Like to add slightly off topic pushing your ashes back before each reload is important as you will have to empty your ashes less often if you do this. I push the ashes back against the back wall pretty good and work them pretty good to compress out as much air as I can. Then alot of times I leave a groove down the middle for air flow back to the back of the stove , when I flatten the ashes back out and pull larger hot coals forward to the front of the stove.
I just use a garden hoe. I'll try to find some copper tubing that's big enough inside dia to fit over the wood handle. My stove is barrel shaped so the coals are always at the back end of the firebox when its burned low enough to need coal raking. Probably a cultivator would work better. But this works fine.
I started making them out of Amazon shipping boxes...by the time the coals are raked out, the fire has been automatically re-lit...endless supply of free coal rake/fire starter material... JK
The dealer I bought my PE stove from includes one of these with every stove and said it's the only tool you need with the stove. Id have to say he is technically right.
Here are my go to tools. The rake on the left came with the wood stove the guy said your gonna need this and handed it to me. He said that he made it himself many years ago. The poker was made by my grandfather it’s a bit long but keeps my hands away from the heat.
Me too- a standard, full- size garden hoe. But I use one with a sheet metal (steel) handle and just let the hot coals blister the paint off of it. Sure it stinks for a while but eventually all the paint is gone. The long handle also allows me to stand well back from the stove when it is full of coals and in 'Vulcan's Forge' mode; the IR coming off the coals will, and has, given me a sunburn on the backs of my hands using shorter tools. Brian
We grabed a tool set from WS when we picked up the IS. The toothless ash rake (and a glove) is perfect for getting ashes through the grate and most general poking tasks. The shovel has its uses but with an ash tray you don’t need it as much. The third tool is a poker which is OK, but I don’t need it and do need a small ash broom. I have one, but it doesn’t match the set.
We just got a children's metal garden rake. Need to burn the yellow paint off outside. Do you think it would work to paint the handle black with high temp paint?
Anything that goes into the stove and gets pushed around in there probably isn't going to look nice for very long. The paint on mine (and the shovel) can't really even be seen anymore. I doubt there's any left on the shovel.
I think it depends on how you run your stove and use that tool. No paint would survive on my hoe handle but that is because I occasionally rake deep coals beds and the temperature of the handle, when reaching into the back of the stove, is far higher than any paint would withstand. But you could try it,although if it does burn off, it is going to smoke for a while after you are done using it. When my two hoes had paint on the handles, and they got really hot, they would smoke bad enough that I put them outside after using them inside the stove for a few cycles. Just leaving raw steel should not be much of a problem other than it is not really great looking if you want to have it on display around the stove. It will end up being raw steel with a certain amount of surface rust on it. Then again, I have a 6' long, orange handled (mostly) garden hoe standing in my living room. Not attractive but not ugly enough for me to do anything else with it such as cover it or make a covered rack for it. <shrugs shoulders> Everyone has to measure his / her own level of 'tolerable ugliness'. Apparently the hoe is not too ugly for my wife either 'cause it is still there, while the one- gallon Shop Vac I had mounted to the living room wall to clean up around the stove WAS too ugly 'cause one day I came home to find it was no longer on the wall..... Brian
I’ll use both in the same capacity to bring the coals to be spread out. The stainless steel one being unpainted is best for the quick job overall. Downside is its short, welding gloves required. The black shovel is used mainly when I am to get them ashes out. Smoked on me pretty good one time as I was just raking the coal bed ready for another load. Probably could use some more burning off the end too.
I don't know if paint wood preserve the wooden handle or not. I doubt it. This is what my kids rake looked like after a couple months of use, handle getting burned up. This is what it looks like now, no paint left on The Rake This is what the wood handle looks like under the slip-on tubing after about 4 years
I like that idea! I just figure it may be a little difficult to find kids sized stuff unless its sold by a special shop which may drive its price up...
The only other thing that I can think of is if you wrapped the wooden handle with a couple layers of metal foil duct tape it might Shield it enough to keep from burning it up. I cut my handle down on the kids rake so that it is 23 in Long, instead of 44 in Long, might be able to take that cut off piece, go to the Home Depot or Hardware in find a piece of tubing that it will slip into , could be conduit or some steel or aluminum, taking the peace with you would be much better than trying to measure
My wife absolutely HATES my 1 gal Shop Vac. She pretty much hates all my Shop Vacs. ;-) I think Stove Black , might work ?? For a while anyway. The part that is deepest in the coals and firebox will take the brunt of the heat and abuse.
I was thinking this too! One thing though is if this is done, you don’t wanna unravel the whole tape part off the backing, the foil tends to curl even worse after that. A little at a time works best!
