The stove swapper is at it again!!

[norgeway]

Well, since we put in the heat pump, I dont have enough electrical service to run but one range....but a gas stove uses very little current, so my laundry room is now my test kitchen,LOL...I found this Hardwick at the Habitat ReStore , and even though im not thrilled with avocado, the range is what ive been hunting, a good old Southern stove, it bakes great, has a continuous cleaning oven.

 

[norgeway]

Close Up

HARDWICK, there is NOT A SCRATCH on this range.

 

[norgeway]

Cook top!

I didn't even have to clean it up, the lady at the ReStore said she had never got a hold of a stove this clean.

 

[toploader55]

Nice Range

Love the Wood Grain !!!

 

[norgeway]

I wonder??

The exact age, I think late 70s or early 80s.It has electric ignition, but NOT the silly glo bar thing ranges have now, it uses an electric spark to lite the pilot, and the oven can be used if the power is out.

 

[toploader55]

That's Great...

That the oven can be used if the power is out. It must have a standing pilot ???

 

[norgeway]

It has a ...

Standing pilot...but it is out when the oven is off, the spark lites the pilot automatically, then the pilot heats the thermocouple and it in turn opens the gas valve.

 

[maytagbear]

OH, YEAH Baby!

My Maytag badged gas Hardwick was wonderful......agreed, it was an excellent baker.

You are so lucky, Hans, that you can have more than one range at a time!

Enjoy!

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[wayupnorth]

Oven works without power

My Whirlpool has that electric spark to light the oven pilot, but works the same way as if it had a standing pilot. If the power should go off, you can go into the back of the broiler and light the pilot by hand after turning on the oven control, the thermocouple heats up in about 20-30 seconds, and the oven comes on. Having electronic igition saves about a third off your gas usage I was told by my installer. But the glow plug does not work the same way when the power goes off, no power, no oven. I dont think there are stoves still available without that glow plug to light the oven unless they have standing pilots. Hardwicks were beautiful stoves, my aunt had one that had the center simmer burners. Wished you could still get those.

 

[polkanut]

Hans,

I would kill for that stove.  My wife and I love the avocado color, and that faux woodgrain is the icing on the cake.

 

[joelippard]

The sight of those burners bring back memories.  Grandma on Dad's side had a Hardwick in dark brown.  That stove prepared 3 large meals every single day for at least 30 years until she passed.  I can't remember what happened with it after that but we now rent the house with an electric range.

 

[petek]

It's very nice looking, clean and simple and looks showroom new too. Is that just a storage area on the left or a warming oven?

 

[alr2903]

Thats a very nice Hardwick stove.  Is your flying saucer timer to the right of the teakettle a Presto?  alr

 

[circlew]

That's a very nice Hardwick. My friend Debbie's mother had one like this that was originally Coppertone I believe. They made the mistake of painting it gold, as the paint peeled badly from the heat.

 

[pulltostart]

I love it! Congratulations on a great find.

L

 

[combo52]

EARLY 1980s 36" HARDWICK GAS RANGE

WOW congratulations on your pristine stove find. I always felt by this time that Hardwick gas ranges were the best made and performing gas rangers available. Unfortunately Hardwick was very slow to get on board with true self-cleaning ovens, so most upper line range buyers went to Caloric gas ranges. The Caloric SC ranges were well built and easy to work on, had great infra-ray broilers but the ovens just didn't bake as evenly as the Hardwicks did. Hardwick did make a few 30" SC gas ranges around the time yours was built and these were built like a tank.

 

Unfortunately the purchase of Hardwick by Maytag was one of MTs first big mistakes in the 1980s that started a two decade fall that put them out of business. MT wanted to go full line in appliances and Hardwick gave them gas and electric ranges and Microwave ovens. But the plant was old and while the gas ranges while great performers were also an old design [ MT discontinued the HW SC gas oven almost immediatly ]. The electric HWs were never great ranges in any way [ to put it nicely ] and the MWOs were OK but costly to build and this industry would soon leave the US. Then to make matters worst MT purchased Magic Chef and soon closed out the Hardwick line all together. MC had been a POS since the early 1970s and they NEVER made an electric range of any noteworthiness to put it nicely. So other than the old MT dutch ovens of the 1950s and the few MT gas ranges of the early to mid 1980s that came from the Hardwick plant the Maytag name has never been on a first quality range.

 

Domestic gas ranges stopped using thermocouples in the early 1960s as the safety system for the oven. Your Hardwick uses a mercury filled oven safety valve as did virtually all gas ranges that had standing pilots in the 1960s on. Over the last 1/2 dozen years these mercury filled safeties have been discontinued for reasons of pollution when they fail or when the stove is recycled. 

 

[norgeway]

Thanks John.

I called it a thermocouple, and after I did I thought to myself, "I hope someone knows what you call that saftey thing" LOL,,You are so right about electric Hardwicks and Magic Chefs...JUNK! although MC did have the Chateau in the 60s that was good looking, I dont know how good it was!

 

[westingman123]

Magic Chef Chateau--UGH! That's what came with this house, and I hated it. Never a big fan of gas, anyway--but that thing was a B**** to clean and had the most uneven heating bottom oven I've ever seen. The little oven above was cool, and got the most use until I found the Westy Commander.

 

[norgeway]

Minute Timer..

Yes, it is a Presto, I bought it new in the box at an estate sale a few years ago.

 

[alr2903]

Norgeway the timer is a nice piece of Presto nostalgia, Mom's old Presto book had a picture of this timer. Nice find.  thanks. alr

 

[kevin313]

Hans,
What a wonderful "new" stove!! I love that avacado beauty! It looks right at home in your laundry room. I'm sure you will be in for a lot of great baking with your new gas range! Weren't those made in Tennessee somewhere?

Congrats on the new addition - it's lovely!!

 

[rapunzel]

It is great that you can buy all those wonderful old applian

Here our equivalent of your habitat stores are not selling used appliances for liability reasons. St Vinnies, nor any other charities accept them as donations anymore either.

Where there once were a whole bunch of stores dedicated to selling reconditioned whitegoods, they have all but disappeared now.

Everything gets junked.

 

[norgeway]

Hardwick..

Was built in Cleveland Tennessee, I have been there and seen the factory and it is huge! it takes up half the town, the Brown stove factory by comparison is in a group of old shacky looking buildings.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Another Tennessee Brand

From an internet site when I googled Modern Maid stove history:

History of the Company

The Modern Maid brand was born in the 1950s, the offspring of the successful Tennessee Stove and Manufacturing company. Tennessee Stove dates back to 1904 when it was started by J.L. Caldwell in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The company stayed in the family, as L. Harkwick Caldwell took over the position of company president in 1961. In 1965, the company adopted Modern Maid as its name. The progressing years brought expansion to Modern Maid, with the addition of dishwashers and microwave ovens to its product lines. Modern Maid merged with McGraw-Edison in 1972 and then sold to Raytheon in 1979. Eventually, the brand was sold to the Maytag company though production of appliances under the Modern Maid name ceased.

I remember some GE cooktops with griddles in the 70s that were clearly rebadged Modern Maid products or by products.

Hans, I hope you have the electric stove in the kitchen so that you have a way to broil.

 

[norgeway]

Kitchen Stove..

I have a new smooth top Hotpoint in the kitchen, but I very rarely broil anything but when I do it usually is on my Mirro table top broiler, I have a Caloric Ultra Ray wall oven in storage,if I could I would have it hooked up, that broiler works pretty well.

 

[norgeway]

Other Tennesee brands.

Besides Hardwick,Brown ,Magic Chef ,Dortch, and Modern Maid, there were several more,Vesta,a company named Samuels also made ranges but I cant remember the name they were marketed under,I think it may have been Suburban.I believe there were more but I cant think of all of them now.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Hans, you are right about Suburban. I saw a few in Georgia.