Filling Alaska Channing III hopper for the first time.

This year I was a little more creative when I filled the channing's hopper for the first time. Last year when I started pouring the coal in the hopper I ended up with about 7-8lbs of coal in the ash pan. So this year I crumpled up some news paper and pluged the gap between the top of the grate and opening avove th efeed paddle. It was quite successful as no coal ended up in th eash pan. I finished filling the hopper and I removed the paper, then shoveled some coal onto the grate. Presto a full hopper with no mess in the botom of the stove

Nice idea! I hate the sound of those little black pieces of gold hitting the ash pan.

Just fired up my brandy new Channing today. Burning off the paint as I type....

I used a piece of Stove pipe, seperated it and formed a spring loaded "U", worked great, trust me I needed it to help out with my first (6) attempts at starting a Coal fire.