Wings Best Holes at Ash Drawer

So was this a new grate replacement and say Tomahawk made a little error. So were the original grates made of bog iron that is seasoned cast iron (as I understand it). If the seasoning made no difference why did the old masters bother to age it for 6 months? Why is my RC Garnet #48 grate (unlined) still going after 110 years and looks fine? Where is our metallurgist when you need him. Is cast iron available today of the same quality as it was, you know like the POS 2017 Ford Mustang. Where is the information of how cast iron ages on standing.... Would a prior heat treatment improve things. Does rapid cooling at Tomahwk breed stress cracks that show up later. Should we ask say Tomahawk to only use the best aged stuff and cool the cast slowly ...Can we develop such standards ... being a tiny tiny business no one will do it for us. Can we source bog iron anywhere. Why did Madonna not leave the country. Vexing questions indeed.

coalnewbie wrote:So was this a new grate replacement and say Tomahawk made a little error. So were the original grates made of bog iron that is seasoned cast iron (as I understand it). If the seasoning made no difference why did the old masters bother to age it for 6 months? Why is my RC Garnet #48 grate (unlined) still going after 110 years and looks fine? Where is our metallurgist when you need him. Is cast iron available today of the same quality as it was, you know like the POS 2017 Ford Mustang. Where is the information of how cast iron ages on standing.... Would a prior heat treatment improve things. Does rapid cooling at Tomahwk breed stress cracks that show up later. Should we ask say Tomahawk to only use the best aged stuff and cool the cast slowly ...Can we develop such standards ... being a tiny tiny business no one will do it for us. Can we source bog iron anywhere. Why did Madonna not leave the country. Vexing questions indeed.

Good friend of mine a casting guy and metallurgist as well. I chatted with him around a year ago about the bog iron. His reply it is the cheapest low grade there is and used to save money for ore and transportation if it is close by. Quenching a cast iron part has to be the worst idea ever unless you want it to crack. Attached is a link describing different types of cast iron.

http://www.afsinc.org/files/images/iron%20alloys.pdf

I'm aging a new set of Tomahawk recast grates in my stove right now. So far, a total of 13 months "aging time" and no problems. And the large reduction in my electric heating bill shows they aren't being pampered either.

Many years ago I read an article in a woodworking magazine about how Dewalt put their iron machinery castings outdoors to "weather" for months before those parts went to the machine shop. Seemed almost criminal seeing a picture of a field full of rusting woodworking machine castings. But that hot/cold does make the castings more stable.

Paul

WOW DD one for my library. Now how do we know say Tomahawk is not quenching and how would we tell. Dewalt would not have gone to all this this trouble if it was not vital. Does the village of Dingdong, China do this for Dewalt manufacturing now.

So as a totally non qualified person in this field. As we change heat treatments so the Brinell hardness increases (the easiest test that is diagnostic). Does this mean the harder metal becomes easier to fracture? So if Sunny buys this (I vote for him to do all the hard work) can a new grate property be calibrated as it ages. What is the nature of non lined grate failures? Why doesn't Seam Penn go live in VZ as he loved it so much

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Machinist-Type-P-Portable-Brinell-Ha ... Sw4DJYh8-O

From what little I could find about it, it seems bog iron has some properties (other than cost) that make it uniqily suited to manufacturing stoves. Can't find the article I got that from. But the Taunton area was noted for local bog iron.

Oddly the Taunton Massachusetts stoves seem to have a much higher survival rate then stoves from competing areas that shipped in iron ore - like the Albany/Troy NY area and the many foundries on the lower Hudson river.

Case in point. Rathbone & Sard had several very large factories and about 1900 were advertising over a million stoves sold. Try their Acorn stoves today. Very few have survived. Same for many other stove makers in that area. And Acorn stoves were one of the more expensive brands with many innovative and up today features.

The Acorn kitchen range I'm familiar with had many cracked castings just from normal use. So bad that restoring it would have been extreamly expensive. And I was offered the range for free. It had parts broken and warped that I've yet to see have happen with competing brands. And the fact that parts more likely to show abuse, like the gates, were in good shape lead me to think there is something about R&S castings that contributes to that very low survival rate.

Yet Glenwoods and other Taunton area brand stoves are fairly common today.

The foundry techniques of the late 1800's and early 1900 seem to have been know about and wide spread. So was the difference in how one region's many manufactures have a higher survival rate more a case of using bog iron verses mined ore ?

Paul

Sooo my learned friend, as R&S are the pits and a low time Taunton stove with original grates is the best, is the BH different. Is this a simple QC measure. If the worst and the best are no different then it is not a useful measurement but if they are ..... and the quest for the perfect grate replacement starts.

coalnewbie wrote:WOW DD one for my library. Now how do we know say Tomhawk is not quenching and how would we tell. Dewalt would not have gone to all this this trouble if it was not vital. Does the village of Dingdong, China do this for Dewalt manufacturing now.

DeWalt GM Ford etc. do it that way because they make a run of parts far in excess of what they need today. Then they put those core boxes and patterns away and move on to the next part and make a big run of those. You do need to realize not every shop pours every alloy and might need to find one that pours what you need or want to try. We have local foundries around me locally and an hour away another that does pour cast iron. Sometime this week I will be talking with my foundry buddy and ask him what type of cast iron in general he would pick for grates in a coal stove and how he would age them and if they even need aging.

ddahlgren wrote:The core shift is approximately 0.016 and well within sand cast parts.

Off center only by the thickness of four stands of human hair in a span of 16 inches. As we used to say in the drafting field, "Close enough for Government work."

Paul

coalnewbie wrote:Sooo my learned friend, as R&S are the pits and a low time Taunton stove with original grates is the best, is the BH different. Is this a simple QC measure. If the worst and the best are no different then it is not a useful measurement but if they are ..... and the quest for the perfect grate replacement starts.

Only my opinion based on 13 years looking for R&S and other stove brands on the internet ( both kitchen and parlor), and getting to discuss with family members that lived with and ran it everyday just how that Acorn range was used. The parlor stove that was also used for the same years is still in the family and I've had a chance to closely inspect it too. It's been very well cared for.

As you know, getting actual numbers of brands of antique stoves that survive is not easy. But, spend 13 years looking at thousands and it's easier to see patterns emerge to base an opinion on. But, without hard data, it's still just an opinion

Paul

ddahlgren wrote:

coalnewbie wrote:WOW DD one for my library. Now how do we know say Tomhawk is not quenching and how would we tell. Dewalt would not have gone to all this this trouble if it was not vital. Does the village of Dingdong, China do this for Dewalt manufacturing now.

DeWalt GM Ford etc. do it that way because they make a run of parts far in excess of what they need today. Then they put those core boxes and patterns away and move on to the next part and make a big run of those. You do need to realize not every shop pours every alloy and might need to find one that pours what you need or want to try. We have local foundries around me locally and an hour away another that does pour cast iron. Sometime this week I will be talking with my foundry buddy and ask him what type of cast iron in general he would pick for grates in a coal stove and how he would age them and if they even need aging.

The Dewalt rep in the story said they purposely put the casting outdoors and the term he used was to, "weather them". The thrust of that woodworking article was not about production run numbers and schedule, but why cast iron is so widely used in woodworking machinery and why new castings were purposely being left out doors for so long to rust, instead of keeping them under shelter.

Same as many race engine shops would heat cycle new cast iron engine parts in ovens before machining.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:From what little I could find about it, it seems bog iron has some properties (other than cost) that make it uniqily suited to manufacturing stoves. Can't find the article I got that from. But the Taunton area was noted for local bog iron.

Oddly the Taunton Massachusetts stoves seem to have a much higher survival rate then stoves from competing areas that shipped in iron ore - like the Albany/Troy NY area and the many foundries on the lower Hudson river.

Case in point. Rathbone & Sard had several very large factories and about 1900 were advertising over a million stoves sold. Try their Acorn stoves today. Very few have survived. Same for many other stove makers in that area. And Acorn stoves were one of the more expensive brands with many innovative and up today features.

The Acorn kitchen range I'm familiar with had many cracked castings just from normal use. So bad that restoring it would have been extreamly expensive. And I was offered the range for free. It had parts broken and warped that I've yet to see have happen with competing brands. And the fact that parts more likely to show abuse, like the gates, were in good shape lead me to think there is something about R&S castings that contributes to that very low survival rate.

Yet Glenwoods and other Taunton area brand stoves are fairly common today.

The foundry techniques of the late 1800's and early 1900 seem to have been know about and wide spread. So was the difference in how one region's many manufactures have a higher survival rate more a case of using bog iron verses mined ore ?

Paul

It is possible to make good and bad castings out of the same ore and alloy. It is a matter of attention to detail and care taken getting all the crap that rises to the top of the molten metal out of the crucible before pouring. It has to do with how well the risers and sprews are laid out to allow excess to rise to the top and clear the mold. How tightly the sand is packed and how clean it is, how long the part allowed to cool before knocking the sand out. Even very small details in construction can be a win or lose deal. I think one of the words to not lose track of the how many sold and high volume output. The tells me get it out the door it is cool enough, just pour it and it will be fine and a lot of workers of varying skills.

Understood. But you don't set out to make a major investment just to turn out a poor product when it's well known how to make a good one. Daily production goofs were melted down to recycle the materials. But to have the vast majority of your product not hold up to it's intended use is something else again.

That's why Rolls Royce doesn't built Yugos.

All of those foundry techniques were well known by the late 1800's, when the foundry business was a huge part of American industry and had been in existence since not long after the earliest settlers.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:Understood. But you don't set out to make a major investment just to turn out a poor product when it's well known how to make a good one. Daily production goofs were melted down to recycle the materials. But to have the vast majority of your product not hold up to it's intended use is something else again.

That's why Rolls Royce doesn't built Yugos.

All of those foundry techniques were well known by the late 1800's, when the foundry business was a huge part of American industry and had been in existence since not long after the earliest settlers.

Paul

The obvious question might be at what stage in their life did they fail or crack whatever. If failed at 80 or 100 years then more than good enough for a mass produced product as it would outlive the buyer. If failed in 15 or 20 a bad job. I have no idea how to find that statistic but it sure would be interesting to me. Another interesting one would be the cost of various stoves and how long they last. It might be a clue as to how much time and care was invested. Having knowledge is good and insisting everyone in the shop does things as you want a good plan, the problem is some don't. The other problem is when production demands exceed the time it takes to meet those standards.

ddahlgren wrote:

Sunny Boy wrote:Understood. But you don't set out to make a major investment just to turn out a poor product when it's well known how to make a good one. Daily production goofs were melted down to recycle the materials. But to have the vast majority of your product not hold up to it's intended use is something else again.

That's why Rolls Royce doesn't built Yugos.

All of those foundry techniques were well known by the late 1800's, when the foundry business was a huge part of American industry and had been in existence since not long after the earliest settlers.

Paul

The obvious question might be at what stage in their life did they fail or crack whatever. If failed at 80 or 100 years then more than good enough for a mass produced product as it would outlive the buyer. If failed in 15 or 20 a bad job. I have no idea how to find that statistic but it sure would be interesting to me. Another interesting one would be the cost of various stoves and how long they last. It might be a clue as to how much time and care was invested. Having knowledge is good and insisting everyone in the shop does things as you want a good plan, the problem is some don't. The other problem is when production demands exceed the time it takes to meet those standards.

With thousands of stove makers, a daunting task.

The antique car hobby has similar problems with questions of earliest production. That hobby has long had the Society of Automotive Historians. A friend is the former Editor of their publication. They are a world-wide group with an incredible depth of knowledge and vast collections of original automotive materials. They are dedicated to preserving and dissemination history of automakers and their products. But they admit there are many questions that will never be answered.

Ok, does anyone have anything more to say about holes in stoves to get this back on track ?

Paul

Ok back on holes, it was mentioned they were probably added to convert to some sort of kero burner. I make no other comment other than there are no ashes LOL.

While not my stove if it was I would dream up a small decorative touch to make them look like they belong there. Nickel plated of course. I have the luxury of a CNC and CAD/CAM software for my biz. I would draw up a round button that would cover the hole and cut I a pattern of some sort period correct on the outside face tap the backside for a bolt to hold in place then send it out to be plated. People that know the stove well would know it is a repair but no one else would. The actual pattern would be up for discussion but something simple and tasteful is much better that a bolt and flat washer. If not in a hurry as in 5 or 6 weeks the VMC is setup and spoken for I might donate the machine time. The VMC buys the groceries and has a long run of 2 orders that need to get out the door to cover March and April bills. If just a flat button I can turn that up in the lathe while the VMC is running. I might have a piece of stainless round stock that is just inventory or a piece of brass that is in stock for the local FD for inserts for the nozzle for the hand pumper. 2 years ago made new connecting rods with replaceable bushings with the hand pumper. Got the 20 more feet and winning most of the time. They put 40 very big guys on the handles 10 inside and 10 outside both sides with 12 inch pistons and adjustable stroke rods. More 1800's high tech. AS a funny side not it will spray water further than the shiny red truck LOL