I helped a good friend's parents move some things into their new home yesterday. This stove was sitting on the front porch with a masking tape tag "trash" stuck to the top. I asked about it and was told I could have it because it was going to the curb. There was some mumbling about making it into a planter or something......

I really love old, well built stuff.





I have never heard of this type or brand before. It is small, less than 2 feet tall or wide. A little research suggests it was a railroad car stove that used wood or coal.

I do know that it is the North Manchester Foundry Company from Indiana. No. 28 is embossed in the top right hand corner of the cook top. Queen maybe the model? I don't know.

Does anyone recognize this? I would like to return it to the original finish. Would it have just been painted?

Thanks!

I know nothing about the stove except to say I bet it wasn't painted. I think most of it would get to hot for paint back in the day. Don

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"Don't worry be happy"

The only thing I can tell ya about it is that I wish it was mine. That is super cool! And at a great price.

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What would Josey Wales do?

You could easily be right, might have been a caboose stove. Certainly looks like one. As to the original finish, I imagine it was just plain black iron. What a great find!

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Oh well, what the hell.

You know, I bet that old sucker would make a great charcoal grill. It would certainly be a unique one.

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Why duck?? It's a 9mm!

Wow, great score. More pictures??

You don't want paint. You want "stove black".

https://www.lehmans.com/p-2830-stove...nd-polish.aspx

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I always take precautions

Wow, an old "bucket a day" cook stove - really cool! Original color would have been plain black iron. It needs sand blasted and returned to its original color. They have spray paints out there made especially for iron and gives them that good ole fashioned look again. Nice find!

I'd waste no time getting that paint burnt off of it and commence to whipping up a batch of biscuits and and sausage gravy.

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Dick

I have a few old stoves but none like that. I too believe from a caboose. Neat find!

Way cool! I think Alpo's right about the "stove black," and not paint. I don't thnk the paint would just all burn off uniformly, but. suppose it might. I like PA Reb's sand blasting idea, but not sure how to go about getting that done.

Giwt06, ya know we are all going to want pix as this project progresses!

My great uncle once had a stove built like that but a little larger that they used to heat the kitchen after they got an electric stove. In the winter they cooked on it and stayed in the kitchen. That was back in the day when sawmills bought logs a little long and after it was sawed out they run the lumber between 2 saws set a certain distance apart to get the correct length. There was a sawmill close by that would give him the short blocks that came off of each end and he burnt them. He also would shell ear corn for the stock and burn the cobs. You brought back some good memories of him. Larry

Thanks everyone! I'm going to sand blast it. I just wasn't sure of the correct finish, thanks alpo. I will take more pictures.

Now, for some biscuits and gravy. I have a sudden taste for them.

I have one very similar to that made by Quincy foundry in Quincy IL. My wife bought it at a garage sale a few years ago. It had a blue type finish on it that had turned to some rust spots after previous owner left it outside. We use it to hold a chess set. A friend of mine told me it was a stove intended for use in a laundry room for heating the water for doing laundry. May have had other uses also but this one made sense to me.

I have my great-grandfathers bath house stove from 1889. On the eastern shore of Maryland back them it was not a common thing to have a separate building with a tub and little stove to heat the water. The tub is in the local museum and I guess I should donate the stove to go with it.

That looks just like the stove in my mother in laws kitchen. She used in the winter as a cook stove. She keep a pot of water on the stove for making coffee.

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Carpriver.

Neat stove.
I'd glass bead blast it to remove the paint.
Sand blast would do too, but carefully so the original surface textures and markings aren't changed by it. It's pretty aggressive.

Stove black polish then rubbed on over the clean open pored cast iron.
Don't put any onto cook surfaces for obvious reasons!
You can buy it in a tube or can. It's eccentially graphite mixed into a wax base so it goes on easily. Rub and scrub it into the surface and wipe it down. The first firing up will melt what little of the wax base remains in the surface and draw the blackening into the cast iron.

You sometimes get a bit of smoke from the excess wax on the first firing, but that's it.

Lamp black was a common home made stove polish when melted into bees wax. It does the same thing.
Even black shoe polish will touch up areas well.

Use a toothbrush and a common laundry scrub brush to apply over rough surfaces and into small details.

A once or twice a year polishing keeps it looking nice.

I just bought a stove almost identical to that one except mine is black and it has four burners on top. The name on the front says ONLY and it was made in Manchester Indiana. It is # 48. Does anyone know anything about this kind of stove?

Nice stove, flashback.

We lived in a cold water flat when I was a child.

In the winter we all would hang out in the kitchen, that is where the big black cast iron stove was providing the only heat in the entire apartment.

Had to fill up the 3 gallon tank with Kerosene, in the yard we had a 55 gallon drum containing the fuel, after school one of my chores was to carry the fuel up 3 flights and fill her up.
And changing the round wick when needed.

The stove was used for all sorts of things, baked potatoes, making toast, cooking soup etc. and Ma always had a pot of hot water sitting on it.

Coming in from the cold, immediately I would sit next to it, oven door open and warming me up.

I laugh about it now, my room was in the front of the apartment, in the winter when I got out of bed, I would run
into the kitchen. Great memories.

No silver spoons in my family.

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Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

When I was small, we had a stove like that in our kitchen that had a water jacket and was connected to a galvanized iron tank nearby. The heated water was use for bathing and washing dishes. The stoves were called laundry heaters, and I see a good many still around being sold at antique stores and flea markets. They will burn either wood or coal, but because of the size of the fire box, they work better with coal. They are not very good as cook stoves, because they are so low.

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Tom
1560

Around here that type of stove is usually called a laundry stove. Unless you're trying to sell it then you call it a caboose stove and at $75 to the asking price.

Did you say N. Manchester? I find it's interesting there is no Regular, South or other Manchester around.
One time I rode up there with a buddy of mine. We slid up there in mid winter.
Why would we go up there in mid winter? To go to a gun store!
My buddy Eddie bought a Drilling. Later he took it deer hunting. We spent more time showing off that gun than we did hunting.
It was Austrian made, 2- 16 ga over 9.3 x 72?? A long tapered rimmed round. Yes it was old! Pre WWII I think.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Nice score!

I have one. A friend and I had to move it down a couple flights of stairs and, man, that thing was heavy. At one point my friend was losing his grip and I said; "just let it drop, it's cast iron, you can't hurt it." Well, I learned something that day as the leg busted into pieces, you actually can hurt cast iron!

I welded the pieces back together and it works fine now. I know you were all worried about it.

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But then, what do I know?

My wife's father was from North Manchester. Her Grandfather was shipping agent for a foundry in Marion IN. Small foundries were in many northern Indiana cities as there was an abundant supply of sand for casting, natural gas and coal. The Marion Foundry made cook ware and electric lamp stands as well as many other items. That stove was likely set up to burn a fairly good quality of block coal.

But nearby is South Whitley also alone as the Whitleys go.

I remember those day's, how much kerosene did you spill on the kitchen floor.

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Don

I lugged it up in one gallon glass bottles, then transferred it into a white 3 gallon can, had a little dial on it, full, 1/2 etc. It was in a tiny room next to the kitchen with our gas hot water heater and boiler.

Yup always spilled some, I can still smell it to this day.

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Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

Looks like a coal stove. It has the handle down the bottom to shake the ashes and clinkers.

The Foundry has been in business since 1911.

Manchester Metals, Inc. Iron Casting Foundry

I would first use paint remover before any abrasive blasting.

Try to keep it as original as possible.

My father was born in 1926. He was the youngest of 6 boys. His father abandoned them in 1932. They lived on a farm in Kentucky with a well and no electricity.
Every morning his mom would make a huge breakfast of eggs, ham, bacon, fried potatoes, gravy and biscuits on a big cast iron stove.
After breakfast the younger boys would walk to school and the older ones would work the farm. His mom would make a large pot of pinto beans and ham bones and a big batch of biscuits. She would leave them on the stove and that's what was eaten for lunch and supper.
Dad said they called that big stove "the altar" because they gathered around it so much.
My dad loved to tell that story. He said a bond was formed around that stove that was never broken. I never knew my grandmother but I wish I did. A strong woman who taught her boys to love and defend one another. I wish I could thank her for how my dad and uncles turned out.
All centered around an old cast iron stove.

Thank you all for reminding me.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Looks like a sea sick version of that short robot on Star Wars! What was his name, You Too, Me Too or something like that.

I wonder if they build any 1911 frames.

Nice caboose stove. Someone in New England is reading this right now and wanting to buy it.

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That's just somebody talkin.

Okay, glwt06. You've had a year and a half to fix her up. Let's see a pic!

The only think I know *for certain* about iron stoves are...

They are hard to tote up steep grades.
At least, that's what John Wayne said.

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Lost it all in a boat accident