I loved the stove that was in our Corvallis rental! Such lovely lines, so functional, so substantial. It was quirky but once I cleaned it up and learned it’s moods, I enjoyed using it. Here is what I learned about it.
First, most of the pieces came apart easily! Lift and tug and they were out, ready for cleaning. A local repair and restorer told me to lay the burner pieces outside in the hot sun and liberally coat with oven cleaner, then scrub and rinse with the hose.
The left most burners, after removing the pot stands and the top surface. This is pre-cleaned.
Under the middle griddle section (also pre-cleaned).
And the far right burners.
Second, the burners were supposed to automatically ignite once you turned the knob to release the gas and heard the clicks, but sometimes they wouldn’t. After the cleaning, all but one lit without help. The last one only needed a quick wave over it. I felt the gas just wasn’t traveling down the tube to the pilot flame and when I waved my hand it forced gas down there. But I made that up. All I know is it worked.
The third thing I learned, was that manufacturers tried to think of everything back then. These flashy chromed surfaces under and beside the knobs was not just for looks. They were pull out trays. One set was the second over-flow catcher (you can see them under the burners in the second and fourth photos above). One was a deeper tray that caught fat or spillage from the middle griddle.
Knobs and tray handles. The broiler did require a match to light, but the rest of the oven components had pilot lights.
Fourth lesson, was that cooking instructions were printed right on the oven doors! And they were good rules to follow!
The oven was the hardest part to manage. In the door (seen open above) under the oven compartment was a burner which, if the pilot light was burning, would automatically ignite when the oven temperature knob was turned. But the pilot light was out when we first moved in and it took me months to even bother to try to fix it.
Getting the pilot light lit and to keep it lit was a challenge for one person. Here’s the pilot light. It needs to have gas coming out of it before you can light it with a match. And then it has to stay lit for quite a while – over a minute – before the thermosensor gets warm enough to keep the gas flowing to the pilot light. If you let go of the oven pilot light too soon, the thermosensor doesn’t recognize that there is a flame there and will turn the gas to the pilot light off.
What makes this hard is that you are laying on the floor, reaching into the bottom of the oven holding something burning to the back wall while you are simultaneously holding the oven pilot light down – which is on the top of the oven, but the back, right burner. To make it even more of a challenge, is that the button is very sticky. I had to use pliers and push it in and then pull it out repeatedly to get it to move smoothly. BUT, once it’s moving and someone is holding it down for you, you can light the oven pilot light and you can finally bake you cookies.
