Hi ken and DL

Thanks for coming on board with both those threads--Ken --I know how you feel, you just stand there and wonder, I believe that things do happen in life from time to time that are unexplainable or at least hard to explain--I was demonstrating hewing back a few moons ago and a older lady came up to me and just kept staring not saying nothing, so I stopped work and asked her if she needed to ask me a question--she replied in amazment that I looked exactly like her son--and she said I mean exactly!--she continued to stare as she walked away--it sure gave me the shivers--they say everyone has a double in the world, I must have been his double.

DL--How right you are--they have improved wood burning stoves but stopped short of perfecting the perfect model--I am sure that could easily be done in this world--When you talk about your masonary stove I think back to the large bake oven at UCV that holds 100 loaves of bread--it is so easily heated with a couple of armfuls of cedar, and can then bake easily the many trays of bread,--as you say the heat is absorbed by the interior lining of soft masonary bricks, which after firing release the heat gently to do the baking.--This bee hive shaped oven is about 24" in thickness, the interior layers of brick are covered with sand to retain the heat that is eventually released.

I had the good fortune to be in charge of the restoration of this oven to replace the brick lining which at that time was about 30 years old. The historic mason I had working for me was from Belgium--Fred Arens-- a nicer man you would not meet, and on top of that he was a top notch tradesman--what a treat to watch him lay up the curved surface of the oven's ceiling, and place the key brick at the top, He also installed the curved arches of the mill races entrances and exits, at the grist mill during the mill's reconstruction in 1984

Well thanks for coming on board

I hope all enjoy

NH