Florence Hot Blast Tricks

Steve

Great looking job on the liner. I think you will be fine. Please post some pics of your 68. Here is a video of the 153 with a lined firepot burning bit and other video burning anthracite. Gas ring work fine with lined pot.

Bit coal
https://youtu.be/5SGFpWxPAwU

Anthracite
https://youtu.be/bUiUxmRszgg

franco b wrote:That is a particularly neat job. How and what you used for a form as well as the technique used, would be of interest to me and others

Thanks franco.
As you probably know, these have a pretty good sized fire-pot. And, the mold needed to be "funnel" shaped. So I took 2 plastic five gallon buckets and cut the bottoms off of each. I did this with a table saw. I raised the blade just high enough to go through the plastic bucket and spun the buckets by hand. Discarded the bottoms and flipped the buckets over. Removed the wire handles and cut the molded top pieces off. What I had left was two cylinders. I laid each cylinder on its side and made one rip cut in each cylinder from top to bottom. You can use a saw-zaw or a jig-saw to make all the same cuts.
I took one cylinder and placed it inside the other. Making sure the rip cuts were opposite each other. This essentially gave me an adjustable mold.
I put the fire-pot on a piece of ply wood and placed the cylinders/mold inside the fire-pot. Now I adjusted the cylinders to give me the funnel shaped mold and adjusted it to give me the thickness for the refractory cement I wanted. Using small sheet-metal screws, I screwed the two cylinders together in order to maintain the shape that I wanted. This took a bit of trial and error and adjusting the screws before I was satisfied. I had to make sure the mold was expanded large enough at the bottom to keep the molded mounting holes on the bottom of the fire-pot (the holes that the bolts go into that hold the fire-pot to the base) exposed so the refractory cement wouldn't block those holes.
With the fire-pot on a piece of plywood, the cylinder mold inside the fire pot and making sure that the mold was centered and not covering the mounting holes, I took a can of spray foam and sprayed it a couple of inches deep into the bottom of the mold. The spray foam expands some and also sticks to the mold to the plywood securing it in place. The cast firepot is heavy and will hold everything in place.
Once your happy with everything, mix up your refractory cement and pour it in. The plastic cylinder/mold is still flexible enough to move it some and help settle the cement all the way down as you pour it. You can tap the mold some to help settle out the cement as well.
Allow it to setup, remove the screws from inside the cylinder mold that hold the two pieces together. Pry the two plastic cylinders out of the fire-pot and voila... you have a lined fire-pot!

That's probably as clear as mud (no pun intended...) but it was the best description I could come up with.

Sunny Boy wrote: Having bolts sticking into the firebed will certainly absorb more heat, but it might also affect how well the coal and ash move downward in that area.

Maybe using "carriage bolts" with their larger diameter heads and have the heads sit flush with the face of the refractory will increase the heat absorbing ability over regular sized screws/bolts, but not interfere with how the coal moves ???

If the refractory is as thin as you say, the square under the carriage bolt heads may be thick enough to set the bolts the right distance to have the bolt head be flush. I think those squares are about 1/4 inch thick for a 3/8 carriage bolt.

Paul

The carriage bolts are a great idea Paul...thanks!

Paned wrote:Steve

Great looking job on the liner. I think you will be fine. Please post some pics of your 68. Here is a video of the 153 with a lined firepot burning bit and other video burning anthracite. Gas ring work fine with lined pot.

Bit coal
https://youtu.be/5SGFpWxPAwU

Anthracite
https://youtu.be/bUiUxmRszgg

Thanks! I'll certainally post some pics when I get her done. The 68 is pretty "utilitarian" as these stoves go. It is a big stove but not nearly as ornate as most of the others.

Thanks for posting the videos. Those are good illustrations of how well this design works.

Hi , Just a general question about the 153 stove , what sort of area will it comfortably heat ? I'm looking eventually to replace my existing stove , but the area I need to heat is around 30' x30' . It needs to be able to comfortably heat this with room to increase the stove temp when the weather dips into the - single figures. Regards wal

I have a refurbished Florence 68 that belonged to my father-in-law. We have never burned in it. It’s in excellent condition. I have a potential buyer for it, but no idea what it is worth. Would appreciate feedback about value.