Kenmore

This is your fault, all of you!

I picked up this old Sears for $99. Needs restoration but basicly intact. Grates are good, couple cracks in one firebrick. If anybody knows how to find out the year, it's model 119.100121. I have no guess. Very simple, seems almost art deco.
The old codger I got it from said "I didn't know the base was cracked." Yeah right, is that why you wrapped plastic around the base? I already brazed the break, seems to be holding. Whatever, I think it was worth the price.

These type of stoves are very common back home in Tennessee where I come from. They work really well with soft coal as well as hard coal. You can load it up and it will burn for days. These are very reliable, easy to run and maintain and best of all crank out the heat.
I would date this stove any where in the 1940's or 50's. Make sure all of the seams are sealed up. You should be very happy with it once you get it finished.

How cool is that! I've been keeping my eye for a "fixer upper," too. Not that I need one of course but just because.
Maybe I'll come across something I just can't refuse. Take care, Lisa

Thanks for kind words. I'll post pics when I get done with fixing it up.

Hey Dan,you're actually doin a project for YOU---outstanding --looking fwd to progress pix.Definetly worth the 99 bucks

Yeah! Good deal!

Definitely from a time when the Kenmore name actually meant quality ...

Dann757 wrote:This is your fault, all of you!

I picked up this old Sears for $99. Needs restoration but basicly intact. Grates are good, couple cracks in one firebrick. If anybody knows how to find out the year, it's model 119.100121. I have no guess. Very simple, seems almost art deco.
The old codger I got it from said "I didn't know the base was cracked." Yeah right, is that why you wrapped plastic around the base? I already brazed the break, seems to be holding. Whatever, I think it was worth the price.

look under warm morning stoves that is who made them for sears as well as sunbeam made some models to for them
there are a few member on here that have that same stove liconmania as a different model Kenmore his has the jacket around it . Year's would be from 40's to 60's

Thanks, it seems to be intact; except for lots of cleaning, one cracked firebrick, the spring that holds the air door to the ash door is shot, and if I really want to take it down for full restoration I'll have to bust a lot of the flat head machine screws I'm sure.

I played w/ an old stove last yr & found that grinding the flat head screws from the nut side eliminated a big risk on the cast parts--that's if you can get at them--I couldn't even find out what kind of stove it was,but somebody from Jersey saw it & loved it & bought it--it was real time consumeing but a lot of fun

You can also center punch and drill out the heads on the rest of them...

Hopefully you are going to hook this up and use it. It will be worth all the effort when you find out how much heat this thing can crank out.
A little suggestion. At the end of the project if you are going to use black paint, paint just the steel barrel. On the cast iron top and ash door use traditional stove polish on them. The stove polish will give those parts a nice glossy, grayish black finish. Plus the polish won't fade with exposure to heat. If you need to freshen it up all you do is rub some on, let it dry and buff it with a rag or 0000 steel wool. Of course you do this on a cold stove. Rutland or William's stove polish is easily available.

Just got it partly back together today. I only took the three nuts and bolts off the top and that gives access to the firebrick retainer that just lifts out. I'm not going total restoration on this heat can. Would not have taken too much more to go all the way.

There was a casting number on the firebricks; NATCO A.S.W. 16
(The can diameter is exactly 16"), 8 bricks to go around the inside.

I'll call around: "Hello I need some proprietary firebricks that were available fifty years ago please.......and I don't want to pay more than a buck apiece...."

I just brushed Rustoleum high heat all over it; recommends one coat, I'll have to do another coat and I should spray it if I get the energy. Sorry I missed the advice to put stove black on the cast parts.

I'll tell ya what, this thing's got one deep ass firebox!

Dann757 wrote:
I'll tell ya what, this thing's got one deep ass firebox!

Wow, now that's a firebox! How much coal do you think it can handle? It looks like it could burn for weeks after receiving a full load. Do you have a guess as to how many BTUs it put out? I'm Impressed you've done a lot in a very short time. Lisa

lowfog01 wrote:I'm Impressed you've done a lot in a very short time. Lisa

Nothing like a compliment from a very nice lady to make a guy's day! It took only the removal of the top retaining three 10-24 x 1/2" bolts to take this thing apart! After that just a lot of wire wheel and sanding work. Just fixed the ash door latch and the spring loaded air door! I didn't expect to see those little mechanisms come apart easily but they did. I'm looking around for those firebricks, no luck so far but some places have castable refractory cement. I glued the one brick back together with furnace cement- it held but I don't know if it will hold under heat. There might be firebrick out there someplace that will accommodate a 16" diameter. BTU's and capacity no idea-- it might take 50lbs+

This seems like a mass produced, cheaper quality stove. Very simple design, lines seem very deco. The castings are mostly bolt together and are relatively thin. The body is maybe 16 or 18 guage sheet steel with crimped seams. Seams are intact that's great! Grates are intact too. I don't think this unit saw a lot of heavy use, but it looks like the firebricks have seen some hot fires.

Looks real good. If the broken firebrick fit back in where they came out and stay put they should be okay. I had a very similar stove to yours back home. It was a "Tropicaire," made by the Cleveland Stove Co in Tennessee. The firebrick in it went almost to the top of the stove and it held 100 pounds of lump Bituminous. It managed to heat the upstairs of a Victorian Mansion that had 16 foot ceilings and huge drafty windows. Once it burned for almost a week during the fall when I loaded it with small pieces and fines left over from the year before. It wasn't fancy, but; it did the job well and it was worth the $60 dollars I spent on it and the time invested in cleaning it up. Several of the bricks in it were cracked, but; they were fine as long as they had weight on top of them from the brick above. There is so much mass in the brick that you don't have to worry too much about the barrel overheating, but; with high volatile bituminous coal I could get the cast iron top glowing a nice red if I forgot to cut back on the dampers after I loaded it up. After lighting these up it takes awhile for the bricks to get hot, but; once they do you have a heat machine. The bricks also tend to even out the heat output as they cool slowly after the fire has burned down to a low level.
The spring loaded damper will give you excellent control of the fire as long as the door fits nice and tight.