Building a New Era Base Burner

KingCoal wrote:"life is like a box of chocolates "

i've been burning up a guys voice phone for a month about a stove 48 miles from me.

today I decided to text him and make an offer 1/3 of his asking price and giving the reasoning based on his ad and pics.

5 mins. later he calls me back by voice phone and says I obviously know more about the stove, it's condition and value than he does and proceeds to give me an address and time to meet him tomorrow afternoon.

gotta love " favor, with God and men"

steve

And I was just in the middle of typing out something about "Don't fret - I'm sure one will turn up in better condition and in a shorter driving distance" And Shazzam here comes your posting. Go figure!

I tell ya there is something about owning one of these stoves that's special. When you buy a Locke120 you buy adventure

Yes, they work really good with Bituminous. I grew up with them. They were very common in Tennessee. The four flue brick design is excellent. The only drawback I see with them is the length of time it takes to heat up all of that mass. Once it gets a up to speed though it really works great.

wsherrick wrote:Yes, they work really good with Bituminous. I grew up with them. They were very common in Tennessee. The four flue brick design is excellent. The only drawback I see with them is the length of time it takes to heat up all of that mass. Once it gets a up to speed though it really works great.

it seems Buck47 has found the secret of getting the Locke 120's to run very efficiently on anth. nut and i'm about to turn one into a Mica Radiator Base Heater, Double Heating challenger.

wsherrick wrote:Yes, they work really good with Bituminous. I grew up with them. They were very common in Tennessee. The four flue brick design is excellent. The only drawback I see with them is the length of time it takes to heat up all of that mass. Once it gets a up to speed though it really works great.

I would agree, In the cold of winter it was putting out a lot of heat.

Now running on the shoulder in 50 to 60 degree days it idles very well putting out almost no heat during the day, however late afternoon early evening when it starts to cool off and I want the stove to put out more heat, it's slow to wake up.

Even after a good shake down (or as William calls it "a full Sharpton" ) with the MPD open and ash door open 2-3 inches, it can take full 15 to 20 min to get the fire producing much heat. Not waiting for the fire to build and prematurely dumping 20 pounds of fresh coal on top a cool fire is asking for problems. So ya just have to wait and let the fire regain momentum and slowly add the 20 pounds of coal to fuel the stove for the next days burn.

In the cold of winter I run it almost full all the time. With warmer temps (50 to 60 degrees) that would be far to much volume of coal to easily control. Burning on the shoulder like now is best accomplished with a 1/2 full stove.

To give you a visual idea, in the cold of winter I keep coal loaded to the very top of the fire brick (100 to 120 pounds) now my coal is loaded only up to the top of the first fire brick ( approximately 40 t0 50 pounds)

Regards: john

update on parts stove pick up.

it was just as bad as the sellers pics showed but, it netted all the important pieces I was after and VERY cheap.

this stove has a horribly scary thin crimped barrel that is not even scrap worthy.

the top has the too common broken right side load lid locating eye.

good grate support ring, good center draw, round grate has the same 2 cracks, same locations.

the base, ash pit door and frame are solid and savable.

all in all a fine deal for the important parts and some good spares.

That's great that you got the parts you needed.

Well done, now you have a complete stove less one small fire brick.

All your brick look to be in reusable condition. And you have the two steel plates along with extra grate parts.

The original barrel are very thin, like you I was surprised when I first seen one. A word of caution - for me - the lid door handle has been a risky part to remove as the nut and bolt have always been badly rusted. Broke the first one off and when attempting to drill out the threaded in thin bolt I broke the drill bit in the hole

Have tried several times to get the broken bit out so as to re- tap the handle, but so far I've been unsuccessful. Thinking that's one part I may want to get recast at a foundry if I where to keep messing with these stoves. Many for sale are missing the lid door handle.

So what's the next step?

Buck47 wrote:Well done, now you have a complete stove less one small fire brick.

All your brick look to be in reusable condition. And you have the two steel plates along with extra grate parts.

The original barrel are very thin, like you I was surprised when I first seen one. A word of caution - for me - the lid door handle has been a risky part to remove as the nut and bolt have always been badly rusted. Broke the first one off and when attempting to drill out the threaded in thin bolt I broke the drill bit in the hole

Have tried several times to get the broken bit out so as to re- tap the handle, but so far I've been unsuccessful. Thinking that's one part I may want to get recast at a foundry if I where to keep messing with these stoves. Many for sale are missing the lid door handle.

So what's the next step?

that was another issue with this parts stove the handle you mention is incomplete and fiddly. I was going to just leave it alone thinking some one might want or need an otherwise complete lid.

next step ? seperate the barrel from the base ring and legs and pitch it along with the totally destroyed ash pan. that will let me store the spares in a smaller area till I get around to cleaning them up and coating them.

i'm going to leave the tension spring and cap in the present door and frame. i'll make a replacement for my nicer stove.

i need to make commitments to what all features I want to go for and that's going to take alittle time.

as I said by PM before, i'm considering having a barrel made to support all my interests and if I don't go that far I will just trim it back down.

eventually, i'll need to run a diamond flap disc on the bricks they were just crusty enough to have needed a good bit of encouragement to come out. there are 3 small bricks with horizontal cracks / splits in them. of course both large bricks but I can see that all of them will be a clean repair.

we will need to discuss how you handled that.

thanks,
steve

just snagged another warm morning from a scrap metal collector. said he sees them all the time but doesn't usually buy them just to send them to the crusher. this one he said was too good to pass on. I thought so too as I went by his trailer in the drive at highway speed.

i made a deal with him for all the stoves he finds in about this condition or better. he says there are lots.

this stove has the best top, load lid, ash pit door and frame, bottom trim and legs so far.

the barrel is shot, and only 3 of the small curved bricks were savable. the big ones were in 8-10 pieces and really rough.

good grates, a shaker handle ( which I hadn't scored yet ) a custom made heavy steel ash pan and both steel plates in pristine condition.

i'll just post the few pics for now.

oh, BTW $40.00

KingCoal wrote:just snagged another warm morning from a scrap metal collector. said he sees them all the time ... I made a deal with him for all the stoves he finds in about this condition or better. he says there are lots.

Here we are, all watching Craigslist for stoves, when we should be talking to our local scrap metal dealers.
How many good ones have been crushed and melted by barbarians who don't recognize what they have?

rberq wrote:

KingCoal wrote:just snagged another warm morning from a scrap metal collector. said he sees them all the time ... I made a deal with him for all the stoves he finds in about this condition or better. he says there are lots.

Here we are, all watching Craigslist for stoves, when we should be talking to our local scrap metal dealers.
How many good ones have been crushed and melted by barbarians who don't recognize what they have?

yep, this guy is a "gatherer" usually sticks to gas and electric ranges, washers / driers, fridges / freezers, stuff he can also pull copper out of, etc etc but he goes to lots of estate auctions too and runs into alot of period stoves by his account.

the other thing is, if you do in fact have a local scrap yard where guys like this sell off scrap you should already have a deal with the guys there to call you the second solid fuel stoves show up. don't forget to make it worth their while in advance.

KingCoal wrote:just snagged another warm morning from a scrap metal collector. said he sees them all the time but doesn't usually buy them just to send them to the crusher. this one he said was too good to pass on. I thought so too as I went by his trailer in the drive at highway speed.

i made a deal with him for all the stoves he finds in about this condition or better. he says there are lots.

this stove has the best top, load lid, ash pit door and frame, bottom trim and legs so far.

the barrel is shot, and only 3 of the small curved bricks were savable. the big ones were in 8-10 pieces and really rough.

good grates, a shaker handle ( which I hadn't scored yet ) a custom made heavy steel ash pan and both steel plates in pristine condition.

i'll just post the few pics for now.

oh, BTW $40.00

Congratulations, You have solved the riddle of how to get Warm Morning coal stoves at a reasonable price. Simply outstanding. We don't have metal collectors here as most everyone can transport to the local scrap yard. I have the main crusher 10 miles from me. I'll give them a call. Thanks for the "Heads UP"

I am going into town in the morning and will find out the length of barrel they can roll for you. I'll let you know then.

I'm envious of your shaker handle, I still don't have one.

wife wants to know which other job and or cottage biz i'm going to give up !!

great news from Buck47, my extended barrel plan is no problem for his machine shop guys.

now I need to finish up some pattern making, commit to a base chamber clean out access port, work out the details for a mica fire view panel, pre heated secondary air tract and the mounting for a magazine / hopper.

all stuff I have pretty much sorted in my head but I need to get them modeled out to prove they work.

steve

Baaazinga!!

have a contact and arrangements under way to get a complete Warm Morning Model 524. that's the 200# beasty.

may be going on a little day trip tomorrow. if it comes thru i'll have pics by Monday evening.

this is cool because the now pretty much unavailable cast parts will be able to be recast and this will be the second model we'll be able to resurrect.

steve