Cleaning Fire Bricks??

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capone79
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Hand Fed Coal Stove: Early 1900s US Army Heating Stove

Post by capone79 » Tue. Dec. 26, 2017 6:57 pm

I just bought an old US Army coal stove. Basically the Locke 120 style "Warm Morning" stove with an 80 pound capacity. The firebricks are like specific puzzle pieces, so they are not just the regular rectangles you can buy at the hearth store. They are specific to the stove and cost a pretty penny to replace.
The stove have a buildup on certain areas of the fire bricks. Almost as if the stove has had clinkers fuse to the brick. It is nearly 100 years old but it very good condition. Very stout.

Is there any way to "clean" these bricks? I feel like if I try to chip away at them lumps, I will break the bricks. I read an article by someone who spoke broken english stating to stoke a hot coal fire and dump a pail of oyster or clam shells into the fire and it will "release" these fused clinkers. That sounds absurd, but has anyone else ran into this? What are you all's thoughts?

I have only been burning coal for a few months, but this is my third stove. I keep getting bigger and bigger ones! :D

 
CorrosionMan
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Post by CorrosionMan » Tue. Dec. 26, 2017 6:59 pm

Sounds almost plausable, not. Give it a try and let us know the results!

 
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freetown fred
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Post by freetown fred » Tue. Dec. 26, 2017 7:01 pm

Come on C--PIX, we need pix!!! :)

 
CorrosionMan
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Post by CorrosionMan » Tue. Dec. 26, 2017 7:16 pm

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Hambden Bob
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Post by Hambden Bob » Tue. Dec. 26, 2017 7:19 pm

About the most that I'd risk,being the age,fragileness and expense to recast new firebrick,would be a Dremel Moto-Tool and one Helluva Good Respirator......

The Dremel will give You control and manual dexterity,damned near like a Dentist,to shave off the clinker with the right kind of wheel on the arbor....

How bad is the fusion ? Does it look layered,like Bracket Fungi on an Old tree Trunk,or is it Lump Fusion ? Have You fired this thing yet ? How bad is it affecting the burn/air flow?

Like I said,if You feel compelled to do this,You better protect Yourself with a Very Good Respirator....

 
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freetown fred
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Post by freetown fred » Tue. Dec. 26, 2017 7:49 pm

Nice on the pix C. I agree with HB.

 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Tue. Dec. 26, 2017 8:21 pm

Hopefully Sunnyboy will tune in, i know he has talked about this very issue with his coal range... IIRC

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Wed. Dec. 27, 2017 10:04 am

Had the same problem with my 1903 range and my 1908 base heater with their original fireclay bricks.

The scale grew thicker making the 7 inch wide firebox only about 5-6 inches wide. That not only dropped the heat output, it caused bridging during ash shaking.

I've never heard of using clam or oyster shells to clean firebricks. And I grew up on the shore of one of the countries biggest clamming areas where there were lots of old clam diggers that had heated with coal.

I have an assortment of grinders, stones, and abrasive discs from my auto restoration business. I tried grinding but that was very slow and in some spots near impossible. The problem was not the clinker scale, but the lumps of fused iron oxides mixed in with the clinker scale. They are extremely tough to grind. Oxides are usually the hardest form of a metal. That's why oxides are often used as abrasives. Most of the clinker scale surface was like trying to grind a grinding stone with another grinding stone. :o

And yes, old fireclay bricks can be very brittle. The ones in my range were cracked and heavily scaled. The ones in my base heater were worse because of more cracks. With those in the base heater there are only two shapes of bricks, so I made two molds and cast new bricks. But with the range there are 6 bricks and the shapes are more complex.

With a bit of experimenting, I found that I was able to VERY carefully "shear" the bulk of the clinker scale off the brick faces with a wide carpenter's flooring chisel.

And, you have to use a small hammer - such as a tack hammer - to avoid putting a lot of shock energy into the bricks. The wide blade helps avoid digging into the brick faces. ONLY use very lightly taps as you keep moving the chisel around the lumps of scale holding the chisel parallel with the face of the bricks. That puts the energy into shearing off the scale rather than driving the force of the blows into the bricks. Basically you want to have the chisel chip away at the edges of the scale and start a fault line where it's attached to the brick face. As you keep the chisel flat to the brick face and chip away at the edges of each scale chunk, the ramp-affect of the chisel's cutting edge will all of a sudden pop off chucks of scale.

Remember to NEVER angle the chisel in toward the brick of you'll also dig out chucks of brick face.

For a round firepot bricks you'll need to use a narrower chisel and be extra careful not to have it dig into the brick surface.

Plan on going very slowly and only doing one small area at a time. Yes, it's slow at first but as you figure it out it goes faster - certainly faster than making molds for new fire bricks. ;)

Took me about an hour to do the 6 x 7 x 17 inch firebox of the range. That gained me more room for a few pounds more coal and resulting heat output, plus ash shaking is much more thorough and easier now.

Under the clinker scale your likely to find cracks. And a few low spots where the clinker scale eat into the surface of the firebrick. They can be repaired by removing any dust, and then wetting the mating surfaces, then putty knife on Hercules refractory cement to use as a glue and a filler (available at Lowes and Home Depot). The Hercules is "stickier" than any other refractory cements I've used. Smooth it with a wet finger and let dry for 24 hours before building another fire in.

To help prevent that scale buildup again, at some point during the day, and before shaking ash, I drag the right-angled tip of the fire poker along the firebox sides as a scraper to knock off any clinkers trying to stick to the firebricks.

Paul


 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Wed. Dec. 27, 2017 1:21 pm

Thanks ,Sunny Boy !! I wouldn't have wanted to try explaining all that even tho i read how you did your range b4.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Wed. Dec. 27, 2017 2:51 pm

Dave,
It is sorta running on the risky edge.

The trick is to go easy on it until learning how much force to tap the chisel with. And only take small cuts at the clinkers at a time.

Anyone who wants to jump in with a heavy hand and get it done quickly will be more likely to damage the bricks. But, treat the old bricks like they are shoveling lumps off egg shells and it actually works quite well.

I found it was faster, and without all the noise, sparks, dust, and stink of grinding iron oxide and clinkers.

Paul

 
CorrosionMan
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Coal Size/Type: Reading NUT 40lb plastic bags
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Post by CorrosionMan » Wed. Dec. 27, 2017 3:01 pm

Don't mean to be "that guy", but, how expensive is it time have new bricks cast?

 
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Sunny Boy
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Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
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Post by Sunny Boy » Wed. Dec. 27, 2017 3:19 pm

The first part of that question should be, is there firebrick molds for that stove ?

Many years ago, member Wilson's Woodstoves bought out a firebrick shop and has lots of molds for antique stoves and ranges. But, there were so many different models and production changes that for a lot stoves molds are not available. That's why so many restored stoves are lined with refractory and not bricks, like most were originally.

There wasn't any molds that would fit my year/model of kitchen range. If it was just two years younger, Wilson has those molds. The range has 6 bricks, all different shapes, and not easy to make a mold for. Plus there's very few of that year/model of my range around so putting a lot of hours into making brick molds to just make them for my stove is not a high propriety.

But my Glenwood #6 base heater was just two shapes of bricks, which are simpler shapes. And, there's a lot more #6 BH out there, so I made molds for that and gave the molds to Wilson when I was done with them so he could make bricks for other GW #6.

Paul

 
capone79
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Hand Fed Coal Stove: Early 1900s US Army Heating Stove

Post by capone79 » Thu. Dec. 28, 2017 1:10 am

Thank you for all the feedback. I don't have pictures because I haven't had it delivered yet. It's a large stove. Probably 20" diameter with 1"-1.5" build up. Plenty of room for air flow. I will try the chisel method with one of my gunsmithing hammers.
Thanks!

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