Coalpail.com Forum

Over the past week I have been having trouble keeping a fire going after several days of burning. The fire in the Gibraltar would die out just in front of the loading doors. In the rear of the coal bed the fire would keep going much longer. My banking plate is only 3" tall (just inside of the doors) and the fire brick are 9". This made it impossible to have a deep bed of coal in the front section of coal grates.
I kept looking at "coal berner's" Gibraltor manual picture and it looked like the banking plate was much taller than the one in my stove. My banking plate fit the stove very well side to side.
The next thought was maybe it's the wrong part....
The banking plate is the right one but this stove takes two, one stacked on top of the other.
I placed an order with woodmans parts plus $$$$ for another banking plate but it may take till next year for the pony express to make it from New Hampshire to Maine.
Long story short ... I made a lower plate with used fire brick. I hope this works. The fire has been burning for about an hour.

PC 12

I have a Gibraltar CFS The coal banking plate is a little more than 4 1/2 inches high. From the picture in the manual it looks like the banking plates on the cfs , mcc , scr , cfi, go up higher on the stove than the LCC.

Looks good! That should work no problem. The more coal you can pile in, the better the fire will be.

I have a Gibraltar CFI. My banking plate is 4.5 inches, but it sits 3 more inches above the grates. That means you can have a 7.5 inch bed of coal in the front of the bed. A few inches deeper in the back because the firebricks are even higher.

The fire brick and the banking plate are 6 1/2" plus about an inch above the grates. This stove, now, is not your grandfather's Oldsmobile !!
Take a look at the Blue dancing ladies... My wife calls them "blue dancing mermaids".

18* F outside --78* F inside ....Priceless

you have to love anthracite !!

PC 12
Edit: the stove has a just a bit over 100# of Kimmel's nut in it ...

YEAH! GET IT! :punk:

Awesome Pics! The Aurora Borealis of Anthracite

PC 12 Didn't you have a sf 250 before ? how does the Gibralter compare in terms of heat ouput.

I feel like I parked a Pinto and drove home in a Cobra. WOW what a difference !! Varooom....

Salemcoal wrote:PC 12 Didn't you have a sf 250 before ? how does the Gibralter compare in terms of heat ouput.

Yes on the SF-250.

Time will tell.... The Gibraltar has never burned like this before....

If the gibraltar keeps burning like this, I would not want to live on the difference !!!

Not as much A-Dust though.....

PC 12

PC12, I just bought a Hitzer 983 and didn't get a Banking Plate. Did a web search and found your post. I see yours has fire bricks under it, is that normal / do the fire bricks under the Banking Plate cone with the 983 or is that something you found / had made / made yourself?

Chuck, please note that this thread is from 2009, three years old.

I'd call Hitzer, their stove design is different from the now out of production gilbraltar stove in this thread.

Hitzer's are very good stoves..and their customer support is outstanding,, I'd call Dean at Hitzer and ask him about any need for a banking plate.

You can always try making one from a row of firebricks, or a piece of steel..

Greg L.

Greg,
Thanks & I was planning to give them a buzz if I didn't get anything from this thread. It's odd that the lip in the front of the stove is only approx 2 - 2 & 1/2 inches high. I’m sure I’m going to be knocking burning nuggets all over the place. I'm replacing a Harman Magnafire Elite Coal Insert which has a 5 - 6" deep bed. The other thing that I need to ask them is the stoves high temperature tolerance. I couldn't find that anywhere in the docs that came with the stove - thanks again for responding