Glenwood #30 Ready for Install

Well here is my take on the Old Stoves as I see it.
Back in the day of ...THIS COAL IS ALL YA GOT ...MAKE IT WORK BETTER...AND THEY DID!..then came along the Dude in PA that drilled that damn oil well ...lol
After that folks got LAZY, ITS A HUMAN THING, WHY FUSS WITH A COAL FIRE, CARRYING A BUCKET FULL OF COAL FROM OUTSIDE AND DEAL WITH ASH WHEN IT IS ZERO, WHEN I CAN BURN OIL ...THAT IS, CHEAP, NO FUSS AND CLEANER FOR THE HOME.
In the 40's the Gov't even wanted the general population to go back to coal to save oil for the war effort and in the 70's oil crisis folks looked for alternate heat and the desighning the modern coal stoves of today began, but they didnt think back to THE DAY WHEN COAL WAS ALL THERE WAS.. and didnt have the resources we have today like the internet and dismissed the old tech. of our Great Grandfathers as what to them was exactly that, it was OLD TECH. AND NOT WORTH REVIEWING and tried to remake the wheel....well I guess ya would call it a square wheel.
My Brother has a Harman Stoker that burns hard coal and he loves it...until the POWER GOES OUT!
I had onna my Gals at work show me her slip the other day from the oil delivery she just got , $420 for 150 gallon of oil that will only last her a month when it gets cold!!!!!!!!!THATS CRAZY!...how can folks on fixed incomes heating with straight oil even keep there houses livable at those prices ???...I am Guesstimating round 2 ton of Nut will be plenty here in the Glenwood for a little under $400 for all winter, Nut at my Coal Guys place is $185/ton.....
Just my view on the subject,
later,
Tim

Tim wrote:Well here is my take on the Old Stoves as I see it.
Back in the day of ...THIS COAL IS ALL YA GOT ...MAKE IT WORK BETTER...AND THEY DID!..then came along the Dude in PA that drilled that damn oil well ...lol
After that folks got LAZY, ITS A HUMAN THING, WHY FUSS WITH A COAL FIRE, CARRYING A BUCKET FULL OF COAL FROM OUTSIDE AND DEAL WITH ASH WHEN IT IS ZERO, WHEN I CAN BURN OIL ...THAT IS, CHEAP, NO FUSS AND CLEANER FOR THE HOME.
In the 40's the Gov't even wanted the general population to go back to coal to save oil for the war effort and in the 70's oil crisis folks looked for alternate heat and the desighning the modern coal stoves of today began, but they didnt think back to THE DAY WHEN COAL WAS ALL THERE WAS.. and didnt have the resources we have today like the internet and dismissed the old tech. of our Great Grandfathers as what to them was exactly that, it was OLD TECH. AND NOT WORTH REVIEWING and tried to remake the wheel....well I guess ya would call it a square wheel.
My Brother has a Harman Stoker that burns hard coal and he loves it...until the POWER GOES OUT!
I had onna my Gals at work show me her slip the other day from the oil delivery she just got , $420 for 150 gallon of oil that will only last her a month when it gets cold!!!!!!!!!THATS CRAZY!...how can folks on fixed incomes heating with straight oil even keep there houses livable at those prices ???...I am Guesstimating round 2 ton of Nut will be plenty here in the Glenwood for a little under $400 for all winter, Nut at my Coal Guys place is $185/ton.....
Just my view on the subject,
later,
Tim

Tim, Just to play devils advocate a bit. If I was thinking to design a new stove and looked back on one of these, the first thing I would see is how darned hard they are to make and how much money it would cost me to build it and figure there would be no way I could ever sell a stove at the price I'd have to charge. Then, how the heck would I distribute that stove? Look at the packaging I'd have to get it to distributors. All the bits and parts and easy to break pieces? That would be a warranty nightmare! I don't think there is any engineering data out there about how efficient these stoves are, so no reason to go down that road. There's another aspect that today is hard to get a handle on. The old stoves we have today have already passed through the filter of time. They have been around for all those years and are still running well. How many didn't run well when first made 100 or so years ago? Those have all been thrown out.

I'm not on a fixed income - yet - And I can't afford to run my oil furnace at the current prices. It would cost me $3K or more a winter to run my oil furnace. It will cost me around $800 to run my coal stove. PLUS! with my coal stove, my house is nice and toasty! I keep the house in the 70's. I can't even do that with my oil furnace! I try to keep the house around 72, but it does go up and down from there, especially in this up and down weather. Once the outside temps drop down to below freezing, it actually gets easier to run my coal stove and keep the house within a reasonable temperature range. I can't imagine what retired folk do for heat if they are stuck with the oil bill...

dj

I started to write a long post to answer all of these questions, but; decided not to. Basically, modern day box coal stoves are an after thought in the post 1970's wood stove boom. Look how many wood stoves are on the market compared to coal stoves and they are all boxes some are fancier than others but they are all the same boxes. The current models of both wood and coal stoves are all based on what was once the cheapest of all stoves. The six plate box stove. The six plate box stove was intended to be cheap and portable for people moving all of their worldly belongings in a wagon and setting up a homestead somewhere. This basic form was easy to imitate during the sudden demand in the 1970's for wood stoves. Anybody who could weld could make a box out of steel. The only difference between the new ones and the old ones are that there may be glass in the loading door and gaskets to help it be more air tight. So the argument that the stove designs that weren't efficient were the ones that were thrown out isn't totally true. You can still buy a brand new six plate box stove that is just like the ones from the 1850's However, the argument that a base burner would be a lot more expensive to make these days is true as well.
To fill the niche market for coal stoves all one had to do is throw some grates and some bricks in it and call it a coal stove.
The art of making stoves is a lost art. Pure and simple. There is plenty of information in the records of the Patent Office on all the stoves of yesteryear and plenty of books on the proper way to burn various kinds of fuel. This information might be hard to get, but; it is there. I can't believe nor can be convinced that the current makers of coal stoves have any interest or are concerned about the best form for burning coal. If they were they wouldn't be making boxes. The only reason they are made is because the public buys them, has been buying them since the 70's. They buy them because they are new and you all know that anything new just has to be better than anything that is old. Since cylinder stoves are old fashioned and no longer made and the box ones are, then the box ones have to be better by default. Planned obsolescence is now ingrained into the brain of the consumer and is now accepted as the norm. Go to any current stove dealer and ask them what a base burner is and see if they know. The only exception that I can think of is Larry Trainer who in the new era of stove making made a proper round, upright cylinder for the burning of Anthracite.
The only coal stove made it from the old era to the post 70's era was the Locke Stove, i.e. Warm Morning and these stoves were specifically designed for Bituminous as fuel. They are still among the best stoves for that fuel as well.
So in summery, I can be proud of my Glenwood Base Heater and be an advocate for these stoves without any apologies, caveats about what came after or acquiescence to popular opinion. The facts plainly speak for themselves. And the coal burning public should be made aware of it. Now others are discovering how wonderful these stoves are.
Well, I went longer than I wanted to. Please forgive my rambling on.

Sorry,
Did not intend to start an incident.
If I could delete the post I WOULD.

Tim wrote:Sorry,
Did not intend to start an incident.
If I could delete the post I WOULD.

No you didn't start an incident. Here we are all friends. We are just having a discussion that's all. Sometimes I can be a little forceful at stating a point of view because I am very passionate when in discussion mode. Dij was just being Devil's Advocate like he said. Don't feel bad you should be glad that people care enough to discuss coal related things. That is how learning is done.
This discussion has been going off and on for a long time and it probably will for a long time to come.
You have just discovered what Dj knows and I know and hopefully others will find out. He as well as me and a lot of other people here share in your excitement about your new stove and they want to hear about it just like I do. No apologies needed.
If anybody should apologize it should be me because the last thing I would ever want to do is hurt some one's feelings or upset them. If I did so, please accept my apology.

Thanks Will!

wsherrick wrote:I started to write a long post to answer all of these questions, but; decided not to. Basically, modern day box coal stoves are an after thought in the post 1970's wood stove boom. Look how many wood stoves are on the market compared to coal stoves and they are all boxes some are fancier than others but they are all the same boxes. The current models of both wood and coal stoves are all based on what was once the cheapest of all stoves. The six plate box stove. The six plate box stove was intended to be cheap and portable for people moving all of their worldly belongings in a wagon and setting up a homestead somewhere. This basic form was easy to imitate during the sudden demand in the 1970's for wood stoves. Anybody who could weld could make a box out of steel. The only difference between the new ones and the old ones are that there may be glass in the loading door and gaskets to help it be more air tight. So the argument that the stove designs that weren't efficient were the ones that were thrown out isn't totally true. You can still buy a brand new six plate box stove that is just like the ones from the 1850's However, the argument that a base burner would be a lot more expensive to make these days is true as well.
To fill the niche market for coal stoves all one had to do is throw some grates and some bricks in it and call it a coal stove.
The art of making stoves is a lost art. Pure and simple. There is plenty of information in the records of the Patent Office on all the stoves of yesteryear and plenty of books on the proper way to burn various kinds of fuel. This information might be hard to get, but; it is there. I can't believe nor can be convinced that the current makers of coal stoves have any interest or are concerned about the best form for burning coal. If they were they wouldn't be making boxes. The only reason they are made is because the public buys them, has been buying them since the 70's. They buy them because they are new and you all know that anything new just has to be better than anything that is old. Since cylinder stoves are old fashioned and no longer made and the box ones are, then the box ones have to be better by default. Planned obsolescence is now ingrained into the brain of the consumer and is now accepted as the norm. Go to any current stove dealer and ask them what a base burner is and see if they know. The only exception that I can think of is Larry Trainer who in the new era of stove making made a proper round, upright cylinder for the burning of Anthracite.
The only coal stove made it from the old era to the post 70's era was the Locke Stove, i.e. Warm Morning and these stoves were specifically designed for Bituminous as fuel. They are still among the best stoves for that fuel as well.
So in summery, I can be proud of my Glenwood Base Heater and be an advocate for these stoves without any apologies, caveats about what came after or acquiescence to popular opinion. The facts plainly speak for themselves. And the coal burning public should be made aware of it. Now others are discovering how wonderful these stoves are.
Well, I went longer than I wanted to. Please forgive my rambling on.

What's needed today is for someone with technical expertise to dig up those old stove designs from the public patents and adapt them to modern day manufacturing. Enter the design in a solid modeling capable Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool and can do design analysis, thermal efficiency, gas flow and produce production drawings. For the experienced engineer with access to the CAD programs used by the Aerospace industry it would be a piece of cake. For others it would be impossible, the learning curve way to long and the CAD software runs in the $100K+ range.

Once you have CNC production files, shopping the worldwide market would likely get the stove component pieces affordable. Final assembly could be done in the USA. My bet would be a newly built base burner stove could be sold for less than the price of restored vintage ones. Of course that price excludes the design cost recovery.

wsherrick wrote: So the argument that the stove designs that weren't efficient were the ones that were thrown out isn't totally true.

William,

That wasn't quite my point, partly but not completely. To clarify a bit, let me put it in different terms. What we don't know is how many of the stoves made didn't work as well as ours. Take the Glenwood No. 6 for example. We don't know if there was a 2%, 5% or whatever rate of stoves they put into the market that didn't work as well as the ones we have. It's impossible in a stove that complicated that every stove made ran perfectly. Any of them ever ship with the bottom door not seating right? How many shipped with a hidden casting defect and some critical part of the stove broke 5, 10 or even 50 years after being put in service. What we have today are stoves that have already passed 100 years or so of inservice testing. Thats what I was saying is a hard thing to get a handle on...

Oh and Tim, Don't worry, you didn't create an "incident" - You gave a few of us a way to have a really fun discussion... LOL

dj

dlj wrote:

wsherrick wrote: So the argument that the stove designs that weren't efficient were the ones that were thrown out isn't totally true.

William,

That wasn't quite my point, partly but not completely. To clarify a bit, let me put it in different terms. What we don't know is how many of the stoves made didn't work as well as ours. Take the Glenwood No. 6 for example. We don't know if there was a 2%, 5% or whatever rate of stoves they put into the market that didn't work as well as the ones we have. It's impossible in a stove that complicated that every stove made ran perfectly. Any of them ever ship with the bottom door not seating right? How many shipped with a hidden casting defect and some critical part of the stove broke 5, 10 or even 50 years after being put in service. What we have today are stoves that have already passed 100 years or so of inservice testing. Thats what I was saying is a hard thing to get a handle on...

Oh and Tim, Don't worry, you didn't create an "incident" - You gave a few of us a way to have a really fun discussion... LOL

dj

Stoves that were defective in some aspect of material quality or broke during use because the designers didn't take owner abuse into account and later had to beef up something such as a door hinge or other critical part. Those didn't last due to the simple learning process by trial and error. Oh okay, I can see your point there. One of the best means of finding out about a product is to field test it I guess. Our stoves had all the field testing done a Century Ago.
So, what if I had the wild idea of taking my stove along with some others such as the Glenwood No 111., for example; and go to a foundry and contract them to make patterns from the existing stoves. And then start casting exact copies of the originals. I know they would be reproductions, but; they would be for people who wanted them for use rather than as a collectors item. I don't think any one owns the patents or patterns to these stoves. I wonder how much it would cost to simply reproduce a stove in that manner. It probably would be expensive at first, but; after the set up was done then the cost would probably drop a lot.
Of course there is the infernal impediment of the Government to deal with I guess as well. I just wonder?

I would wager that the most inexpensive way to make a new base burner would be to convert Larry Trainer's Chubby stove to a base burner. I would think by adding the base burner section under the existing ash pan area and coping the existing rear exhaust pipe system of the Glenwood you have a pretty good base burning stove. He would have all the patterns of the existing stove so it shouldn't be too expensive to make the additions. What do you guys think about this?

JB Sparks wrote:I would wager that the most inexpensive way to make a new base burner would be to convert Larry Trainer's Chubby stove to a base burner. I would think by adding the base burner section under the existing ash pan area and coping the existing rear exhaust pipe system of the Glenwood you have a pretty good base burning stove. He would have all the patterns of the existing stove so it shouldn't be too expensive to make the additions. What do you guys think about this?

I think that would be a very neat and worthwhile project.

wsherrick wrote:

JB Sparks wrote:I would wager that the most inexpensive way to make a new base burner would be to convert Larry Trainer's Chubby stove to a base burner. I would think by adding the base burner section under the existing ash pan area and coping the existing rear exhaust pipe system of the Glenwood you have a pretty good base burning stove. He would have all the patterns of the existing stove so it shouldn't be too expensive to make the additions. What do you guys think about this?

I think that would be a very neat and worthwhile project.

What kind of EPA emission requirements are there for coal burning stoves?

I've never seen up close and personal one of the Chubby stoves. There could still be some pretty big changes, I don't know how many of the original molds you'd be able to use. The bottom and rear section of the Chubby would probably have to change quite a bit. I think you may still be looking at a significant number of new molds. I'd have to see a Chubby...

Then you'd have to see if it really made a difference for that stove. As I understand it, the Chubby is pretty efficient as is...

dj

wsherrick wrote: So, what if I had the wild idea of taking my stove along with some others such as the Glenwood No 111., for example; and go to a foundry and contract them to make patterns from the existing stoves. And then start casting exact copies of the originals. I know they would be reproductions, but; they would be for people who wanted them for use rather than as a collectors item. I don't think any one owns the patents or patterns to these stoves. I wonder how much it would cost to simply reproduce a stove in that manner. It probably would be expensive at first, but; after the set up was done then the cost would probably drop a lot.
Of course there is the infernal impediment of the Government to deal with I guess as well. I just wonder?

This could be a bit more difficult than it seems on the surface. For small parts of a stove that you need to replace, you can take the broken part, make a mold from it and cast another part. But when you get to some of the really big parts it gets a little more difficult. You have to remember the mold is made larger than the cast final part. When you pour the molten metal into the mold and then it cools to room temperature, the metal shrinks. Depends on the alloy being cast, but generally it's about an 1/8 inch per foot. On some of the large cast parts on these stoves, that gets significant. When you are trying to marry all the parts together to make a nice tight stove, then you may have some problems. There are ways around this, but they get pricey. You still have all the finish work to do on the mating surfaces, especially on the air-tight surfaces.

dj

Another thing is that the original high end stove foundries had specially designed planing machines to make those tight fitting parts. I don't know if such equipment is still around. I read a period story about the Detroit Stove Works and their manufacturing process. They wrote at length about the closely guarded patents on the planing machines and methods they used to insure an air tight fit of the doors. dampers, seams, etc.
Such methods are probably lost forever now.