Spark Guard and More - Problems / Solutions Glenwood #6

I figured I would start a knew thread on this portion of the addition / modification to my Glenwood #6 for searching purposes in the future .

After I installed my secondary air rings I was really happy. They went super smooth . Wilsons Woodstoves provided a wonderfully reproduced product. He also sent me a spark guard and more recently a backing frame for the spark guard . Originally I was going to fabricate my own backing frame but he had some in stock so I went ahead and ordered one.

The re-cast fits good and everything seemed to be working out until I went to bolt it up . At first I thought maybe something was wrong with the part but it is a re-cast of the original so I thought , no that couldn't be it. I took a harder look and saw that it seemed that one side of the holes were lower than the other on my actual stove where the exit flue is .

And you can see here :


The left side is lower and here is why

That is a good bit of stove cement in there and you can see the bottom half is shifted to the right and that was filled with cement to so I never noticed but now that all the stove cement is falling off of the stove everywhere I am getting to see more and more of my stove in a different light.
Here is the side that fits up nice and snug

but wait I found another issue there.

oh yea that was a nice chunk of stove cement that came out of there

next you will see the soapstone marks I made to show you where the whole would need to be relocated

and as it sat in the stove. the top four holes line up but none of the bottoms would make


I didn't really want to waller out those holes in that casting so I decided to use it as a template instead to make me a sheet metal one.





It's just being held by a few machine screws at the moment . Tomorrow morning I am going into the city to get stove bolts.


I didn't have any 3/16" metal laying around so I used 1/8 Hot rolled that I had and bent everything by hand . I think with the 8 bolts holding it and the spark guard on top that it should be ok . If not I will modify the cast one and move on to round two . But please feel free to put in some input on that.

I have had a interesting evening / morning needless to say .

Nice Josh, ya done good! She should work well as is, but as in everything stove related, time & HEAT will tell.

What is the purpose of this "spark guard" in a coal stove?

Rob R. wrote:What is the purpose of this "spark guard" in a coal stove?

I burn wood as well . Just trying to keep things from dropping down the back pipe . Also any stray nut that wants to bounce up might be deterred with this .

Ok I am doing the cleaning on my flue and the stove tonight and making some changes before I put the spark guard in. So I have a question I would like an opinion on . Mainly the check damper on the 90º cast elbow: So Wilson and I were talking on the phone last week and he mentioned that I would probably need that check damper to keep the draft down in cold windy conditions... and I got to thinking , last year I have a problem with kimmels Ant. because I couldn't get it to keep cooler burns and was burning to hot which equals shorter burn times. I had cemented the check valve up because I was worried of flue gases escaping into the house during warmer weather but I think I do need this check valve. and before anyone starts shouting Barometric Damper please understand that I don't have the room for one and I am already swayed the way of the MPD on that argument. Below is a photo of the light showing through this check damper when its fully closed. This makes me sit a little un-easy but because the stove will be hot and the cooler air will be outside I don't think the flu gases are going to try to escape here at all. If anything it will just suck in some ambient air around the stove ... I think I just talked myself into being ok with this btw. Anyways opinions please :



also out of curiosity who knows this manufacturer LC 118




also the spark guard frame is all finished up and ready to go in

Hmmmmm, I don't have an answer for you on this but, that seems like kind of rough and poor fitting casting for a Glenwood piece.

KingCoal wrote:Hmmmmm, I don't have an answer for you on this but, that seems like kind of rough and poor fitting casting for a Glenwood piece.

even the restored ones the castings aren't exactly perfect. Stove cement does wonders on these. But no it is not a glenwood 90º elbow . A glenwood elbow has the check damper on the right, facing the stove. This one is on the left , facing the stove.

But I agree to an extent it is not as nice as the dampers on the front of this glenwood #6 .

Spark guard is in! I left two of the top studs longer so I could snug up the guard. Not sure if this is the "proper" way but it seems to do the trick and I can take the guard off without loosening the stove bolts to the frame behind it . Wrapping up doing some more cementing around the stove and then I get to put all the piping back together after I repainted it . I have some Meeco and Williams stove polish on the way and I need to order some new thermometers . Any suggestions on which thermometers are the best? I like to use two . one on the pipe and one up top on the top skirt.

It's good to go !



first burn of the season to cure it all


I am already noticing more control with the check damper ! Good advice , good decision . I am happy

goodnight. or good morning however you look at it .

Good work Josh.
You know that you can improve the check damper fit by mill filing the back side of that casting smoother. But I doubt you'd see any difference. These stoves were designed to run with the clearances you see. The old version of "air tight" is not as we know it today. They had slight air leaks and they worked fine.

And, If you have a mano gauge plumbed into the stack before the MPD it would show the affect that check damper has on draft.

It's not as much affect as some think. At fully open, the size of the check damper opening on my range is greater than the check damper opening in the elbow of my #6, for a firebox with less than half the capacity of the #6 firepot.

If you sealed that check damper verses the slight leakage it has as is, I doubt you'd see any change in a mano reading.

When it's in the 50's at night I run with about 10% check damper opening. Last night, it was in the mid 20's. With about 25% check damper opening the range only got down to 113F on the stack this morning.

Your firepot putting out more than twice the heat volume in relation to check damper total opening, can't get the draft that low.

I never trusted using my check damper either until I got a mano hooked up. Since then, the mano has shown me the check dampers were added by the stove manufacturers for a reason and they do work well with the type stoves they were included with.

A mono will tell you a lot about what the check damper can, and can't do.

Paul

Thanks Paul! The rules of convection should have kept me from worrying about this in the first place ! I'm excited about having some more control over the fire and possibly better burns with the kimmels .

I remember all our conversations with measuring the draft but I do not recall which thread it was in so I could go back in re-read it but I do recall not having enough space from the 90° elbow to the MPD to hook up my magnehelic gauge. I have everything to hook it up I just need to get back into it . I will try searching for our conversations on my past threads today . I may just hook it up right before the MPD anyways and see how it does even though that's not ideal . The only other option is to put a hard 90° pipe or a T in there and raise the MPD location.

Sunny Boy wrote:

Smokeyja wrote:
What does the exhaust grill look like?

Pass the word on to me if you get an answer from Wilson please .

I need to contact coalnewbie as well for the gas rings . I need a set too.

Here ya go josh - #6 exhaust grill. Meant to keep the bigger pieces of coal from getting into and clogging the back pipe. It's held in place at the slots at 3 and 9 o'clock slipping over tabs with holes for cotter pins,......... or if your lazy like me,... a couple of 8D common nails dropped into the tab holes so that it's easy to remove to clean the section leading to the back pipe.

Paul

Glenwood Base Heater No. 6 First Burn

I was looking for this exact post the other day and really could have used the info you had posted on this guard. The tabs on the re-cast frame did not stick out far enough past the guard for me to drill and put pins in but the new frame I build has long enough tabs and this is what I thought about doing and still will probably do . The way I have it now though seems to be ok though. The method you explained however would be even easier .

I also found the other post I was looking for:

Sunny Boy wrote:Mano hookup doesn't have to be fancy, or super air tight.

Mine is just the tube that came with my Dwyer hand-held mano from an oil burner tune-up kit. The tube is bent sort like a question mark so that it hangs in a slip-fit hole in the pipe.

You can use a piece of 1/8 inch brake tubing and some automotive vacuum tubing.

You want it in a straight section of the stove pipe, between the stove and the MPD, and at least a foot from any bends, or the MPD plate, so that you don't get flue gas turbulence throwing off the readings.

Paul

and now it is all coming back to me. I completely forgot to buy the T and play with the new set up I want which was mentioned here by Randy :

https://www.northlineexpress.com/6-durablack-tee- ... -5696.html

It's Just Too Hot for Comfort ...

again I am tight with cash this year as usually this time it seems but I will try and plan to purchase this T .

I may just hook up the Magnehelic gauge approx. 5" below the MPD and just see what readings I am getting. Mind you I am not expecting it to work the way it's supposed to based of the turbulence you mentioned but I can experiment I guess.

Smokeyja wrote:Thanks Paul! The rules of convection should have kept me from worrying about this in the first place ! I'm excited about having some more control over the fire and possibly better burns with the kimmels .

I remember all our conversations with measuring the draft but I do not recall which thread it was in so I could go back in re-read it but I do recall not having enough space from the 90° elbow to the MPD to hook up my magnehelic gauge. I have everything to hook it up I just need to get back into it . I will try searching for our conversations on my past threads today . I may just hook it up right before the MPD anyways and see how it does even though that's not ideal . The only other option is to put a hard 90° pipe or a T in there and raise the MPD location.

Ideally you want the mano tube in a straight section of stack pipe and at least equal to one pipe diameter (two diameters distance is better) away from bends and the MPD.

However you can insert the mano tube near a bend if you extend the tube into the middle of the pipe where the flue gas flow is more consistent and there's less likely to be areas of reduced flue gas flow because of turbulence and gas flow changes through the pipe bends. It won't be THE perfect place, but should it be good enough for what you need.

Paul.

Sunny Boy wrote:

Smokeyja wrote:Thanks Paul! The rules of convection should have kept me from worrying about this in the first place ! I'm excited about having some more control over the fire and possibly better burns with the kimmels .

I remember all our conversations with measuring the draft but I do not recall which thread it was in so I could go back in re-read it but I do recall not having enough space from the 90° elbow to the MPD to hook up my magnehelic gauge. I have everything to hook it up I just need to get back into it . I will try searching for our conversations on my past threads today . I may just hook it up right before the MPD anyways and see how it does even though that's not ideal . The only other option is to put a hard 90° pipe or a T in there and raise the MPD location.

Ideally you want the mano tube in a straight section of stack pipe and at least equal to one pipe diameter (two diameters distance is better) away from bends and the MPD.

However you can insert the mano tube near a bend if you extend the tube into the middle of the pipe where the flue gas flow is more consistent and there's less likely to be areas of reduced flue gas flow because of turbulence and gas flow changes through the pipe bends. It won't be THE perfect place, but should it be good enough for what you need.

Paul.

Thanks Paul, I just edited the post above and found where you mentioned where to hook up the tube.

And now I can sit back and enjoy! with the new gas rings in and the spark guard I can really load this thing up with wood and get some decent burns . Don't mind the kids learning corner to the left



So the modifications I have done so far are: Gas rings, Spark guard and made the check damper functional . Next I will get the bricks when they are available and a spare set of grates to have on hand. Stocking up for the future and what not. Also waiting on my stove polish to come in to turn some of this stove cement black. And I need to get some new thermometers.

a HUGE thanks to WilsonsWoodstoves as always!

Happy burning !