Restored!

There it is! This little Crown No1 is waay older than me and is now going to enjoy a second shot at being a vessel for fire.

Two and a half months of weekends and evenings after work and this little stove went from this to wjhat you see here. Hours of drilling, grinding, welding, painting and polishing. Jo said tonight that she was surprised that I stuck at it and didn't lose interest. I told her that the turning point for me was when I bought a cheap welder and remade the oven in it's entirety from scrap metal I scrounged from the steel merchants scrap heap. I also scrounged some missing parts from another stove.

There are still little tweaks I need to make but the project is basically complete.

It has been one of the most interesting things I have ever done.

Lessons learnt?
1. Welding in flip flops guarantees painful burns. One spark actually made a hole in the top of my foot!
2. Spare parts are near impossible to find.
3. A hammer falling on flip flop clad feet is also very painful.
4 Cement fibre board cuts better with an electric jigsaw than a handsaw. This I discovered last night....on my second last cut.

Now I have to decide where to put it and how I am going to move the thing! I is incredibly heavy!

And yes, I will be lighting a fire in it when the time is right. If nothing else the paint needs to cure.