believe the probe hole is) to the edge of the cat? Would the 8" Fireview probe be long enough to position the tip of the probe over the top face of the cat, and how close would it be to the surface of the cat? I have the probe tip about 1/2" away from the cat on the Dutchwest and it will read about 1400 give or take, when the cat is glowing in the first several hours of the burn.

I'd think that having the meter on the stove top above the cat would give you a better chance of determining weather the cat is still burning; If all of the stove top and upper sides of the firebox are close in temp maybe the cat isn't burning. If the temp directly above the cat is much hotter, it's probably burning. In either case though, that area will be a bit hotter due to the fact that it's close to where heat is exiting the box.
In my second burn of the season, Saturday night, I lit off the diesel-foil cat in the Dutchwest with just over 300 on the probe.

Like the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen?

I don't know how big an area you're going to heat with the IS but I'd think a 12-hour load schedule should be well within reason, according to what the guys are saying. Heck, although I'm only heating 1000 sq.ft. (not real tight,) I load twice a day unless it gets pretty cold out, and that's with the little Keystone with only about 1.4 cu.ft. of useable firebox. As I said, room temp never fluctuates more than a few degrees, even though stove temps range widely over the course of a full-load burn.

Yeah, that looks GREAT!

Another good-looking setup! All the custom options the buyer can do really set this stove apart from the rest of the plain-jane steel boxes.