Coalpail.com Forum

Well , My second mod is a "Final" It is removeable for my humidifier cauldron, and my echo fan. I thought it was fitting seeing as my Stove was made by the Plymouth Coal Stove works. Pic below.
My First, and Ill post a pic tomorrow, is a rectangle I welded out of 1 inch square stock steel . It sits under my ash pan. ( I do know the new Chubbys have a metal part that does this job). This way it stays level and its not "pushing" any ash when I put it in, and it pops out easy to clean or shovel inside if needed.

Formulabruce wrote:Well , My second mod is a "Final" It is removeable for my humidifier cauldron, and my echo fan. I thought it was fitting seeing as my Stove was made by the Plymouth Coal Stove works.............

...when you redecorate for the change of seasons you can place a large rock there as well

LOL yup Im sure there are cast models of Plymouth Rock

Formulabruce wrote:LOL yup Im sure there are cast models of Plymouth Rock

Kinda small, but here ya go: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Plymouth-Rock-Cas ... 19fb2a5dc5

Here is the other mod I have made to my Chubby. Its 1 inch square stock I mig welded .NOTE. Newer Chubbys I have seen have a factory spacer under the pan equal to 1 inch.

I'm confused, why put a spacer under the ash pan?

I like.

tcalo wrote:I'm confused, why put a spacer under the ash pan?

So you can slide the ash pan with ease. New Chubby's have "railing" or "spacers" installed and I have to say removing the ash pan is a breeze with them.

Are we to assume that the ash pan needs to be lifted for removal without the spacer in place ?If so that would indeed make the spacer a very smart addition.

On older units yes one would half to lift the pan up a tad to slide it out. (A two finger operation at most.) Not that it is or was a overly complicated thing to do. But yes the new railings that have been installed make it easier.

Larry mentions using 1 inch of ash under the pan in his video I believe, and when I picked mine up at his house he mentioned it again, so I just made one, and since I can take it out, it makes any cleaning in there easy. I guess I should have said mine is a 1979 rebuilt Unit.

Has anybody sizzled their fingers yet by picking up that ship for a closer look?

Formulabruce wrote:Larry mentions using 1 inch of ash under the pan in his video I believe, and when I picked mine up at his house he mentioned it again, so I just made one, and since I can take it out, it makes any cleaning in there easy.

Yep! Leaving some ash in the base is a good idea. Helps insulate the bottom a bit and it also assists in removing the ash pan in older units . Even with the rails in 2014 and on Chubby's it doesn't hurt to leave some ash in the base. Since Larry asked me last year to beta test the new Chubby's one of the things (among many!) I have done at times is to have been very lax on cleaning the ash out. Heck I even removed the ash try all together and just used the base itself as an ash pan. (Works good too!)

Chubby Half Pot Modification

A non sanctioned and "non invasive" mod I have tried on the proto Chubby was to place 2 (two) firebricks in the firepot to reduce the overall firepot by aprox 1/2. I have done this for the past 2 season in the fall and spring. What I found was still able to obtain easy 12 hour burn times. Maintaining the desired temp was not a problem either with temps up to 450f when needed.

The weight of the two firebricks is just about the same weight as the coal it is displacing. Shaking down felt about the same as it did with a pot full of coal.

Now once the real winter set in I removed the bricks and went back to a full pot. But for the shoulder seasons I will continue using the 2 firebricks. Personally I don't see a need to burn more coal than needed. Now of course what works for a Chubby in Massachusetts might not work for say Freetown Fred in upstate New York. FF calls our Winter's here SPRING. And seeing what temps he deals with I fully understand that!

All in all I think the stove responded very well with only a half pot burning. So well that after sharing my results with Larry an official "Chubby Half Pot" divider is on the drawing board now.

I thought of bricks, but used ash to do basically same thing, but its not as neat.. Very good way to conserve coal and take the damp edge off