I've attached some images of two pairs of burner caps I've pulled from my stove. I'm trying to figure out when to call it a day and replace... If you look at the pictures you'll see patches on/in the caps. It is unclear to me if this is some form of carbon/corrosion burning off... Or plating that is coming off the caps. I don't get any noise that would indicate underburning. The burners were seriously neglected and pretty dirty to start. And yes, I did try to clean up with 0000 steel wool. These pictures are after the cleaning effort... Not sure if these are plain steel, or plated in some way (I suspect they are). Do the brass caps hold up any better against corrosion? I'm curious about that as this stove is going to end up in a salt water boat... Thanks, -- Sam
I have never seen plated caps but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Your caps look to me like normal low carbon steel caps that have been exposed to air while quite hot. The air combines with the iron in the cap to make iron oxide, also known as scale. Since the iron is being diminished in thickness as it oxidizes, there comes a time when it is just too thin and must be replaced. Now if that is nickel or chromium plating flaking off, I'd be more concerned about how hot the caps were getting. Is under-burn possible?
I run one of these sets in one of my Opti 155's and I like it a lot. Link Stainless steel means they hold up better than steel, even on a boat. Though I suppose some of the purists will be by shortly to point out it's likely 304 rather than 316 stainless. Nothing lasts forever. And, nothing is cheap on a boat. Good luck.
In my experience of having cast iron baffles in wood burning stoves I'd say those caps are what I call "burnt out". I might be off on a tangent here but with the wood burning stoves we use at home the baffles have a finite life and the first signs that they need replacing are slight deformation and surface flaking/scabbing just like those caps once one layer has flaked off (normally at the hottest part of the fire) then the layer underneath starts to go. In the case of our large flat stove baffles once they start to go it's a quick downhill slope and the next phase is they then crack, split and warp badly. It's like they reach a point where the original cast iron has been changed physically and it no longer has the same properties. The strange thing is that with daily use a set of baffles lasts us just over 2 years and for the first 20 months they look like new when cleaned up but by 24 months they have totally failed. (Waterford Stanley 104 btw) I would definitely change the caps for ones in better condition as well as trying to work out why they have got like that unless it's just extended use and old age.
I've owned the stove for a few months so don't know the whole history. The previous owner told me that he purchased it used about 10 years ago and it sat in storage for about 8 years. He then installed it in his boat which was docked in Florida. I think they used the boat for about 2 weeks only out of the year. He removed the stove because they were unhappy with its performance. Given the bent/broken needles and stripped spindles, I can understand why. I've run the stove for a couple of hours since repairing the burners and it is slowly cleaning out the old carbon and gunk. Flames are progressively getting more blue. Did swap in a set of used caps from my spares and they are burning much better. BernieDawg, thanks for the link to the SS caps. Seems like a really good idea for a boat. Am going to give them a try. -- Sam
