Buck stove shot gun control

[Woody Stover]

I put 4 small peices of ash on the bottom and over heated the cat. The thing that was weird is that i shut down all of the air inlets and the fire didn't care. It still seemed to blaze away. I opened the bypass and kicked the blower up to high to cool it down. I really did get nervous on that one. Lol

That's why I've talked about not getting too much wood gassing at the start; There is always some air feeding the wood, even with the air cut all the way. You handled it correctly; Once you open the bypass cat temp will come down. As you learn, you'll get to the point that the cat going high won't be an issue.
I recall that your wood was going out at first, when you were loading E-W. At this point, maybe you can burn that way to guard against over-gassing, but alter how you are feeding air to the fire. I might try E-W, but set the air to a little less air wash, a little more channel, and see if the load will keep burning down to ash. Keep experimenting; You're in the learning phase, and I think you're doing fine!

 

[Crank shaft]

Thanks Woody, I will give that a try tonight when I get home. I think I'm starting to understand this stove a little bit more. It seems like some days I don't have any issues and some days I have to sit and watch it because I don't trust it or the out gassing is to much. I love how quick this unit heats up and how it heats the house but it just seems like alot of work to do it. I will try larger peices of wood tonight, maybe that's part or the problem.

 

[Crank shaft]

How many peices of wood do you normally put in what you feed E-W?

 

[Woody Stover]

For sure, the bigger splits will gas in a slower, more controlled manner. You'll get to where you can manage the variables and run the stove without thinking about it too much.
One idea I considered was to tighten up the sealing of all the air plates so it would be possible to shut down the burn quicker by cutting more air, if the load was trying to get away from me. I ended up not doing that because my wife or SIL would run the stove on occasion, and I didn't want them cutting the air too far, crashing the cat, and smoking out the neighborhood....MIL's house was in town.

 

[Woody Stover]

I always burned N-S, but I would say you could load up the box pretty full E-W. The only thing that can happen E-W is that a split could possibly roll against the window if you try to pile the front of the load too high. It's not really gonna hurt anything, but I don't like to see it happen. My Keystone at home is an E-W loader (door on the side) and then has andirons in the front of the box to keep splits off the glass.

 

[Crank shaft]

I see what you mean with the bigger split's and controlling with the channel air , it seems like I can keep the fire on top of the logs and have more control.bi did put the fire down to low and just about put it out. I'm going to get brave tonight and try rounds. I will let you know how it goes.

 

[Woody Stover]

Once I reached my final cruise air setting, I seldom had flame for very long. After a while, flame was out and all I could see was glowing embers on the wood. That is enough to feed the cat plenty of smoke and keep it burning, and producing heat. That's how cat stoves like to run. Flame usually indicates that more wood is catching, hence more gassing. If it's under control, fine, but with continuous flame there comes a point where too much wood will be gassing at once and the cat may go high.

 

[Crank shaft]

I understand. I'm back at it now. I have plenty of flame and as usual my channel and air wash is shut down cat is climbing. Now at 1400. I'm going to let it go and see what happens. Thank you! Now I feel a little more comfortable.

 

[Crank shaft]

Hey Woody, Thanks for staying with me!

 

[Woody Stover]

Hey Woody, Thanks for staying with me!

Glad if I can help.I'd like to see people get up to speed a little faster than I did.

 

[Woody Stover]

Actually, some flame can keep the cat temp lower, since the flames are eating some smoke. But flames mean that quite a bit of air is still getting into the box, so gassing is going to be higher than you might want. You said the left and right sliders are shut? What about the shotgun air?

 

[Crank shaft]

Actually, some flame can keep the cat temp lower, since the flames are eating some smoke. But flames mean that quite a bit of air is still getting into the box, so gassing is going to be higher than you might want. You said the left and right sliders are shut? What about the shotgun air?

Yes, all of the doors are closed and the ash pan is pushed all of the way in. I thought these stoves are air tight. Seems like it takes along time to loose any flame and I think that's why I have a heck if time with out gassing.

 

[Woody Stover]

I think that they set up the stoves with the air controls a little loose, maybe for EPA emissions testing, or maybe to make sure users don't crash the cat. Or maybe there are variations in manufacturing tolerances that allow for some stoves to get more air than is ideal. At any rate, it would help to try to figure out where your stove is getting excess air from. Are the coals glowing brighter above the ash dump lid? If so, that would indicate that some air is getting past the ash pan gasket. If you open both the ash pan door and the door that covers the fan controls, and can get some clear close-up pics of the air control system, it might help us to see what's going on, since you have a slightly different air control system on the 80. If you look back at post #91, in the first pic you can see the air gap that I originally had between the slider plate and the air opening (this was with the slider closed.) The other two pics show the shim I installed to lift the slider rod and close that gap a bit. Maybe you can do something similar, on one or both sides. Another thing I thought about doing to raise the plates and cut more air, was to get longer plate-mounting screws, then put thin washers between the plate and the rod to hold the plates tighter to the air holes. It might be necessary to cut the tips off the longer screws though, so they could screw down tight.
Try to also see how the shotgun air control works, and if there is a gap between the plate and air hole when it is closed. Get pics if you can.
If you make these types of adjustments, you may not be able to shut the controls all the way, or you might starve the cat and/or the fire. But I would rather have to deal with that potential problem, than with the problem of not being able to slow down the stove if I get too much wood gassing.
Some of the non-cat stoves have similar issues; If you don't cut the air soon enough when establishing a new load, you can get too much gassing and have a run-away stove on your hands.

 

[Crank shaft]

I bent the tracks up on the shotgun hole and it seemed to help. I did notice the primary slide is a little loose but I feel the same way about starving the cat. Where is the door and how do I open it. I was wondering how I would pull the blower to service it. I saw the pics with the shims to push the slides tighter to the stove. Thank you

 

[Woody Stover]

Yeah, I would wait a while to see what the shotgun adjustment has done, before going any further. I would only want to do as much as was necessary to get a little better control, I wouldn't want to over-do it to where it was too easy to stall the cat.
I'm not sure if your 80 has the same door setup at the 91...are there two doors with magnetic closures, one for the ash pan and another for the rheostat and on/off/auto blower switch? Does it have the expanded-metal mesh screen that the switch is mounted to, as seen in the first pic in post #91? Can you post a pic? I had the blower out on mine a few weeks ago. I didn't see it in the 80 manual, but there are instructions on how to remove the blower in the 91 manual, page 24. Not sure if that applies to the 80 as well?

 

[Crank shaft]

I'll try

 

[Woody Stover]

Since the rheostat and switch are on the outside, I guess you just have the one door for the ash pan. Can you see both left and right slider rods and plates if you look in with that door open?
From what I can see of that fire, it looks pretty tame...

 

[Crank shaft]

Ok Woody, I think I have it. I called my favorite people...Buck Stove and talked to darryl. I told him I don't have any control over this fire. They had me check for a door leak using a dollar bill. It had none. I told him the stove was new, he said doesn't matter the gasket could be cut short. Than he had me check the air doors. I did and he said they were to loose. He gave me a number and the guy said he will see who's in the area and get back to me...ok. meanwhile I looked for the other door you told me about and found it screws on. I pulled it off and found about 0.60 gap in the doors. I pushed up on the slide with my thumb and was able to tighten the gap. Right now I have a nice slow burn going. I'm still going to have them come out and check it if I ever hear back from them. I will post when I reload and let you know how that goes! Thank you! Cat temp is about 1300 and I could not raise or lower by adding or subtracting air. I I'll let ya know how the reload goes!

 

[Woody Stover]

he had me check the air doors. I did and he said they were to loose. He gave me a number and the guy said he will see who's in the area and get back to me...ok. meanwhile I looked for the other door you told me about and found it screws on. I pulled it off and found about 0.60 gap in the doors. I pushed up on the slide with my thumb and was able to tighten the gap. Right now I have a nice slow burn going. I'm still going to have them come out and check it if I ever hear back from them.

Me, I would rather do it myself as I've had too many bad experiences with hacks, but your mileage may vary. If the guy comes out, watch what he does and ask him to explain. I'd assume they are going to charge you for a service call?

I will post when I reload and let you know how that goes! Cat temp is about 1300 and I could not raise or lower by adding or subtracting air. I I'll let ya know how the reload goes!

It would take a while after an air adjustment for the gassing to adjust and the change to be noticed, or it might not be noticed at all if the change you made in the air was small. But I think 1300 is right where you wanna be. Should be tossin' good heat. Have you got a stove top meter on the stove anywhere? If so, where, and what has it been reading?

 

[Woody Stover]

I looked for the other door you told me about and found it screws on. I pulled it off and found about 0.60 gap in the doors.

You mean.060", 60 thousandths of an inch? Surely it wasn't a .6" gap, over half an inch? Got a pic of that plate?

 

[Crank shaft]

It was about 60 thousandths. Pretty close to a spark plug gap. It should be under warranty from what buck says but I think I did fix it. I will find out more when I relight it tonight. I will take a pic take a picture tonight. I know about the hacks. I fired my first installer. Sometimes he would show up and sometimes not. I would waste my time and have to blow off work for nothing.

 

[Crank shaft]

If I turned off the channel air, primary air and shot gun air shouldn't the fire dye down to nothing?

 

[Woody Stover]

Yeah, I would think you should be able to snuff the flames. Coals will still be glowing, but maybe not very bright.

 

[Crank shaft]

Thank you!

 

[Crank shaft]

I still have some flame, not going gto worry about it. Never heard from the fireplace store and I'm not going to worry about them either. Going to take everybody's advice and just learn how to run this thing. I'm getting better and braver lol!