It was a All-Day Stove Day

Last year the old cheap Vogelzang pot bellied stove crapped out in mid-winter, and was unrepairable. You guys (and gals) know me, as cheap as I am when I say its unrepairable, there is no fixing it. So we scrounged through 3 feet of snow, found an old stove from my late-grandmothers house, and put that to work; unfortunately it was wood-only. Now that I can't live with, so when I found a pot bellied stove for sale online, we went and looked at it today.

It ended up being a 1893 Woods and Bishop Model 4 New Era pot bellied stove. Kind of an antique stove anyway, and we were prepared to pay the guy $100 for it. It has its problems, but generally is a nice stove, but anyway after talking to the guy awhile, realizing he knows a lot of the people we do, he handed our money back. Then being a rigger insisted we "clean up his place" and gave us all kinds of scrap steel, rigging straps, and Katie an antique trunk. he was more than gerous for sure and we thanked him profusely!

But one of the things it needed was its legs, two of the 4 had broke off. But I live near Bryant Stove Works which has 100 years of stove parts in their trailers and back shops, so we went to see them. My grandfather worked there for 30 years so I know the people well. The 87 year old proprietor looks at us and say, "oh that leg, that must be off a Woods and Bishop Pot Bellied stove, my son-in-law will help you see if we got it", and into this tractor trailer we go; the whole thing loaded with thousands of legs for stoves. Some were singles, some were twins, and some were all four. I am overwhelmed, but Katie finds (2) matching legs in about 3 minutes time. The guy is shocked saying it was the fastest he had ever seen anyone match legs.

We ended up buying a really nice Crawford 1917 gas stove there for our 1930's style kitchen while , but I will post that on another forum that is appropriate. (antiques)

And I will post a picture of this Number 4 Woods and Bishop Pot bellied stove, but admit it needs more work. I was able to line the fire box with firebrick as I dislike how coal will make the outside glow without them. Sadly two brackets for the mitten rail are busted right off so I will need to recast them, and of course paint and trim it out. But overall we are happy with how our day of stove hunting ended up.

Nice find NS

You are on your way to warmth

That's a beauty! And I admire your ability to cast your own parts!!
No surprise your lady could find the legs quickly. We have that built-in skill.

Casting parts is an interesting thing; I graduated in 1992 and it was one of the last years my school had shop class available, and yes it was where I learned welding and foundry work too. I never did foundry work as a career, being a welder/machinist by trade, but the powers that be have decided that shop is "too dangerous" and shut it down, when they let kids hit the gridiron and crush their skulls in and think nothing about it. Stupid...

I did not have to cast the parts after all though; a few hours with a grinder, welder and drill press produced rebuilt mitten rail brackets. A few bolts, some paint, and a few connections to the chimney and we are heating with wood and coal again. I am pleased; I think I have around $100 in the project????

Anyway, I was even able to convince my wife to put on her vintage clothing and pose for a few photos. Our home is styled after the 1930's so this 1893 stove would still have been in some depression era stoves still I would imagine.

Great job on the period correctness color photos. And are you telling us you overhauled that stove in 2 days?! Or am I missing something?

Yes you are correct, it was rebuilt in two days.

It really helped that we have a stove shop in town here. It is a big stove shop too, well known in New England for old stove parts and is big enough to have a museum. If we had not found the legs, it would have been a lot longer as I would have had to have the legs cast, or cast them myself.

The mitten rail brackets were about the same, they were broken off and had missing cast iron in flat sections. That meant I could cut cast iron from the old broken legs and weld them to the mitten rail brackets to make everything work. Had I had to cast them myself it would have taken longer. I would have used brass though and not cast iron if I was required to do that.

As for the period correctness, we really try. Katie's outfit came from a shop that specializes in old clothing, while the antiques came from my Grandmother's home. We did a 1940's photo shoot a few years back by an old railroad nearby, and it came out well too.

Sounds like you are a very talented individual. Glad you're a member, one that fits in with the many other talented members among us.

The wife and I really enjoyed those pictures. Wife is curious about the curtain rod and would like more information about it as she'd like to do something similar in our house. Love the furniture too.