Magee Crown #112

echos67 · Post by **echos67** » Mon. Oct. 24, 2011 8:41 pm

Hey Bill, That is a great looking stove, whats more is you have the History on it which I find just as interesting as these stoves are.

Nice job on the restoration, thanks for sharring, by reading this post I completely understand how a baseburner works now.

Keith

wsherrick · Post by **wsherrick** » Mon. Oct. 24, 2011 9:08 pm

Auburn Stove Foundry in Maine has stovelids for sale in various sizes. Call up Emery at Antique Stove Hospital to see if he has one.

ashburnham55 · Post by **ashburnham55** » Mon. Oct. 24, 2011 9:40 pm

Thank you for the leads William.
I was shocked to read that you had your No. 9 running for 26 hours on just 12 pounds of coal.......That is insane.. And SteveZee's Star Hearld had fantastic numbers on his first fire and of course Nortcan's Bride which is just amazing. Since my house is only 1100 sq.ft, I am looking to see just how low you would be able to get the fuel consumption down to on a one of these masterpieces. I will be following all of the base burner threads to see how you are all making out while I am finishing up the Magee. --> It is a great motivation...

btw .. Not to sure just how many members now own base-burner/heaters but I think I am seeing a trend. lol

SteveZee · Post by **SteveZee** » Tue. Oct. 25, 2011 7:54 am

Bill,

Great to see the Magee again! Outstanding job that you're doing on her. You are going to be really happy with the performance of that baby. It will heat your whole house easily and with minimum effort. There is a reason that there were so many of these stoves in the day and, more importantly, that there is still so many left! People knew back then as we do now that these are certainly one of the very best anthracite stoves ever made. I was waiting for you to come back and post about your progress. As Will stated, give Auburn Stove a call about the lid. They have many original patterns for Glenwood parts and should be able to cross reference something for you. I'll bet they have the Glenwood version of that back-pipe cover. Same as Tomahawk, they also copy parts too if you can find one. Keep the pix coming and again great work!

nortcan · Post by **nortcan** » Tue. Oct. 25, 2011 12:15 pm

Super restoration job Bill. The Magee looks nice.

ashburnham55 · Post by **ashburnham55** » Fri. Feb. 22, 2013 10:20 pm

Update.

I lit my stove for the first time on Dec. 31st 2012 and have not looked back. --> I will post some pictures this weekend.

I had a tough go at it the first couple of weeks. I kept losing the fire every few days and would have to start from scratch. Usually on day one the fire would be raging and controllable and would only shake it down every 24 hours and all was good but as I entered the 4th day the fire was starting to fade out and I would end up spending 2 to 3 hours by the stove attempting to keep it going only to lose the fire. I would read-up on the forum about what I was doing wrong and would think that I had it figured out and would start out again with a clean fire pot and a couple of changes. I would think that I had the stove beat but again would find my self fighting to keep the fire alive by day four or five. I went though this about four or five times before I decided to take another route that I called overkill. My new strategy would be to continually tend the fire with hopes of doing so would allow me understand just how the stove worked. Doing so would allow the time to try the many different suggestions and remedies that I was researching on the forum on what I was doing wrong. With the help of my wife and two teen-aged children we kept the fire pot filled to the top and added fresh coal slowly about every two hours. I would also shake the stove down about every four to six hours. I had no intentions of losing the fire again.. I also started fine craft of "clinker fishing" doing so about once a day. As time went on I slowly cut back on the amount of times a day we would refill and shake down a made small adjustments each day. It was a long process but within about two weeks time I was down to just filling the stove twice a day and shaking it down only once every 24 hours. Just this past week I went over 30 hours between shakedowns and had no problems reviving the fire. I am still learning and testing new techniques but over all I am spending on average about 10 minutes a day tending the stove.

As for the stove's performance, I could not be happier. I am currently heating 1800 sq feet with about 25 lbs a day worth of coal a day over the past week or so and have maxed out at just about 40 lbs a day when we went through the cold snap about three weeks ago when the overnight temps were below zero.

I would like to thank all of the members of the forum for there help!!

buck24 · Post by **buck24** » Fri. Feb. 22, 2013 11:31 pm

Sounds like you have got it down path. You have to be happy with the results of that stove.

wsherrick · Post by **wsherrick** » Sat. Feb. 23, 2013 7:14 pm

Well, you have made it through the learning curve stage. Now it will be easy from here on out.
I'm deeply glad that you are pleased with the stove and its performance. I knew you would be. These things are amazing in their fuel economy and how much heat they extract from a small amount of coal.
You should be quite proud of yourself; taking the time to properly restore the stove, install it and have the patience to learn how to operate it.
Now it is part of the family and soon you will wonder what you ever did without it.

SteveZee · Post by **SteveZee** » Sun. Feb. 24, 2013 7:54 am

That's a nice post AB55. Very real world and inspiring to those folks considering a coal stove. Every situation is individual by many factors and of course I feel like I'm the only person on the planet that can run my two.

Like you, I've learned everything I know from the good folks on this forum but it's like any other course of study, a foundation that can be used to apply to real world situations. All, some, or none might apply to the individual situation, but at least you can understand the concepts and fine tune to your application.