Many moons ago, I building a decrepit potbelly stove from a Chrysnbon kit for Baslow Ranch.
It’s a great kit, with a skinny stove that is perfect for a small structure. Typically, these would be placed in the middle of the building, but we’ve already planned the layout with the stove in the corner. This will have a newer look to it than the Baslow Ranch stove, but I still sanded the pieces with a fine grit sanding paper to remove the shine from the plastic.
I spray painted the pieces flat black, including the few factory silver parts included. I sprayed the scoop with Model Masters Aluminum Plate Metalizer. More on that in a later post. I assembled the bottom and top halves of the stove, then left them separate for now.
I want my stove to have coal light, but I have learned a lot since I made the Baslow Ranch stove. I used the red bulb included with the kit in that instance, but now I very rarely use anything with non-replaceable bulbs. LEDs and replaceable bulbs make for easier replacement if or when bulbs burn out. I wound three 1.8mm LEDs together – 3V flickering orange and yellow and a 7-19V separated steady red with a rectifier/resister. Since these are all 3V until they are connected to the rectifier/resistor, I am testing the lights with a 3V battery switch. [Note: If I were to do this again, I would make the third flickering bulb orange instead of yellow since the yellow was too bright in the end.]
I shortened the wires, combined the red and black bundles and spliced a new, single end wire to the bunch.
I wound the wires to form a base and taped it together with electrical tape.
I pulled the single end wire through the bottom of the stove and situated the lights inside. The assembly is not fixed in place just yet.
The light through the damper looks nice already, especially with the orange and yellow flickering over the steady red glow.
I will work on simulated coals next to diffuse the light a bit more, because you can see the bulbs from certain angles.
