Coal grates identification. Kalamazoo pilgrim

I don't see where it says your model stove can use Bit coal. Generally when ranges ads say "coal or wood" they mean anthracite. Some heating stoves can do all three, but as I mentioned in the pm, ranges pull so much heat out of the exhaust - more than base heater/base burner type parlor stoves- that I think Bit coal will soot up the stove flues quickly.

If your stove has thick enough cast iron liners they may hold up to coal heat without warping or cracking, but they won't insulate and hold heat in the firebed as well as firebrick/refractory liners, so you may not get as complete burn with them.

Many stove makers offered compromise setups to try to sell their stoves to a broader market. Some are still doing that today by trying to pass off wood stoves as also being able to use coal. We occasionally get people who bought one like that showing up here complaining about having trouble when using coal because the stove is not set up with the right type of grate design to easily and thoroughly clear coal ash.

Looking at that last link I can now see more of that parts page and zoom in on the writing.

Strange, but both sets of grates have the same part 285 number.

The upper set are dock ash type grates and I can now see them labeled as such.

Way down at the bottom of the page is a duplex/combo set showing the sides for wood. The coal sides would appear if those grates are turned 90 degrees. You can see that the cog (gears ) of the duplex/combo set will limit it to only turning 90 degrees - whereas with the dockash grates the cogs allow a full 360 degree rotation - much better for dumping and clearing ash and clinkers.

Do you know which picture your grates matches ?

Paul

scalabro wrote: ↑

Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 5:25 pm

Look at the size of the “doughnut” on pg 48 and the 4 guys standing on the grate assembly on pg 49

And it has just what you need, Scott, a grate lowering bar to make it easy to get at those clinkers.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote: ↑

Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 5:43 pm

And it has just what you need, Scott, a grate lowering bar to make it easy to get at those clinkers.

Paul

Hahahahaha imagine the basketball sized ones I could make in that monster!!

The largest ones fire pot is 30 inches in diameter... you could probably throw entire 40lb bags in

Now that is a furnace I wish someone would manufacture new again!!

scalabro wrote: ↑

Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 5:45 pm

Hahahahaha imagine the basketball sized ones I could make in that monster!!

Now that is a furnace I wish someone would manufacture new again!!

You could go on the pro circuit !

Paul

True! Hahahahaha

Sunny Boy wrote: ↑

Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 5:37 pm

I don't see where it says your model stove can use Bit coal. Generally when ranges ads say "coal or wood" they mean anthracite. Some heating stoves can do all three, but as I mentioned in the pm, ranges pull so much heat out of the exhaust - more than base heater/base burner type parlor stoves- that I think Bit coal will soot up the stove flues quickly.

If your stove has thick enough cast iron liners they may hold up to coal heat without warping or cracking, but they won't insulate and hold heat in the firebed as well as firebrick/refractory liners, so you may not get as complete burn with them.

Many stove makers offered compromise setups to try to sell their stoves to a broader market. Some are still doing that today by trying to pass off wood stoves as also being able to use coal. We occasionally get people who bought one like that showing up here complaining about having trouble when using coal because the stove is not set up with the right type of grate design to easily and thoroughly clear coal ash.

Looking at that last link I can now see more of that parts page and zoom in on the writing.

Strange, but both sets of grates have the same part 285 number.

The upper set are dock ash type grates and I can now see them labeled as such.

Way down at the bottom of the page is a duplex/combo set showing the sides for wood. The coal sides would appear if those grates are turned 90 degrees. You can see that the cog (gears ) of the duplex/combo set will limit it to only turning 90 degrees - whereas with the dockash grates the cogs allow a full 360 degree rotation - much better for dumping and clearing ash and clinkers.

Do you know which picture your grates matches ?

Paul

My grates most certainly look like the upper grates, which I now know are called Dock ash grates. So I would assume that would have been the ones selected for anthracite as opposed to the combo jobs at the bottom? I am a little paranoid now to put anthracite in the stove. The pilgrim and I think maybe the president are the only ones that it doesnt mention about firebricks for anthracite. The others say optional firebrick for burning anthracite and extra heavy duty cast for burning wood and bit

Yes, Dockash grates are for anthracite. If you look closely at them, the tips of the cross bars are slightly curved to points to better grab and break up clinkers as the grates are rotated. Which by the way you turn the handle clockwise to pull the ash away from the sides of the firebox toward the middle and downward to dump it. Go the other way and it packs the ash against the sides of the firebox. The grates should be rotated at least once a day - usually first thing in the morning when the ash bed is at it's deepest from an overnight burn.

Never do a full 360. You want to alternate using the two grate faces to help even out the heat stress and wear. They will last far longer if rotated daily. If not rotated they will warp and become unable to be turned, then they will continue to warp even more until the firebed starts falling through the gaps that warped grates cause. Been there and still have the warped grate bars that my range came with because the previous owner used wood and never turned the grates.

Dockash grates have a square, or rectangular stub sticking out to put the shaker handle onto. You put the handle on and then only turn it 180 degrees, so that the other face of the grate bars is now the surface supporting the firebed. That will break up and dump any clinkers into the ash pan while they are still in the crumbly stage. Then use short, choppy strokes to shake ash.

NEVER force the grates if you meet resistance while turning them. Try backing up a bit and turning again. If it still won't go, use a mirror and flash light to look up from the ash pan area to see what is jamming it. Then, when you see where the jam is, probe down into the firebed with a right-angle tipped poker, hook and work whatever is jamming the grates to the surface to lift out with BBQ tongs.

When cast iron gets up to the temps where it starts to glow, like grates can get to, it becomes very weak. It's very easy to break a grate when it's that hot if you use too much force to try to work a jam loose. Better to look and hook !!!

Paul

very informative sunny! Thanks for that.

So should I not try coal in the stove. I am trying for the life of me to remember if I saw refractory in there or plain heavy duty cast.... I would think the old timers burned anthracite in it if they ordered the anthracite grates....
hmmmmmm

BlackBetty06 wrote: ↑

Mon. Feb. 04, 2019 5:30 pm

very informative sunny! Thanks for that.

So should I not try coal in the stove. I am trying for the life of me to remember if I saw refractory in there or plain heavy duty cast.... I would think the old timers burned anthracite in it if they ordered the anthracite grates....
hmmmmmm

My only experience with how Kalamazoo makes their stoves is two friends here who only use wood in their Kalamazoo ranges. Kalamazoo iron liners for coal may be thicker than what other manufactures use for wood-only iron liners ????

If it has the coal grates, and iron liners, see if you can see how thick the liners are. If they are at least a 1/4 inch thick, that's close to how thick many firepots are, so it should be ok with coal.

And, you can add a refractory liner using the "ramset" type refractory that's like modeling clay. You roll it out to about 3/4 inch thickness with a rolling pin on waxed paper. Cut it into pieces with a knife and press the pieces up against the firebox walls (it's sticky) making sure it clears the grates so they can still rotate. Then light a few small kindling fires to dry it.

Paul

Well just got back from camp. Before I lit the stove up I figured since it always smoked with the oven engaged Id best sniff around a bit. I Popped the stove tops off and opened all the cleanouts and the one down in the oven. There was so much crap gagged up in the stove its no wonder why I would get smoked out. So after an extensive shop vaccuming and soot brushing in all the crevices I fired it up. After I had a good hot wood fire going for about 15 minutes I engaged the oven. Just like that the oven started heating up and no smoke in the camp!! So after I felt that was a success, I started adding in anthracite. Heres where there was some disappointment to an extent. The coal burned however it took a very long time to ignite and basically idled along the whole time. Because the chimney is so piss poor, the best draft I could get with the coal was a -.005 to -.02 depending with the average around a -.012.( Primary air wide open, secondary air fully closed, oven engaged) The stove held a fire fine, but didnt throw hardly any heat out. When I wanted to cook on it or crank it up, Id put some oak splits in there with it. With the wood on top of the coal and ONLY the underfire air open, the coal would burn nicely and along with the wood, would put out good heat.

I also lied about the condition of the dockash grates. Apparently I didnt realize how warped they were and I could not get a free rotation. I can jiggle them a bit which allows some ash to dump down, but I would have to get in there with the poker and get pretty radical to clear the ash. I wonder if there is any way to get replacement grates for the old tank.

None the less, I got a lot more personal with the stove and its operation. I have a feeling with a good chimney, this stove would perform like a champ.

Ill post the pics of the chow in the cooking with coal thread.

I also think Bituminous would rip in this with the sorry ass chimney since it has more wood tendencies albeit like said before there would be plenty of soot likely. That coal pic above was the best I ever had the coal going on straight coal. This was right as I had first got the coal going.

Running in oven mode, .012 average is not bad, but not great. The chimneys don't look too bad, so it might not just be the chimney's fault. There are lots of seams in a range after the firebed that can leak air into the exhaust stream and reduce the draft strength. My range was very sluggish on a good chimney, until I replace the warped top plates and sealed up seam leaks.

How well do the top plates sit flat ? Can you rock them by pressing around the edges ? If they rock, try turning them and swapping them to another position, they may sit flatter because that was where they had been sitting for a lot of high-heat use.

Have you checked for any air leaks such as, air getting past the firebox linings ? Or after the firebed, such as any seams leaking under the edge of the cooktop, or inside the oven ? To check for leaking seams, you can shine a small flash light on the seams inside the flues and the oven with the room lights off and see if any light shows through.

From the looks of the picture, you can mound up more coal in the firebox. The added BTU volume will help the draft and heat output.

You can send those warped grates out to Tomahawk Foundry. They will flatten them and use them to cast new ones. Better yet, try contacting the stove restoration shops, give them the length and width of the grate frame and see if they have triangular grates that will fit. That type are much less prone to warp and do a better job of grinding up the chunks of ash and clunkers. The triangular shaker handles are quite common on eBay.

Paul

The actual burner plates sit pretty true. I cant make them chatter when pushing on them. The two top plates that the burner plates set into however are warped. They kind of point up in the middle like a triangle if that makes sense. Not a whole lot but if you turn the lights out you can see fire occasionally. Maybe this is the problem. Too much secondary air. If I have a good wood fire going I can completely shut all of the air to the stove. It will slow the burn rate down a bit but in continues to burn no problem. thats why im thinking too much primary.....

Secondary air is good for burning wood. In fact that should be the range's main source of air when burning just wood. But secondary air is not good for maintaining control of a coal fire in a range.

Any primary damper/ash pan area air getting around and bypassing going through the firebed, or coming in as secondary air after the firebed, will make the fire sluggish and not burn as hot as it can.

For minor gaps in warped top plates try spreading some clean sand over the gaps.

Check if the firebox cast iron liners are letting air leak around the firebed instead of being forced to go through it. Seal all gaps with furnace cement. I use Hercules brand, available at Lowes and Home Depot.

You can temporarily seal other leaks in removable plates by just smearing some furnace cement into the gaps and then see how well the range handles coal then. After the test the Hercules can be popped out of the gaps and any residual can be washed off with warm water and a scrub brush.

You may find that the chimney is not as much of the problem you might think.

Paul

BlackBetty06 wrote: ↑

Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 1:28 pm

Sunny I have never seen the grate piece for the wood only burning. I wonder if they purchased that with the stove or if they burned it out? All of the original tools for the stove are still there hanging though.

Ill post pictures of the stove in action in the future in the cookin with coal thread. If I can get her going good, I might try and do a fair amount of our cooking on the old girl!

My range has the same type of grates as the one you have. I had a hard time keeping a bed of coals when burning wood, they would fall through the grates to easily. I do have a set of wood grates for the stove but since I only have one set of hardware for both, it is a pain to swap them out. What I did was to make a pattern out of a 1X8 and send it to Tomahawk foundry to have one cast. Not all I have to do when switching from wood to coal is to drop it in on top of the coal grates. Since that sucker is 3/4" thick cast iron, it should last my lifetime. That might help the guys with the wood burning they are doing for heat.

In the photo, the part on the right is the wood pattern and on the left is the cast iron plate. I put the slots in it so as to rake the ashes down easier. Also, I have a wood plate for my oak style stove and they had slots in them so I decided to do the same with this one.

Randy