Coal grates identification. Kalamazoo pilgrim

 
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BlackBetty06
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Post by BlackBetty06 » Sat. Feb. 02, 2019 9:13 pm

Hi guys, I have a Kalamazoo Pilgrim cookstove at my hunting camp. I am reading about this as I am going to try and burn coal in it for the first time. I found some old information on the stove and it is talking about "DUPLEX GRATES" for wood and soft coal and "ANTHRACITE GRATES" for anthracite. I dont know what these different grates may look like. The grates in my stove are a pair of grates that have square cutouts in them. Does anybody have any ideas what i may have?


 
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BlackBetty06
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Post by BlackBetty06 » Sat. Feb. 02, 2019 10:51 pm

285 is what my grates look like. I wish they would just say anthracite grates or soft coal/wood grates

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D.lapan
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Post by D.lapan » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 8:41 am

My Crawford has Grates like that 2 sided, when tending you turn then 1 half turn to switch the side that his more hot to the cool side to prevent warping and then shake the ash through, i burned antracite in it for 4 years now with no issues, dose your range have all the fire brick in the fire box to proctect the sides?
Dana

 
D.lapan
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Post by D.lapan » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 8:44 am

This is from when I tore it down and restored it

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BlackBetty06
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Post by BlackBetty06 » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 9:20 am

Yes, the stove has all of the firebrick in it. I read about these things for 4 hours yesterday. I figured out how the oven works with the damper making the flue gases go all the way around the oven. Ive only ever seen it burned it stove top mode. I wonder if the passageways are clogged up around the oven. I flipped the lever up once not knowing what it did and it started to smoke. Maybe the fire wasnt hot enough or mature enough though either. Ill have to pull the top plates off and see if its clogged up. I never tried to really rotate the grates very far. The stove needs its enamel cleaned up somehow and is missing a few of the gas knobs. Ill also need to give it a major scrub down because every year guys slather it up with cooking oil so thats all caked up on it. My camp is talking about replacing this stove with a propane heater. (Its only been used for heat for decades with a propane range doing the cooking chores). If they do Im gonna snatch it up and try and freshen it up. It says in the literature it will burn hard OR soft coal plus wood depending on what grates are in it. Apparently the wood and softcoal grates are different than the anthracite grates. Im going to take some of my anthracite up in bags and Im going to hopefully pick up some soft coal from member coaljockey and try it both ways. Maybe Ill even get the oven to work without stinking the place up. I suspect my relatively short chimney could be the culprit but Im sure they used to use the oven on it back in the 40s and 50s unless they only made stovetop meals. I wish I would know but all of those members of the camp have passed.

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D.lapan
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Post by D.lapan » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 9:29 am

I know a guy here in New Hampshire that has a mint green one, without gas. He loves it, however he only burns wood in it.
From what I understand wood and soft coal burn similarly, as lon as you can rotate and shake the grates I don’t see any reason you can’t burn anthercite in it but it dose produce canon monoxide so I would give the whole inside of the stove a good vac and scraping and check the flu too..
Dana

 
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BlackBetty06
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Post by BlackBetty06 » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 9:43 am

Yes I have only ever seen wood burned in it. The grates do rotate and are not seized up. One is slightly warped but not bad. We have a carbon monoxide detector up there and I am taking one of the 3 from my house up along with me for extra precautions. As you said, I am going to inspect with a flashlight and verify that it isnt all gagged up with wood ashes. Other than the cast iron 90 coming off the bottom of the stove, its a straight shot of pipe about 6 feet up before it turns and goes into the chimney. The whole chimney is probably only about 14 feet or so tall.


 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 10:41 am

Odd that they call those "combo grates" when most other stove companies call them "dock ash" grates. Dock ash grates are flat-ish, two sided, and look like railroad tracks.

Most combo grates have an open grid like yours - and then when turned 90 degrees, they present surfaces that have smaller openings for better support of wood embers. Some, like Glenwood, call them "duplex grates".

For a wood fire, a "wood plate" or "Summer plate" that sits on those dock ash grates will work better to support the wood fire and not have a lot of the embers falling down into the ash pan.

What you have will work fine for coal. But make sure to turn them 180 degrees at least once a day to even out the heat stress on them so they won't warp. That will also dump any clinkers into the ash pan that are trying to form while they are still in the crumbly stage.

I think that if you try to use bit coal,..... ranges take so much more heat out of the exhaust than heater stoves do, that the flues will soot up quickly. Like with wood and creosote, you may have to run it very hot to prevent that buildup. That won't happen with anthracite no matter what temps you run it at.

If you can add a couple more lengths to the chimney, the stove will preform better and respond faster when starting and when making heat changes while cooking.


FYI, I just answered your PM damper question.
Paul

 
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Post by Sunny Boy » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 10:58 am

BTW, if you look up and to the right of the parts list picture of the grates, that has a partial picture a wood, or Summer plate. Notice how it has more surface area and less open area than the coal grate (part #285). You sit that on top of the coal grates when just using wood - which was often the fuel for quick, short duration fires for warmer weather cooking.

Paul

 
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BlackBetty06
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Post by BlackBetty06 » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 1:26 pm

Interesting. So it looks as if I have the combo grates then as opposed to the straight anthracite grates. Sonny I agree with you on the soot from the bit coal. I just loaded up about 225 pounds of coal in bags into the truck. Im hoping that should get me through the better part of the week atleast. Im excited to fire this thing up and put some coal into it and see what it does. My chimney is a strange critter up there. I will take pictures if i remember. Basically its the 6 inch smoke pipe that goes up into the ceiling and then turns 90 degrees into a "suspended" 12x12 unlined brick chimney that is about 6 feet tall. The reason I say its suspended is because back in the 20s when they built the camp they made a wooden platform, laid the brick up and out the roof, and filled the base with sand. They did that in our bedroom too where an old Duo Therm oil stove hangs out.

 
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BlackBetty06
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Post by BlackBetty06 » 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!

 
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Post by Sunny Boy » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 4:20 pm

225 lbs. should do for quite a while. My range uses 30 pounds in 24 hours,... unless the temps get down near zero. Then it eats about 40 lbs. a day.

Your range may have had more than just two choices of grates. Glenwood literature I've seen lists six different types for their ranges. And that was not uncommon. Some grate designs are wood-only flat cast iron plates, two pieces, with one part sliding over holes in the other plate to change the hole size to help adjust primary air flow. Some are duplex(combo) for wood and coal- usually a compromise design that's not the best at either fuel. And some, like the triangular teeth, are really best at anthracite and running nonstop all through the winter.

Then the wood plate - to put over the coal grates - was an other option with some makers. So, your stove may have never had a wood plate.

BTW, they are easy to make out of 1/4 inch plate steel and just drill a bunch of 1/2 to 3/4 inch holes in it. Lay it right over the coal grates and build your wood fire on it.

With some stoves originally sold as wood stoves, the firebox had cast iron liners. They help protect the stove body, but being thinner than firebricks the iron liners allow more room for wood.

A few words of caution.
For coal use, the firebox should have a firebrick (fire clay) or refractory cement liner on all four sides. That's done to not only protect the stove body from the stress of such high temps, it also retains heat in the firebed to gain more efficient coal burning. If your range does not have refractory or firebrick liner, don't burn coal in it. You might crack the liners and possibly the stove body. Stick to wood until you can line it with refractory cement, or cast, or cut fire bricks to fit.

Paul

 
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BlackBetty06
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Post by BlackBetty06 » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 4:53 pm

I was reading on Kalamazoos literature I found online from years back that the pilgrim model which is what I have was sold to burn wood, anthracite and bituminous straight out of the factory. Some other stove models in the literature reference how they used extra thick cast iron fire boxes to withstand the heat from coal fires.

https://archive.org/details/AKalamazooDirectToYou/page/n45

I found this an interesting read. Start at page 1 and it goes into some of their history and then start working your way back through. It details all their ranges, stoves, and furnaces. Would you think that if the stove was sold as a multi fuel unit it should be able to burn coal? The stove is all original and the firebox seems like its in great shape. This stove only gets burned about 2 weeks out of the year. From what ive read Id think im ok........

 
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BlackBetty06
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Post by BlackBetty06 » Sun. Feb. 03, 2019 5:16 pm

Maybe these were removed or broken and never replaced too......

 
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Post by scalabro » 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 🤯


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