Picked up a Radiant Home Air Blast No. 264A...have some Q's?

I'd be VERY cautious about using a hammer and chisel on bolts and nuts in a CAST IRON stove.. The cast iron tends to be brittle
and a good whack with a hammer and chisel will break the cast iron.. Been there done that!!

The bolts are made out of steel, and are softer and more malleable than the iron, and therefore put up a fight.
IF you can back up the nut or bolt you are trying to cut with a hammer or a piece of heavy steel, so the impact is taken
up by the backing piece, then a hammer and chisel will be a good tool.

I'd use a small dremel cut-0ff wheel and cut the bolt in two. Or use a grinder to make a flat and drill the heads off the bolts..

These old iron stoves are beautiful, but like many pretty ladies with personalities , they are brittle and easily broken..

I used to buy and sell wood burning parlor stoves, made from cast iron.. and I've broken my share of cast iron..
So take your time, use a propane torch to heat a bolt/nut, then cool it with ATF [automatic transmission fluid] this works very well
The ATF or other light-weight oil is sucked into the bolt/nut threads as the heated nut cools from the application of oil, Several
heating and cooling cycles with ATF or other motor oil works the best..

Recently several antique car clubs have done studies with the various available rust-penetrating oils and home-mixed oils
And a 50/50 mix of acetone and ATF works SIGNIFICANTLY better than any off-the-shelf product..
I still use PB Blaster a lot, the aerosol can is very convenient, but a small brush and the ATF/Acetone works very well.

Hope this helps
Greg L

Some early dis-assembly pictures.

here's some more pictures.

wow.... great stuff!!! look at that firepot!!! See those slits up the sides... "brilliant" for bit coal!!! I cant wait to see more of this stove... show me how the heated secondary air is lead into those slits please? gosh this is great stuff that cannot be seen anywhere else on the web.... priceless stuff McGiever!!!

That is one wild looking firepot Two spinners on the corners, slots going 3/4 way up the pot, thick, thick cast iron. That baby should be able to burn anything you throw in it

That fire pot was a unique design for Radiant Homes. It is specifically designed to burn low grades of Bituminous Coal. The slots infuse the fire bed with hot secondary air to eliminate soot and smoke due to incomplete combustion. The only way to achieve this with Bituminous is to have two criterion met at the same time. You must have enough air to burn the hydrocarbons AND the air MUST be hot enough to ignite the gasses on contact. You can have enough air, but; if it is not hot enough it will not burn the gasses but rather impede combustion as the fire must heat the air first before it can have any beneficial effect. In this case the gasses are lost, unburned up the chimney in a large degree.
If you look at the picture of the stove's bottom you will see two draft controls at each corner of the base. These drafts control the amount of secondary air you put into the fire. If you look closely the draft controls are attached to a round manifold at the bottom of the fire pot. The vertical tubes come out of this manifold to send the secondary air into the slots all around the fire pot.
By the way here is the same stove in it's more common radiant configuration.

I would also like to call the grate design to your attention. Notice the grate is made with restricted air flow, yet it is still a rotating shaker grate. This a, "Lignite Grate." A grate made to burn grades of sub bituminous and brown coal (lignite). No stove today even comes close to these specifics in design for fuel type. Then you had options to adapt your stove to exactly what you needed for whatever fuel you used.
To burn anthracite you would have to get a standard coal grate to use. The grate shown here would overly restrict the flow of primary air to the fire, necessary for proper anthracite combustion.

wsherrick wrote:That fire pot was a unique design for Radiant Homes. It is specifically designed to burn low grades of Bituminous Coal. The slots infuse the fire bed with hot secondary air to eliminate soot and smoke due to incomplete combustion. The only way to achieve this with Bituminous is to have two criterion met at the same time. You must have enough air to burn the hydrocarbons AND the air MUST be hot enough to ignite the gasses on contact. You can have enough air, but; if it is not hot enough it will not burn the gasses but rather impede combustion as the fire must heat the air first before it can have any beneficial effect. In this case the gasses are lost, unburned up the chimney in a large degree.
If you look at the picture of the stove's bottom you will see two draft controls at each corner of the base. These drafts control the amount of secondary air you put into the fire. If you look closely the draft controls are attached to a round manifold at the bottom of the fire pot. The vertical tubes come out of this manifold to send the secondary air into the slots all around the fire pot.
By the way here is the same stove in it's more common radiant configuration.

OK, this is what im interested in william (i think your name is William anyways )... I wish someone would take some seriously detailed pics of inside, You describe this well above so i kinda "get it", but more pics would be great! This stove sounds epic for Bit burning and why where these not not mass produced then and NOW ??? Bit coal is like free for christ sakes

Will, do you know if a fire pot like this one (having vertical slots) could work for over the fire gasses burning when burning anth?
I'm planning to make a refractory liner for the Sunnyside and it would be easy to make vertical slots. Air would come from the regular primary air controls.
Thanks.

nortcan wrote:Will, do you know if a fire pot like this one (having vertical slots) could work for over the fire gasses burning when burning anth?
I'm planning to make a refractory liner for the Sunnyside and it would be easy to make vertical slots. Air would come from the regular primary air controls.
Thanks.

NONoNOooo, thats what make his stove so good for Bit burning, anthracite wants all air to go up through the coal bed (not around it). This is a very rare stove for a very specific crappie coal and I WANT IT!

dcrane wrote:

wsherrick wrote:That fire pot was a unique design for Radiant Homes. It is specifically designed to burn low grades of Bituminous Coal. The slots infuse the fire bed with hot secondary air to eliminate soot and smoke due to incomplete combustion. The only way to achieve this with Bituminous is to have two criterion met at the same time. You must have enough air to burn the hydrocarbons AND the air MUST be hot enough to ignite the gasses on contact. You can have enough air, but; if it is not hot enough it will not burn the gasses but rather impede combustion as the fire must heat the air first before it can have any beneficial effect. In this case the gasses are lost, unburned up the chimney in a large degree.
If you look at the picture of the stove's bottom you will see two draft controls at each corner of the base. These drafts control the amount of secondary air you put into the fire. If you look closely the draft controls are attached to a round manifold at the bottom of the fire pot. The vertical tubes come out of this manifold to send the secondary air into the slots all around the fire pot.
By the way here is the same stove in it's more common radiant configuration.

OK, this is what im interested in william (i think your name is William anyways )... I wish someone would take some seriously detailed pics of inside, You describe this well above so i kinda "get it", but more pics would be great! This stove sounds epic for Bit burning and why where these not not mass produced then and NOW ??? Bit coal is like free for christ sakes

They were mass produced. The Germer Radiant Home was manufactured for over two decades up to around WWI. There are several versions of it. The hot blast model shown here first came out in 1902 I believe. They were high end stoves and are sought after today. The Florence Hot Blast was made along the same technical lines as the Germer. The difference being that the Florence delivered the hot air right at the top of the fire pot.
Glenwood Base Heaters like mine also have preheated secondary air rings in them, however; the amount of air in the Glenwood is preset whereas on the others you could adjust the amount of heated secondary air admitted to the fire.

LsFarm wrote:I'd be VERY cautious about using a hammer and chisel on bolts and nuts in a CAST IRON stove.. The cast iron tends to be brittle
and a good whack with a hammer and chisel will break the cast iron.. Been there done that!!

The bolts are made out of steel, and are softer and more malleable than the iron, and therefore put up a fight.
IF you can back up the nut or bolt you are trying to cut with a hammer or a piece of heavy steel, so the impact is taken
up by the backing piece, then a hammer and chisel will be a good tool.

I'd use a small dremel cut-0ff wheel and cut the bolt in two. Or use a grinder to make a flat and drill the heads off the bolts..

These old iron stoves are beautiful, but like many pretty ladies with personalities , they are brittle and easily broken..

I used to buy and sell wood burning parlor stoves, made from cast iron.. and I've broken my share of cast iron..
So take your time, use a propane torch to heat a bolt/nut, then cool it with ATF [automatic transmission fluid] this works very well
The ATF or other light-weight oil is sucked into the bolt/nut threads as the heated nut cools from the application of oil, Several
heating and cooling cycles with ATF or other motor oil works the best..

Recently several antique car clubs have done studies with the various available rust-penetrating oils and home-mixed oils
And a 50/50 mix of acetone and ATF works SIGNIFICANTLY better than any off-the-shelf product..
I still use PB Blaster a lot, the aerosol can is very convenient, but a small brush and the ATF/Acetone works very well.

Hope this helps
Greg L

I have to agree with you. I put a wide knife under the bolt before chiseling in most cases. This always takes a very trusting second party to assist. Looking at the photos posted. The outer casing is relatively thin cast iron. I wouldn't take any undue risk with those at all. To crack one of those would be a tragedy.

Here is a walk around showing better the concept of the burn-pot.

Is bit ash as sticking as anth is? If so, I wonder if the slots got jammed with ash build up? Or maybe a liner in front of the stots was protecting the fire pot and also avoiding filling the stots with ash??????

Note that these are not just straight slots. They are angled causing the air to swirl. It also appears that two slots go one way and then the ones next send their air towards them. It appears you will have opposite paths of air colliding right over the center of the pot.

And we think we have our stuff together today with our engineering expertise. How much do you think it would cost a foundry to duplicate this fire pot today?