At night, we watch the moon rise through the white pines surrounding our little trailer in Lunenburg County, N.S. We’re nestled between Christmas tree farms, there are sheep nearby, and it’s a short drive to Rissers Beach (where a great white shark was spotted in July). But the trailer itself needed work on the systems that make it liveable: water, electricity, and heat.
A generous neighbour offered an old woodstove if me and my partner were prepared to fix it up. When we arrived with a pickup truck, our neighbour apologized and pointed to a heap of old farm equipment. Pools of rainwater sat on the stove’s rusted cooktop, bird droppings looked like splashes of primer, and it was coated in dirt and cobwebs. And it was perfect: 75 pounds of solid, 1970s-vintage cast iron with a cooktop that could take the load off of the lithium-ion battery we use for electricity. (We charge the battery with a 100W solar panel, but when we’re using a lot of power, we occasionally have to trek it home to charge it completely.)
As we struggled to get the stove onto the truck bed, I had no idea how we would restore it, but I was fully invested.
We started with an angle grinder to cut seized bolts, and the stove came apart like a puzzle (we’d taken “before” pictures to document how it all fit). We switched the cutting wheel to a wire brush and began working the stiff bristles over the surfaces, using a steady circular motion. Textured details on the door emerged—a bordered quilt-like pattern forming a coat of arms. After removing years of dirt, grime, and rust, the surface returned to flat black and metallic silver with a soft, almost waxy finish.
The next morning, our freshly buffed pieces, which we’d left outside on a workbench, were speckled with rust—again! Despite a clear forecast, there must have been some overnight rain. If you can, set up in a well-ventilated workshop, or at least cover pieces with a tarp outside.
Luckily, it was easy to buff off the new rust stains. After wiping down the surfaces with a moist cloth, then a dry rag, we painted them with dark burgundy, high-heat spray paint. We reassembled and bolted the pieces and used high-temperature caulking to fill thin gaps between the plates, so no sparks could sneak out.
For our inaugural outdoor test fire, the kindling looked small inside the stove’s cavernous belly, but we quickly built it up to a roaring fire. White smoke began billowing out of the chimney. The stove burned safely, so we moved it into its new home—where it keeps our trailer warm. Sometimes a little too warm.
Always have working smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors when using a woodstove. Get the chimney cleaned regularly and make sure you’re in compliance with provincial certification requirements.
This story originally appeared in our Winter ’24 issue.
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