Magee & Weir

Wow AshB you nailed it! When I assembled it last night for the pics I noticed everything said "Modern Oak" on it except the loading door, top cap under finial (Says Magee 1917) and all but one piece of the chrome trim. All those pieces say Magee Royal Oak (1917). I think the Modern Oak pieces have a date of 1906??

The pic you posted looks just like it by the way. I have to look at the youtube vid very excited!

Is there a source for the indirect back pipe or is this something that I could fabricate out of sheet metal or sheet steel? The stove currently has a dummy full lentgh back pipe that goes down to a cast iron bracket at the bottom of the stove but there is no divider inside and only a normal damper off the back of the pipe.

Thanks again for all the info everyone Im really psyched I found this site everyone is so helpful and knowlegeable!!!

ashburnham55 wrote:The one youtube is selling for $6500 --> It's claim to fame is that it was used in a Saturday Night Live skit in the late seventies. lol

The finial is the same as the one on my Magee Crown.

Hmmmmm..........I paid $50 for mine about 12-13 years ago.....The guy I bought it from used it to heat his house for years.....I told him about the stove salesman in western MA with the nice website and that he could probably get a lot more for it if he advertised in the right places but he seemed happy to sell it to me for $50.....Its now in the process of being fitted for a new metal jacket (barrel)....

wsherrick wrote:

ashburnham55 wrote:The one youtube is selling for $6500 --> It's claim to fame is that it was used in a Saturday Night Live skit in the late seventies. lol

The finial is the same as the one on my Magee Crown.

I don't think this one will heat any better than one selling for $1,500. Just me though.

Yep, and the only thing I'd be laughing at would be the person who paid $6500 for it! That's almost worse than the GoodTime Goshen Guy sells for. Everything else aside, it's a handsome stove that will perform well in your home PJT.

Ok finally found the pics on my hard drive.....Im unfamiliar with the new photo program and couldnt find where the darn things were stored

It looks like the door fits pretty tight so no worries there....I only used this stove briefly 10 years ago to heat a drafty old 20x20 cinder block garage and I used wood...wondering how much more heat I could get out of it with coal and how many rooms I could heat with it....

Thanks again everyone for the advice

Your going to be amazed and pleased at the heat that stove will put out. If it's located on the main floor (not basement) it will heat 1500sq plus feet quite well if centrally located. The bottom ash pit door is the one to be most concerned with about a tight fit. That's where all your control comes from. Best of luck with it and great stove!

It could just be reflection but it appears that the barrel is starting to warp a bit, I would check that out good it happens I believe more so when wood is burned than coal. People tend to stand the wood up leaning against the barrel & creating a hot spot where with coal in the cast area all the heat is uniform.

Barrel is new never been used had a sheet metal shop make me a new one as the old one was a little thin right around the exhaust port. I have to finish polishing the barrel (not easy on a vertical buffer) and then Im going to try to finish it with some old fashioned rust blueing for guns from Brownells....right now nothing is bolted together so things arent lined up too well....

Good deal, ain't much metal in those barrels to begin with. I hear a lot of people using stove black or something like that, might be cheaper & easier than blueing.

yeah but if it works rust blue will look so much nicer.....the original barrel had some kind of weird finish on it didnt look like paint almost an olive drab color....

PJT wrote:yeah but if it works rust blue will look so much nicer.....the original barrel had some kind of weird finish on it didnt look like paint almost an olive drab color....

That original barrel may have been Russian iron which was very popular and had better lasting qualities and better finish than domestic products.

Your main concern is to retard rust on the new barrel. I would use paint on the barrel and stove polish on the cast iron.

Heres a dumb question for ya.....should the inside of the barrel be treated with anything?

PJT wrote:Heres a dumb question for ya.....should the inside of the barrel be treated with anything?

Not dumb at all. Ash is corrosive so I don't think you can do anything about it. During the heating season there is no problem, it is when the stove is idle that corrosion occurs. Vacuum out and burn some wood which seems to neutralize the coal ash and provide a light coating. Wood stoves even those with light steel seem to last. If you want there are anti rust sprays you can use for the summer months.

PJT wrote:Barrel is new never been used had a sheet metal shop make me a new one as the old one was a little thin right around the exhaust port. I have to finish polishing the barrel (not easy on a vertical buffer) and then Im going to try to finish it with some old fashioned rust blueing for guns from Brownells....right now nothing is bolted together so things arent lined up too well....

I would be really interested to see how this goes for you, and I agree that would be a great look. Nice looking stove by the way.

franco b wrote:

PJT wrote:yeah but if it works rust blue will look so much nicer.....the original barrel had some kind of weird finish on it didnt look like paint almost an olive drab color....

That original barrel may have been Russian iron which was very popular and had better lasting qualities and better finish than domestic products.

Your main concern is to retard rust on the new barrel. I would use paint on the barrel and stove polish on the cast iron.

That's right Franco, Some of the better stoves came with "planished" iron also known as Russian due to the fact that they patented the hammering process that created this sheet stock. It did have a different sort of finish to it. My Star Herald came with it new from the factory. I think that the cast iron parts looks great with Williams stove polish. It's pure graphite in suspension and works well as it has no wax in it. The jacket might also be ok with the Williams or you could use the a hi temp coating like Thermalox.

PJT, So the stove does have a back pipe but it doesn't have a divider/damper in it? That's always a problem because the pipes themselves are easy to find but the cast iron divider with the damper is not so easy to get. People would accidentally throw out the back pipe when it needed replacing and forget the inner divider. You can copy an existing one at a foundry if you can find one. Obviously you can run it without the divider but it's not as efficient and the stack temps will be higher, but they came both ways and the back pipe was an option.

[/quote]I would be really interested to see how this goes for you, and I agree that would be a great look. Nice looking stove by the way.[/quote]

Thanks for the compliment! The hard part so far has been buffing the sheet metal. It came from the sheet metal shop not looking very nice so I have been trying to buff it with some compound but its not easy...the buffer has about a 3/8 inch wide wheel and its mounted on a pedastal so I have to maneuver the barrel around the buffing wheel.....getting an even coat of the rust blue probably will be no mean feat either...