Questions About a Sears "Champion" Coal Stove/Furnace

I did NOT fill the hopper with coal, no. The majority of my coal is Stove coal though...I use the nut size to get it started.
It did NOT all burn up, it was hot in the middle, but some unburned coal on the outsides of the grate.
I will take pictures of the firebox again, if it goes out. I did last 6 hours or so, and maybe it's because I didn't have enough coal in there.

Fill it with Nut Coal including the Magazine Hopper...

I have about 50 lbs of nut coal....I have two TONS of stove coal.

Why fill it with nut? Am I already regretting my stove coal decision?

Townsend wrote:Wes,

That hopper fed stove of yours should do you just fine once you get the burn rate set. That hopper's a wonderful feature. I have a hopper fed stove as well as many others here on the site. Hopper's are a great convenience when it comes to hand fed stoves. In fact with a full hopper you'll be freed up to do just about anything, like say, grab a nice magazine from the bookshelf and do some reading. I love to read magazines after I've filled my hopper. In fact, I sometimes read magazines about my Hitzer hopper fed stove knowing that my hopper in my Hitzer will feed the stove for quite some time, thus allowing much magazine reading. Speaking about magazines, my girlfriend has too many girlie magazines as far as I'm concerned. They're the magazines that guys just don't care too much for, like 'People' or "Cosmo",...magazines like that. Give me magazines like 'Fur,Fish,Game' magazine, or 'National Geographic' magazine or 'Bituminous Weekly' magazine. Those kind of magazines to while away the time between heaping my hopper with coal.

Anyways, I hope your hopper is heaped full and your bathroom is chock full of magazines like 'The Anthracite Times' and 'Carbon Illustrated'.

Take care and good burning,

Townsend

If you are making fun of my calling the magazine a magazine instead of a,"hopper," here is a little bit of historical information for you. Magazine is the proper name for the now used improper term of Hopper for the device that feeds coal from above the fire. I don't know when or where the term got changed, but; hoppper is the wrong term for it. I guess it's okay to use it since everybody calls it that now. But at the same time there is nothing wrong with correcting a modern revision of an original term for something. Look at any literature, sales catalogs or descriptions of stoves before, say; 30 years ago and hopper was used when describing the box you fed coal into on an automatic stoker. The self feeding funnel was universally called a Magazine.

Nut is easier to learn to burn on...
The Stove Coal can be used once you can ride without the training wheels...
Just get a few bags of Blaschak Nut to learn on...
Once you can keep a fire going with that...
You can graduate to the Stove Coal...
What we are doing is eliminating the variables in this experiment...
As a novice coal burner we are trying to make the learning curve easier on you...
You need to load that sucker up with Nut and get it burning for longer than you have so far...
Did you check for any air infiltration in the stove body yet...
Once you know the air is all coming in thru the regulated ports...
We need to get a full deep fire bed going...
Take pictures as you go while you are starting and running the stove...
This will help figure out where the problems lie...
And the Stove Coal will not be wasted...

If you are making fun of my calling the magazine a magazine instead of a,"hopper," here is a little bit of historical information for you.

Just a bit of fun IMHO...
You are both correct...
I think some would be confused by magazine...
I think most people understand what a hopper is...
So long as they don't confuse it with a crapper...

(Engineering / Mechanical Engineering) a funnel-shaped chamber or reservoir from which solid materials can be discharged under gravity into a receptacle below, esp for feeding fuel to a furnace, loading a railway truck with grain, etc

Cape coaler you could easily mistake a, "hopper," for a, "crapper," because; you can feed corn through both of them.

"If you are making fun of my calling the magazine a magazine instead of a,"hopper," here is a little bit of historical information for you. Magazine is the proper name for the now used improper term of Hopper for the device that feeds coal from above the fire. I don't know when or where the term got changed, but; hoppper is the wrong term for it. I guess it's okay to use it since everybody calls it that now. But at the same time there is nothing wrong with correcting a modern revision of an original term for something. Look at any literature, sales catalogs or descriptions of stoves before, say; 30 years ago and hopper was used when describing the box you fed coal into on an automatic stoker. The self feeding funnel was universally called a Magazine."

Wsherrick,

I can assure you I wasn't making fun of you. Many of your posts are informative and I often enjoy reading them. Although, I must admit, I was having a little fun with your less than subtle method of advocating the use of proper terminology. Like you, I find etymology fascinating and I applaud your effort at educating others on the original nomenclature of coal stoves. It's interesting to see how words sometimes change with the times and what was once common becomes archaic. That's not to say that the term 'Magazine' is out of date at all, but rather just unfamiliar to many persons like myself who have just recently been introduced to the beauty and benefits of coal and coal burning. Thank you for bringing the term to my attention and its historic use in coal stove manufacture. Thanks as well for understanding the commonness of the term 'Hopper' for persons like myself who have only been familiar with the current manufactures use of it.

Therein lies the greatness of this website/forum. It is a place of all things coal related; from the history of its first uses to the proper and efficient burning thereof.

By no means are the following links an exhaustive study of the two words in question, especially for the esoteric nature of this subject. I just thought they would be informative.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hopper

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/magazine

Wsherrick, this last link certainly validates your usage. Nice work in keeping such rich terminology going!

http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/121/121.US.286.html

Language changes all the time, especially English.

When I was growing up "cool" meant a low temperature, and look at how many ways it is used today.

When Richard the third used the word "sad" he did not mean despondent, but meant serious.

Both Jail and goal, meaning prison, are pronounced the same.

Charles the second used "aint" all the time and I think it a shame it aint good English since it can convey subtleties of meaning available in no other way.

Translations of other languages can lead to significant changes of meaning, especially if the item being translated is very old. Example is the Bible.

So, since you didn't fill the hopper with coal, how much coal was on the fire?? a 12 hour burn usually will consume around 40# of coal in say a Mark 1 or Mark2. We need to know how much coal either by volume or weight was consumed over how many hours..

I'll preach again: a coal fire likes company: lots of coal in the fire.. Fill 'er up!! Especially with stove coal, the pieces are huge for that size of a stove/hopper and there will be lots of airspace around the pieces of coal.

I'd try getting the fire going well,, filling the hopper with your stove coal, mixed or topped off with some nut coal.

Where did the 2 tons of Stove coal come from? which company/mine or breaker supplied the coal?

Greg L

As Greg said, fill up that thing above your stove bed that holds coal and deposits it via a chute.

I don't think stove size coal is the way to go with that stove. Get a few bags of either nut or pea size and load up that hopper once you get the coal fire going. The smaller size will feed and lay much easier.

That hopper is meant to be filled. I have both a Harman Mark I and a Hitzer 50-93. The Mark I, though it has no hopper, is a fine stove. I switched over to the Hitzer recently and I can not get over how much easier it is as a hand fed stove with the addition of that hopper.

Load up that magazine (That was for you Wsherrick) and give it a shot (pun intended) and tell us the results.

Townsend

What exactly is stove coal?

Stove is a size term used in coal sales. It is generally the size of a fist or baseball.

Here are some other size terms and their corresponding measurments.

Broken (4" x 8")

Stove (2-7/16" x 1 5/8")

Nut (1-5/8 " x 13/16")

Pea (13/16" x 9/16")

Buckwheat (9/16" x 5/16")

Rice (5/16" x 3/16")

Barley (3/16" x 3/32")

Buckwheat #4 (3/32" x 3/64")

Buckwheat #5 (3/64" x 100M)

Thank you Townsend for your kind and gentlemanly reply. It is deeply appreciated.
Thanks also for the page from the Court Case you presented. It just goes to show you how long ago these items for coal stoves were thought of, developed and marketed. So anyone that thinks that their brand new fireplace insert is super advanced or modern because it is equipped with a magazine/"hopper" would be surprised to learn that it was perfected and marketed back in the mid 1880's.

Sorry Wess for getting off the subject here. Please keep us updated on your progress.

No sweat, you guys are a riot. I have been so busy that I haven't messed with the stove in a couple of days. I'll prolly give it another go tomorrow after I go buy some more natural charcoal.