Old pilgrim coal cookstove

Hello everyone this is my first post here on the forum! I just fired off my new to me harman magnafire insert this morning. I'm hoping it heats my 1550 sq ft house better than my propane furnace!! Anyway my real question here is that at my hunting camp we have a pilgrim cook stove from 1935 in the kitchen, as long as I remember we only burned wood in it but the old timers said they used to burn coal regularly. The grates are still functional but the stove is not tight by any means. As in it fills the place with smoke when initially lighting but clears up and drafts ok once warm. Do u think it is safe to throw coal in it anymore?? Thanks!! Brinton

Welcome,
It should not take to much to go through the stove and make sure it is in the condition to burn coal safely. Check for cracks, seal all the seams, stove pipe is screwed together and connected correctly, co detector, ect. ect.

Make sure the ash is cleaned out of the stove, those cook stoves had several passages and flat areas that often need a tool like a business card with wire into the face of it for dragging ash and such out of the stove. It is probaly just plugged up. Once drafting properly minor leaks in the stove only let air in.

ok ill check it out with a fine tooth comb when I go up in february. Hoping to be able to burn coal in her again since the cabin is usually about 16-20 degrees when I arrive and when the wood fires go out the first night it drops back to about 40. Would be nice to have some steady heat. When burning it hot with wood, sometimes the tops warp(expand) enough that you can see slightly down into the firebox but nothing smoke wise comes out.

Welcome to the FORUM. BB, throw a couple pix of the old girl on here. I'm curious

Not to sound dumb but how do I put pics up??

When you post a reply, below the box you will see an upload attachment button, go there and then browse your computer picture files.

Hell BB, that don't sound dumb. Most of us on here just TRY to sound intelligent--the rest of us--ask questions!

BlackBetty06 wrote:Not to sound dumb but how do I put pics up??

Here she is, she's a little banged up but in her prime burned coal, heated water with a water jacket and had propane burners as well

Very nice!

I could see that water jacket being very convenient, is it still usable to heat water ?

No unfortunately the water jacket cracked on the pilgrim. Then we used a bucket a day to heat the water, but do to the iron content in our water( looks like tropicana orange juice) the relief valve clogged up and one night for some unknown reason built pressure, blew the pipes apart, soaked the stove in ice cold well water and split the stove right in half. That was quite the noise, lol, so that was the end of coal water heating at our camp.

BlackBetty06 wrote:No unfortunately the water jacket cracked on the pilgrim. Then we used a bucket a day to heat the water, but do to the iron content in our water( looks like tropicana orange juice) the relief valve clogged up and one night for some unknown reason built pressure, blew the pipes apart, soaked the stove in ice cold well water and split the stove right in half. That was quite the noise, lol, so that was the end of coal water heating at our camp.

Wow, that ain't good, did you take any pictures of the broken stove ?

No I was actually only 7 at the time but remember it clear as day!! The stove was buried in the woods. Unfortunately no pics of the carnage