I read this thread with interest. I hadn't noticed, or given it any thought, that the hole in the side of the stove caused a hot spot. I did notice that the left side of the stove seemed to ash up more vs. the right side but never put 2 & 2 together.
So after reading the thread and thinking about it some I came up with this solution for my stove.
I had a roll of cork gasket material and I have plenty of pewter sheet. I measured the shaker stub and it was roughly 3/4" square. Laid out a circle on both gasket material and pewter sheet with the 3/4" square hole in the center of each. Cut out both shapes, stuffed some insulation around the sub, put the cork gasket on and then the pewter circle. I used blue Locktite on the bolt and snugged everything down.
I did look up the properties of cork, it can withstand pretty high temps and does not support fire. It will char but not really burn. But even the temps for that are higher than the stove should safely reach.
I don't know if the blue Locktite will work since heat is what you use if you want to removed a fastener that was put on using Locktite but I figured it was worth a shot.
I did not, nor would I recommend, drilling a hole all the way through the shaker stub. The way I see it is that you would be removing about 1/3 of the thickness of the metal at that cross section and being that the part appears to be cast iron, I would think that would significantly weaken the stub. The most I would do would be to dish out a spot on the stub for the bolt to nest in. Probably using a carbide ball burr or a suitable sized drill bit...but would not drill the hole too deep.
I used pewter 'cause I have it but any metal would work well...pewter is easy to work if you have access to some. I cut the square hole by first drilling one hole and then using a jewelers saw to cut the square out.
Just my solution...FYI.
