Finally got the shipmate installed! yea!
Here's how it went...
Hubby built a bulkhead in the galley, then he built a platform for the stove.
Moved the stove into the boat (Hubby and helper). Didn't hurt Hubby, helper, stove, or boat while walking a plank and going up and down stairs, ladders, etc.
Found a supplier (Lunenburg foundry) of the large size deck iron in bronze needed for the 6" stove pipe. Measured the offsets needed for the stove pipe to clear deck beams and ovehead deck light...Took forever but finally found a reasonable price on stainless steel 6" stovepipe and ordered the needed parts.
Figured out the tie-down system for the stove wouldn't be the little rings on the sides. Bought SS eye nuts and set up chainplates to the bilge stringer for the tie downs.
Drove up to LA to get micore for insulation, agonized over stainless steel, copper, brass, german silver....what...for countertop and surround of stove...then found a great deal on 18 and 16 gauge brass for the metal surround and countertop and bought it. Found a good deal on a cheap sheet metal brake (none to rent in San Diego it seems), started bending and installing micore and sheet metal...brass is lots harder to bend than copper, btw...then bought a handful of new grade 8 bolts for the cheapy brake to replace all the lower quality ones we immediately stripped out/broke. Then continued bending sheet metal with the newly modified brake.
No standard firebricks for this firebox, of course. Bought cast-able refractory cement, made a couple molds and cast two 6-1/4" x 16-1/2" x 1" thick fire bricks and two 6-1/4" x 7" x 1" thick fire bricks for the firebox. Set them up on blocking over a heating pad drying out for a week.
Helper is gone. Hubby and I moved the 390 lb stove up onto the platform. Didn't hurt the stove, the boat, or us.
Cut the hole in the deck for the deck iron and measured out the size and measure fit of the pad for the deck iron. Put a bucket under it for the rain that came as soon as the hole was cut.
Glued up the wood for the deck pad (17x18x two 2" layers to get 4" thick mahogany. Pad is about 15 x 17 oval with 3.75" thickness one side taper to 1" thickness other side)...rainy, wet, cold, rainy, wet, cold....waited, waited...glue didn't go off. Put a space heater under a tent with it and watched it crack and bend a bit....oops...Pried apart, let the wet Titebond III dry, sanded, planed, re-glued with fast set West epoxy...rainy, wet, cold...48 hours later Hubby cut the pad into the proper shape to fit the deck iron.
Then, with the end in sight, we did an 11pm final install of the stove piping into the newly bedded deck iron and started our first fire. The stove draw was good
We finished up the installation two days ago at 11 pm. Fun having the first fire be late at night. Oh, but nice and cosy warm in the boat! We're living aboard right now, so with it in the high 30's/low 40's at night the stove is really nice.
Two carbon monoxide sensors aren't showing any problems, either, thank goodness.
We ran a low fire constantly for 24 hours (for the fire bricks). Oven thermometer showing 150F-200F during that time. Then, started cooking.
First thing cooked was a late night batch of brownies (ghirardelli chocolate box mix wanted 375 but got 425F) it was a little crispy (on top) but tasty.
Tea and leftover brownies for breakfast.
Second meal cooked was a roast chicken with stuffing (yesterday holding 325F for several hours) and it was perfect!
Keeping a big open stockpot of water over the fire to add humidity to the boat's interior as we can tell this stove provides some seriously "dry" heat!
All our leftover little scraps of mahogany/sapele, purpleheart, oak, angelique...they make great even-cooking coals in the fire box.
Remaining activities for the project to be really done with include getting enough varnish on the wood blocking on deck, replacing the steel wool I have packed around between the stove pipe and deck iron with some insulating material (that I've ordered but hasn't shown up yet...) and to make a proper marine smoke head (since no one seems to have 6" ones available...) The interim of steel wool and a HomeDepot hvac pipe-T for the smoke head are working, though.
The stove's platform gets tied into the rest of the galley furniture at some point in the future (when there IS galley furniture) but we're really happy with the stove's performance as a boat heater and a cooking appliance.
Today...lasagna? more chicken? another batch of brownies....
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