Appalachian 52 BAY Wood Stove Insert

[clemsonfor]

My high valley stove which is similar to the app and buck has a curved rod through the door. Its threaded and then a wedged shaped piece of metal goes on the threaded inner portion of the door handle then a lock nut. It then locks to the stove wall. Seems simple but last year the nut was stripped and stripped out the door handle causing me to have to get a new one. This year new handle and its fine.

 

[mellow]

All they did on the Bay 52 was to weld a piece of metal to the end of a rod, it gets bent and doesn't latch very well after a while.

Appalachian 52 BAY Wood Stove Insert

 

[mellow]

Anyone got some ideas on how to rework the door latch on these things?



I am also going to try a harder door gasket, it seems the metal lip really beats in a regular door gasket and compresses it so this latch works even worse, I had my latch just about spun around to seal and still had a gasket leak right below it towards the end this season.

Thinking I will try the Rutland black Grapho-glas gaskets unless someone else can recommend a better one, Appalachian sells the Perkins ones but I can get the Rutland ones local at Ace.

 

[Woody Stover]

Might have to replace the rod, but maybe you could attach a latch to the end of the handle rod, like the Buck has.
As far as the gasket, they have some bulk high-density gasket at woodmanspartsplus.com. It may take a bit of work to find what you want....kinda hard to navigate. I don't know if they have all sizes.

There are two set screw in the body of the latch mechanism (you can see one hole here,) and another retaining screw that goes into the end of the handle rod.
(broken image removed)

This handle is a little different, but shows the end screw.
(broken image removed)

 

[Woody Stover]

You can always order OEM gasket, then you know you have the right stuff.

 

[mellow]

So I pulled my door apart to see how it works and to replace window and door gaskets, thought I would post on how the primary air works on these stoves.

Have you ever wondered why your door glass looks like this?



The steel surround that pushes the door glass down to the gasket also routes the primary air up the sides and to the top, hence why you see the glass clean around it but not in the middle, I have traced out the air path with red arrows. Btw, the air sliders are not as adjustable as I hoped, they will always allow air in even fully closed.



So app owners there you have it, better get used to cleaning that window manually if you want to see the fire.

 

[mellow]

Btw, the door latch is not adjustable and also leaks air in, in order to change it you have to cut the whole assembly off.

 

[mellow]

Mellow,

I tried a fix on my floor model and it worked pretty well. I am sending you two different sizes of gasket material for the door, a dense 1/2" rope and a less-dense 5/8" rope. See which one works best to fill the gap.

Hey Matt, I ended up replacing the 5/8" rope you sent me for the door, it started to leak air at the end of the last season on the latch side again. I called Appalachian and they said it is either 3/8" or 5/8" depending on the model year.

I have tried replacing it with a Rutland 5/8" kit I picked up at tractor supply, the rope in that is hollow in the middle (low density), and now the door latch is too loose. Any ideas on what I should do from here? I was going to order a 5/8" dense rope gasket. It seems the way this door was designed going up against that metal lip it compresses the gasket quicker than if it was going against a flat surface, especially on the hinge side. I tried some dense 3/4" but I could barely get the door closed.

 

[mellow]

One of the interesting things on this stove is the start up air vent, it goes straight into the firebox so you do not have to crack the door open to get the fire started, worked great for my break in fires.
View attachment 65103

Just a heads up, I ended up getting some 3/4" magnet tape and covering over the startup air slider, I guess with time it was starting to get sloppy and allow air into the firebox even with it closed. I trimmed the 3/4" magnet at one end so it would fit around the handle and seal the whole area, you will only need about 3". Using a smoke test it seems to have cut down the air leakage.

I used a magnet so the startup air can still be used, it works great on getting a cold fire going.

 

[JMartin]

Just a heads up, I ended up getting some 3/4" magnet tape and covering over the startup air slider, I guess with time it was starting to get sloppy and allow air into the firebox even with it closed. I trimmed the 3/4" magnet at one end so it would fit around the handle and seal the whole area, you will only need about 3". Using a smoke test it seems to have cut down the air leakage.

I used a magnet so the startup air can still be used, it works great on getting a cold fire going.

View attachment 151847

Don't you need to have some air getting in there? I have an Appalachian from the 80's. It has two sliding dampers on the front. They are loose in the slides so I know air gets past them when closed. Should I seal them up some how or is this by design?

 

[mellow]

My primary air is on the sliders on the door, this is strickly for startup air.

Image of mine here, the part I am sealing is circled in red: https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/wp_000400-jpg.65103/

 

[coltfever]

Glad you took the primary air cover off. Thanks for the pictures. I've been wanting to see how it looked. Its what i pictured. Mellow my door latch is a little different look on the inside of the stove but still alot alike also. I don't like the way the handle design is at all but mine has not shown any wear at all. I haven't had to replace any of my gaskets.

 

[JMartin]

My primary air is on the sliders on the door, this is strickly for startup air.

Image of mine here, the part I am sealing is circled in red: https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/wp_000400-jpg.65103/

So do you bring the stove up to a certain temp and then close off the dampers?

 

[mellow]

From a cold start I open up that startup air slider halfway, that is about all it needs along with the primary air on the doors fully open. Then when the fire gets going good I close the startup air slider but leave the primary air open on the door. After about 20-25 minutes I can close the damper once my cat reaches about 600 degrees, then I cut my primary air sliders back about 50%, then another 10 minutes my cat is around 800 then I will close both primary air to fully closed and my cat will climb up to around 1200 and I won't reload for another 6-12 hours depending on how much I load the stove and how hard I run it.

Once I get it up and going I now cover the startup air slider with the magnet.

 

[JMartin]

From a cold start I open up that startup air slider halfway, that is about all it needs along with the primary air on the doors fully open. Then when the fire gets going good I close the startup air slider but leave the primary air open on the door. After about 20-25 minutes I can close the damper once my cat reaches about 600 degrees, then I cut my primary air sliders back about 50%, then another 10 minutes my cat is around 800 then I will close both primary air to fully closed and my cat will climb up to around 1200 and I won't reload for another 6-12 hours depending on how much I load the stove and how hard I run it.

Once I get it up and going I now cover the startup air slider with the magnet.

Nice. Do you ever have problems with blow back? Mine does it sporadically and I can't figure out the cause. I'm thinking it may be something to do with the wood or maybe too much ash/coals in the firebox. With the air controls closed I can see a fireball flare up inside and smoke will come out around the air control slides.

 

[mellow]

I have had issues in the past with puff backs when I had wetter wood, with dry wood I can shut the air down quicker.

With greener wood you will have to slowly cut the air back in smaller increments or you will get the puff backs. All that fuel is releasing smoke and with no active flame going it gets lit by the hot cat and you get an explosion pushing smoke out every opening.

 

[JMartin]

I have had issues in the past with puff backs when I had wetter wood, with dry wood I can shut the air down quicker.

With greener wood you will have to slowly cut the air back in smaller increments or you will get the puff backs. All that fuel is releasing smoke and with no active flame going it gets lit by the hot cat and you get an explosion pushing smoke out every opening.

That would explain it, Mellow. The wood I'm burning now is small but it was cut and stacked only 8 months ago and I live in a pretty humid climate. So maybe I'm on the border line of burning green wood. A moisture meter is on my shopping list. My goal is to get a big enough wood supply that I'm burning at least 2 year old wood. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[mellow]

What species of wood are you burning?

 

[JMartin]

Mostly red oak. January a year ago I had somebody bring a 1/2 cord of what he says was hickory. Whatever it is it sparks and smokes a lot. It's pretty heavy so probably not sweet gum maple. Hoping it just needs more drying time. I have all my wood cut in foot long pieces so I can load it either direction. Front to back seems to work best.

 

[mellow]

Oak is one of the longer seasoning woods, 2-3 years before it is usually ready to burn, splitting it smaller helps but still needs over a year since it is so dense.

I burn a lot of gum, it does season a bit quicker, usually in a year if split in small to medium, still takes 2 years for larger splits.

 

[JMartin]

I burned a bit of gum last year and was glad to be done with it. Boy did it smoke and spark. Foul smelling smoke, and a lot of ash. Again, it sounds like I didn't cure it long enough.

 

[English BoB]

From a cold start I open up that startup air slider halfway, that is about all it needs along with the primary air on the doors fully open. Then when the fire gets going good I close the startup air slider but leave the primary air open on the door. After about 20-25 minutes I can close the damper once my cat reaches about 600 degrees, then I cut my primary air sliders back about 50%, then another 10 minutes my cat is around 800 then I will close both primary air to fully closed and my cat will climb up to around 1200 and I won't reload for another 6-12 hours depending on how much I load the stove and how hard I run it.

Once I get it up and going I now cover the startup air slider with the magnet.

Where do you take your cat temps and with what ?

thanks Bob

 

[JMartin]

Where do you take your cat temps and with what ?

thanks Bob

I assume this question is directed at Mellow but I will chime in too..My old Appalachian didn't have a place to insert a cat probe so I had to drill a hole through the front panel. I cut my probe to length so that it is about as close as you can get to the front of the left cat without making contact. Works great.

 

[English BoB]

I assume this question is directed at Mellow but I will chime in too..My old Appalachian didn't have a place to insert a cat probe so I had to drill a hole through the front panel. I cut my probe to length so that it is about as close as you can get to the front of the left cat without making contact. Works great.

Thank you for that quick reply.

 

[mellow]

I use a condar catalytic probe you can see pics of it in this post: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/appalachian-52-bay-wood-stove-insert.83621/page-3#post-1113063