# Refurbishing Vermont Castings Dauntless fireplace



## etc3777 (Sep 29, 2014)

New to this forum but I've been lurking around for a while.  I appreciate the useful information here.

So here's the background:  I acquired an old Vermont Castings Dauntless fireplace (Franklin style with glass doors).  The unit had been stored in a damp location so there was a fair amount of rusty metal to clean.  I've disassembled the main body of the fireplace, cleaned the rust and partly reassembled it.  That was relatively easy part.

My question is about the glass doors frames.  Each glass door is framed on three sides with a light steel channel/piano hinge assembly that was originally brass plated.  The glass appears to have been forced into the frame with a friction fit during assembly.  There also seems to be a thin flexible material (similar to a plastic or silicon sheet) pinched between glass and the metal channel.  The door frames also suffered during storage and are now moderately rusted with some light pitting of the metal surface.

I showed the door assembly to a local plating shop and although they don't do brass plating they advised that the frames could be re-plated but the glass should be removed first, the metal cleaned and polished to remove the pitting before plating.  To me that sounds expensive and I have no idea how to remove the frames from the glass without breaking something, much less how to reinstall the glass later. 

I'd prefer to have the door frames brass plated as they originally appeared, but as a fallback, I'm considering just cleaning them up and painting the frames with a high temperature black paint.

Does anyone have similar experience or advice on how to go about refurbishing the brass plated door frames?  

Thanks.


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## webbie (Sep 29, 2014)

No experience doing that - but I know the stove. I think you are on the money - that the glass is probably just pressed into a silicon gasket in the channel. I would think a glass shop would be able to remove - because, as you know, things that go together usually come apart! You'd then have to re-install which could probably be done either with RTV silicone or a similar gasket (should be available at mcmaster-carr, etc.).

BTW, that is tempered glass as I remember - not ceramic. Just FYI. 
I do love the look of that stove.


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