On Sep 22, 8:13 am, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:
Jim Wilkins fired this volley

Does anyone have experience with the durability of stainless steel
hardware in a wood stove firebox?

The problem is that most corrosion-resistant steels lose much of that
property at the heat encountered there.

The only solution to it is to protect the steel parts from the heat
with a refractory brick (or panel) liner. If your stove never had a
liner, it's tough to add one that's thick enough to do the job, and
still not rob too much volume from the box.

Still, I'd rather have SS fasteners than merchant stock steel. At
least there's the chance they won't be a solid lump by the time I must
get them back out.

LLoyd

I just answered my own question with a magnet. The ones I replaced
about 10 years ago -are- stainless and they are in very good condition
after wire-brushing the crud off. The threads and the lettering on the
heads are still crisp and the nuts turn freely. These are exposed to
the flame at the top sides of the main firebox where they attach the
upper smoke box. The lower ones that hold the sides to the base are
original, were installed with NeverSeize in 1985, and came out easily
although the exposed part was seriously eroded, more so in the cooler
back end of the firebox.

Except for one hanging baffle the cast iron is in fine shape. I think
it's a Scandia ripoff of a Jotul 118 from the 70's. The castings are
marked Taiwan, the hardware is 1/4-20 with 10mm hex heads.

This is the stove I anneal and heat-treat in. A piece of steel coated
in Ivory soap and left in overnight cleans up to a smooth grey with
little or no scale. I modified the stove by drilling some small holes
to let more secondary heated air into the upper smoke box and close
down the main air intake until the flame shows some violet. At this
setting it burns about 7-8 Lbs of wood per hour with no visible smoke.
Below this rate it won't maintain a stable fire.

Jotul claims their original will burn all night "cigarette" style from
front to rear but I have never been able to make this work without a
lot of smoke. I arrange the fire muffle style with an air passage
between the logs down the center and get a maximum of 2 hours of good
heat.

Jim Wilkins