Posted 3 years ago
hotairfan
(388 items)
This is the larger of my Lehigh Furnace 10 plate cook stoves. I posted a smaller one several years ago (look up that post, it’s an interesting post). This 10-plate stove has a boiling hole or sometimes called a cooking hole in the rear of the top plate, used to fit kettles. The stoves side doors open to expose the oven area while the front door leads to the fire box. Unfortunately, the stove must have been overheated at some time in its life and resulted is a sagging &burn hole in the inner oven plate. I thought of getting a new plate cast at an Amish foundry that I deal with, but the condition is part of its history, so it will be left as it is.
Interestingly, upon close examination of the boiling hole and the cast lid that accompanies it, is it appears to have a repair to the inner rim of the boiling hole. It turns out (after close examination), that it is a casting imprint of an earlier repair to the pattern. It shows a small strap pinned to the lip where it might have been chipped or dropped during usage.
This ten-plate stove is quite larger than my previous ten plate stove listed and most likely was used as the main cooking stove of the family who owned it.
I proudly display this stove in our enclosed patio, and it seconds as a for holding (concealing) our stereo components in its oven. The term "Ten Plate" refers to the amount of pattern plates that it takes to cast one of these stoves.
The Lehigh Furnace site is approx. five miles from my home in the village of… what else, Lehigh Furnace. I remember seeing the remains of the furnace back in the 1970’s, but progress dictates that history moves on and the people who purchased the property, removed the relics and built a new home in its place. I only wish that I would have taken a photo of the furnace stonework when I had the opportunity. Time and man wait for no-one.
An interesting side note: My wife and I were visiting the Hopewell Historical site where the Hopewell stoves were made. We were in the main lobby where the stoves are displayed, and while I was talking to the ranger, my wife reached into her purse and got a tissue out to dust off one of the stoves. In an instant, the ranger strongly told my wife not to touch the relic. She immediately apologized and said that it was normal behavior for her to wipe the dust off of the stoves at home and she sheepishly walked away and didn't touch them again.
"The stoves side doors open to expose the oven area while the front door leads to the fire box."
So what is the cast lid on top for?
In the second photo, you will see the chimney opening. At the base of this opening you will see that there is a plate covering the oven. The heated gasses from the wood burning, flow under the ovens bottom plate (damaged plate) then up behind the rear oven plate to the top of the stove, heating both the kettle in the pot hole and then travels onward to the chimney opening.
This way of heat transfer give the best heat usage before traveling up the chimney and is most efficiently heating the oven and the top of the stove. Not bad for the early 1800's .... right?
Thanks for the explanation. The one picture wasn't clear to me what I was looking at.
So are you going to braze up the damage... or replace the parts..?
I see the hold know. .cut a patch if you don't weld plenty of fabricators out their that can fix that right in your yard .... ...
see the hole'''