Martin Stove - What Am I Looking At?

SLundwall

New member
I had a friend of mine give me this Martin Stove for an old 1880's log cabin I'm restoring. It's rusty and dirty but from what I can see, it is generally all there. I know I am missing a piece on the door to control air flow. So I have some questions.

1.) What am I looking at? I think it is from the early 1900's from the research I've done.

2.) I intend to use this on a exterior, covered dog trot deck area. Should I 'restore' this? Do I use it as is? I tried a bit of bead blasting as you can see from the cleaned area on the plate I experimented on. The numbers started showing up as BH-22-13 but it seemed they were degrading quick from the blasting so I stopped. So, do I restore it, clean it, use it as is?

3.) Can I find the missing part(s) somewhere? I need the mechanism on the door to control the air flow. Is this something I can replace? What else is missing?

Obviously, I'm new to this. I restore old motorcycles but this is my first stove. Any insight you give me would be great. Thanks.

Steve

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I doubt you'll find the missing draft control, but it would be easy enough to make one with a bolt, nut, and a small piece of round plate steel. It looks like the part where the draft control was threaded is broken, but it looks like there's enough left to still make it work. You may also be missing the fire grate. (It's difficult to tell from the pictures if there's one or not.) Since this apparently isn't going to be a show piece, I'd go ahead and blast it and then use the stove black on it.
 
Not second guessing, is it a Martin? The stove would have a KSW King Stove and Range intertwined or a Martin signature at an angle?
 
it seems like a lot of the crusty stuff came off from the blasting... I think I'd try less destructive methods and see what kind of results you get... wire brush by hand? cup brush on a drill? if that gets similar crud removal results... then keep going. I think it'll look good with the crud knocked off of it.
 
Not second guessing, is it a Martin? The stove would have a KSW King Stove and Range intertwined or a Martin signature at an angle?

It's a Martin. It says so on the inside of the door. I just didn't send that picture before. Here it is.



---------- Post added at 02:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:22 PM ----------

I think Evaporust would work well, to clean. Then Stove Black to finish.

Thanks, I'll get to work on that. Appreciate the guidance.

---------- Post added at 02:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:23 PM ----------

I doubt you'll find the missing draft control, but it would be easy enough to make one with a bolt, nut, and a small piece of round plate steel. It looks like the part where the draft control was threaded is broken, but it looks like there's enough left to still make it work. You may also be missing the fire grate. (It's difficult to tell from the pictures if there's one or not.) Since this apparently isn't going to be a show piece, I'd go ahead and blast it and then use the stove black on it.

The blasting I did on the one piece cut into the cast iron pretty quick. I have a hard media in my blaster right now so that may be part of the problem. I'm going to look at using Evaporust as suggest before.

I figured I'd have to make something for the draft control. I'll try to do something that doesn't look too out of place. Thanks for the information

---------- Post added at 02:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:38 PM ----------

it seems like a lot of the crusty stuff came off from the blasting... I think I'd try less destructive methods and see what kind of results you get... wire brush by hand? cup brush on a drill? if that gets similar crud removal results... then keep going. I think it'll look good with the crud knocked off of it.

I think you're right. Blasting is too destructive. That's why I tried the experiment on the small piece. I've got some Evaporust ordered (Thank you, Amazon). and am going to go from there. Thanks again.

Steve
 
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