Tuesday, March 10, 2009

We have stove! (mostly)

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I picked up the stove this afternoon and lugged it into the house. I even got it hooked up and working, mostly. I say mostly because the two burners on the left will not light. Their pilot light is lit, and they can be lit by matches, but they won't light automatically. I have to wonder if this has something to do with the burner assemblies falling out while I was loading the stove into the van.

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As to the question of how many people are required to move such a beast, the answer is two men in decent condition or one idiot with a heck of a lot of determination and mechanical advantage.

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7 comments:

Shane said...

Wow, I wasn't expecting to see one in such good condition. That thing looks like it just rolled off the assembly line!

Christopher Busta-Peck said...

Nor I. It's not quite as perfect as it looks - the chrome could use a little polish, and there's some rust around the burner assemblies.

Mary Beth said...

one idiot with a heck of a lot of determination and mechanical advantage

This pretty much sums up our entire renovation. (Well, two idiots, but only one with manly strength, hee hee!)

Awesome looking stove!

Mr. Kluges said...

Very nice stove. A gem of a find.

artemis said...

Beautiful---congrats on a great find! Without knowing the details, I'd guess the burner issues can be fixed fairly readily. Our 1955 O'Keefe & Merritt was like that when we inherited it, and the gas company man was able to fix it in a few minutes. I imagine this one is also very mechanical given its looks, so you might pop the hood (so to speak!) and see if you can trace the route of the gas. The O&M lights through tiny holes in the pipe between the pilot and the burner, and if these are clogged or not perfectly aligned, you can only light it with a match. (Dropping it could probably have been just enough to muck with the alignment!) Ours needed its innards cleaned thoroughly and had to have one small tube from pilot to burner wrapped in foil to better seal it from outside air. (I'm not describing this well but you'll probably see immediately if your mechanics are at all similar.) The gas man recommended periodically soaking the burner assemblies in soapy water and washing them thoroughly to keep them in tip-top shape---on ours they literally lift right out of the stove, and this does seem to solve most problems. We do also have a flint striker for when it's being finicky (read: when I've spilled something and haven't cleaned it up....)

Christopher Busta-Peck said...

Artemis - thanks. I've figured out the problem and resolved it. There was a bunch of cruft in the one pilot light. A slight adjustment to the pilot light and a light scrape on it to remove some cruft did the job. Now I'm just trying to figure out the proper way to light the broiler - I can't imagine that we should have to use a match on it in a couple different places...

Anonymous said...

Hello! I just stumbled upon this blog post while searching for information about vintage Grand gas ranges. I'm considering buying one and would love some feedback from someone who is (or has) used one. Are you happy with the stove? If there have been issues, were they easily resolved? Many thanks, Shannon