I pulled apart the generator, sort of, and found that the steel rods were in there pretty tight. I also manage to bugger the wire pricker a little putting the generator tip back on. I did get it all back together after squirting lots of carb cleaner into the generator and giving it a bunch of twists.
I decided to soak the metal parts of the stove in a citric acid bath. The solution was about 1 tablespoon of citric to a gallon of hot water. I soaked all parts overnight. With light cleaning with a brush and 0000 steel wool, almost all rust disappeared.
The thought was to scuff all parts that were originally painted black and paint it with Dupli Color semi gloss black. I pondered this for a while and came to the conclusion that it took this stove almost 100 years to get all this patina on it. Since I plan on using it, I dreaded the thought of scratching the new paint. Instead, a rag with WD-40 on it did the job. Camping with it can only add new patina!
I remembered telling some of my vintage trailer restoring friends, "You can sure restore the vintage right out of the trailer". Some guys pretty much use the trailer parts as templates and actually throw away the original trailer. So, what they have is a new trailer. I tend to restore trailers to look original. I do paint them and they look great.
But this old stove seemed to want me to leave it as is. It functions perfectly. Nothing leaks or misbehaves, even after an hour of letting it burn and make a pot of coffee.
I have another Model #1 that differs from this one. The tank and burner grates are heavier duty on that one than this one. The tank on this one is unpainted. Also, my other Model #1 has different burners. They look like they are from a Model 9. I noticed that the Model 9 burners cast a wider flame than the original Model #1 brass slitted burners. The original burners shoot the flame up the middle whereas the 9 casts it out to the side. On low, the 9 burners work well, but, on high, they cast the flame too wide and don't really do a good job heating. If you happen to have an extra set of original brass burners, I could use them! Neither of my stoves have the oven rack. I'm sure I'll end up making a couple of them. It is also missing the key. I have a socket on the end of a driver that is working for now. I might actually make a few new keys with a jewelry maker friend.
Anyway, I slowly put the stove back together, and adjusted everything to work smoothly and leak free. And, that it does! It's amazing how much longer projects take than you thought they would. This was an all day sucker, but was worth it. Here are a few before and after pictures of my "patina-ed" model #1. Chris
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