What Wrong With This Picture. New Grate Arrived Yesterday.

Ok so I was so excited when my grate from Barnstable Stoves arrived. I wrestled with it for a few minutes before the wife got interested and asked me did the whole grate housing come out. From there it was smooth sailing. But All that has subsidized farley quickLY when I couldn't get the gear piece on the grate to clear the cotter pin whole. Which caused me to examine the right middle grate to the replacement grate freshly in from Barnstable. I'm sure you guys can see the difference in the location to the cotter pin hole when compared to the grate on the right side. Dough very adamantly assures me that this is the correct grate. He says that the two middle grates are not supposed to line up with each other. Which makes sense, since the two grates on the left sides work together as the two grates on the right work together. Dough attributes the size differential to shrinkage. You guys know that I am 2yrs in with my Herald and this is my first major issue with the stove. All I know is that since I stand corrected by Doug that the left and the right middle grates are not supposed to line up exactly I guess my major issue is that the gear doesn't fit on it enough to clear the cotter pin hole. Dough goes on to say that I may need to sand it down or something to that effect. I am so mechanically denied I can't even remember the name of the tool that he says I'm going to have to own to have one of the stoves because recast sometimes need to be_______________. (Still can't think of the term)

I was under the impression that I was simply going to buy a replacement and slap it in the stove when it arrived. Looking at it I think I may be able to get my sheet metal guy sand it down enough for the gear to fit.

No biggie UDD, do you own a cordless drill? You can get a small abrasive disk or type similar for a few dollars at any hardware store, just bring the part with you and explain your predicament...as a yoot we would sharpen stuff against the curb

or maybe just a file to file around where the gear slides on to clean
them up so the gear slides on a bit further. they may have distorted in
the casting process, and it doesn't look like they re-machine those
surfaces afterwards

dutch wrote:or maybe just a file to file around where the gear slides on to clean
them up so the gear slides on a bit further. they may have distorted in
the casting process, and it doesn't look like they re-machine those
surfaces afterwards

I had all four grates made for my stove and every one of them had to be ground down and cleaned up so the gears would fit on them. Angle grinder worked for me to take the rough stuff off then I put a sandblasting disk on the grinder and that smoothed it out even more without taking too much off at a time.

Randy

Sand cast parts don't come ready to drop into place like parts for your car or lawn mover. They require some amount of machining to finished sized in places.

If you don't want to spend for a power tool, for much less money, but slower, you can hand file the cog seat with a "mill", or "double cut" hand file. I'd recommend using the hand files.

Without experience using power tools it's very easy to take too much metal off. Then you have a real problem. Using the hand files are slower, but give much better control of where and how much metal you are removing.

The cog seats are often built up and cast oversized in case the cogs have been worn to a lose fit.

Take the cotter pin out and gently tap the cog off your broken grate.

Look to see if the inner surface of the cog seat has a slight taper. They often do. That's a "jam-fit", so that the cog fit gets nice and tight as the cog is tapped into place. Once the cog fits tightly onto the grate bar, then make sure the hole for the cotter pin is right up against the cog before you drill amy new cotter pin hole through. You want the cotter pin to be a very tight fit up against the cog when the cotter pin goes in the hole. If not the cog will work lose and the rocking back and forth will eventually pound the metal of the cog/grate bar seat making the cog even loser on the grate bar - not good!

The first picture is the new grate bars and cogs for my range. The tapered bar seat and the inside of the cogs had to be hand filed smooth and to fit.

The second and third picture are the new bars for one of my 118's. Filing the bar's cog seat using hand files, and then checking the reused original cog's fit on the bar seat to where the two cotter pin retainers where such a very tight fit that the pins had to be tapped into place with a hammer.

Paul