Ben's Blog

I compared the stoves a little closer to make sure the pieces would fit between each other. I was able to confirm that this new find is an absolute score. What luck to find it, it’s going to save me time, money, and the result will be a thousand times better. And we’ll have some spare parts if we need them.

My main piece of concern was the top of the oven box, where strong fires can eat at the iron over time. You can see all the cracks and other weak areas on the top piece, but the same piece in the new stove is in perfect shape!

In that same region where fires burn hottest, the frame supporting cook lids had been eaten at. Once again, the new part is perfect.

The 2 siblings side by side, one is a model C, the other a model C-H. I cannot figure out what that could possibly mean, but the C seems to have more than the C-H.

Ash removal from the bottom of the burn chamber, a very common configuration.

Ash removal from the side.

There’s a lot more odd parts here and there that will nicely merge to make a complete cook stove.

All parts have dates ranging from 1904 to 1917, I’m not sure why that is. I do wonder if they were cast at different years and then assembled together. If that’s true I’m not sure what the date of assembly is. There’s still a lot of unknown about this stove, possibly a lot that will never be known again.

We bought another wood stove. But it’s ok, this one is just for parts, which is a bit sad as it is in really good shape. The absolutely gorgeous Glenwood we bought a couple of years back needed some TLC and had a few parts that were cracked. I got them out and I was trying to find a cast iron welder for them. But any plan to get them back in shape was imperfect in some way. Then one day, this other Glenwood from 1917 (I think) pops up online and without many details or documentation, it just looks the same. For $100 it’s simply worth a shot.

As far as I can tell it’s the exact same model minus a few bells and whistles. It’s hard to tell, there is simply very little online about 100+ year old stoves. But the pieces that were damaged on the first one are all there and are in pristine shape. Now that is a score in and of itself. I’m going to feel terrible cannibalizing it, it’s in really great shape but it is missing more than our original.

I could definitely get into restoring these beauties if I had more time. In the meantime getting good deals on stoves opportunistically and a few years before we need them has worked well for us. The Glenwood will be ready by the time we need it, most  likely to replace the Sweetheart as it moves into a shop to be built adjacent to the house. Long live the Glenwood, may it fire for another 100 years.

I might need to open a “stoves” sections on this blog.

I was working in a spot that was naturally flat. Instead of moving the logs to the closest trail as was the original plan, I made a new trail.

And it’s quaint

This tree gave me a lot of grief, it’s in a slope, it leans, it’s completely rotted, and it hung in a nearby maple so I had to walk it down. It was raining branches for a while. Thankfully there’s some good wood in it, but mostly I went through the trouble of bringing it all the way down because I can’t leave a dangerous tree anywhere near us. So I was committed on the first cut, when middle of the tree felt oddly soft to the saw…

I also took a small ash, that one was much easier.

Still likes to come pick up logs with me :).