Griddle in the Middle

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the pictures of this stove.

Jeremiah and Leah sent the following email along with the photo of their Tappan stove:

"My wife and I received a Tappan range from my grandmother that they bought in 1960.  They only used it for 6 months before my grandfather was transferred overseas and then it sat in storage for 40 years!  I have attached a picture of the stove and of the model number plate.  The model number looks like OK 30-3.  Didn't see any info for this model under the model info on the site.  It has 4 top burners and griddle in the center.  The oven thermostat is a Wilcolator." 

I have heard that the Tappan company was somehow affiliated with O'Keefe & Merrit for a short period of time and produced stoves. I strongly suspect this stove is one of those collaborations. It has all of the earmarks of an O'Keefe & Merrit stove (swoon). I think they used to call them "O'Tappan" stoves as a little joke.

Beautiful, no?

June's Tappan Deluxe

These photos are of June's Tappan Deluxe with a model number of TV-6219. Her stove is original to her 1950's house and she is only the 3rd owner of the Tappan!  June sent the photos with a few questions.

She was hoping to discover what year her stove was manufactured; if the silver burner rings were original or if they once were glass; and what to use to clean the stove.

My response to her included the following observations.

I suspect the stove is a 1950's (or so) model. It has a knob turning on the back splash light instead of the earlier pull chain.

The stoves are amazingly easy to clean. If you look on my blog, you will find pages on how to clean the burners..how to removed the manifolds to clean...how to clean the broiler, etc.

I'm almost certain that the chrome rings are original to the stove. They were typical for your model. If a stove had glass rings, they would have little light bulbs behind the rings to light them up.

I like to use the Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to clean my stove. Goof Off works really well to remove built up grease, ect. A straight edge razoe also is good just to scrape off gunk,

I am very curious about the switch on the far right side of the back splash. What does it  turn on? The oven? This is only the second stove I have seen with that feature.

Okay Tappan Talk readers, now it's your turn. What feature do you see on June's stove? What cleaning tips do you have?  Do you know what the switch on the back splash does?

1950's Ranch Kitchen

David sent me these photos of the Tappan wall oven that came with his new 1950's ranch house.  I don't have much information to provide about these great mid-century walls ovens other than to say that it was most likely original to the house and to find a ranch with it's original oven is a treat. If you peek at the hardware on the cabinets to the right of the oven, you see those oh-so-hot 1950's concave circle handles that are all the rage with the mid-century crowd.

I love, love, love the control panel and the door handles. I'd be especially interested in learning more about the model names and model numbers.

Anyone?

Torn Between Two Stoves

Here are a couple photos of Caitlin's new stove.

Caitlin originally sent me an email trying to decide between two Tappan Deluxe stoves that she found for sale.

The discussion boiled down to.... "...what do you personally think would be cheaper to handle, a tappan that needs a new thermostat and has a gas leak in the line or a tappan whose pilot light and oven do not come on at all?"

Here's is an edited version of my response:

"Ok. keep in mind as you read this, I am NOT an appliance pro. So, take whatever I say with the appropriate skepticism and verify it with someone that knows stoves.

 Replacing the light bulbs on the burner lights is not a big deal. In fact, I posted instructions on my blog. Do a quick search and the pages of the Owner Manual that explain how to do it should come up. Also, look for a post entitled "Keeping it in the Family."

  Thermostats can be rebuilt. There are a number of companies out there that rebuild Robert Shaw thermostats (or sell replacements if the original can't be fixed). It is not cheap. If memory serves me I think it's in the $250-300 range. That said, if your thermostat is rebuilt you are set for a very long time. If the rest of the stove is in good condition, probably worth the expense. Thermostats can also be adjusted. It could be that this is all it would take. I have instructions on adjusting the thermostat on my blog (search the label "thermostat"). You can hand these off to a pro.

 A leak in the gas line would concern me. They can be tricky to find. I have read that mixing a soap & water mixture and putting it on suspected areas and watching for bubbles can help you find a leak (they also sell stuff for that). I'm not sure how you go about fixing a leak.  If the gas smell only appears when you turn on the top burners, I would suspect the burner valves leaking (the piece behind the white knob). These can also be rebuilt/or regreased - you can have a pro do it or, you can buy the grease yourself ($20 or so) & it comes with instructions (from what I understand it's not very difficult). Or you could have an appliance person do this. This is a pretty common repair (and one I will be doing on one of my burner valves eventually).

 If the leak is on the manifold line, this might be a bigger deal....but that would stink even when the top burners are off because gas is always flowing to the burner pilots. One other thought it looking back over our past emails, is that the conversion to propane loosened something.  It's my understanding that the conversion involves adjusting the burner valves. So, this kind of makes sense...and might be a good place to start.

 On the second stove. The oven pilot line can get clogged. There is a post (Tina's Stove) on my blog where the reader cleaned out her pilot tube and got her pilot to light (she provided a nice photo).  I think rust & crud can get into the line. On the stove you are looking at, it sounds as if the top burners work fine, right (?) There is also a "mixer cap/burner spud" under the oven burner (where gas flows in). This adjusts the air/gas mixture. I have some info on adjusting this..and you can show it to an appliance repair person."

 A week or so later, I received the following email from Caitlin along with photos of her stunning new stove. She went with the second stove. She was lucky enough to score a pair of both the Tappan Doughboy and the McKee salt & pepper shakers. (Note to self: If I ever sell my Tappan Deluxe, putting silver puts and pans on top really brings out the chrome)

"Just got the "new" Tappan Deluxe CP delivered today with all the bells and whistles (original S and P shakers too!) . I just need to figure out how to fix the light behind the second to right red burner ring and get the oven working, which from looking at it seems to be merely a blocked gas line (she got a new thermocouple and electric start in 1996 when it originally went out), let's hope. I'm making an appt. with a repair guy tomorrow who will most likely steal me blind, but such is life...." 

Tilley Tappan

What are the chances that two readers would send me photos of their PHADV stoves on the same day?! In my last post I showed an unusual ADV-668-7 stove.

Here's the email I received from Rudiedog about their PHADV-664-5 stove:

"Just wanted to send you some pictures of our stove, 'Tilley Tappan'. She is a Philgas Tappan. She has a Robertshaw knob for the thermostat on the oven. I read somewhere on this site that that is kinda rare that Robertshaw is mentioned on a Tappan.

I bake a lot...and this oven is by far the best oven I have ever used. Thing come out evenly browned and cakes rise level and not lopsided from one side hotter then the other. The inside is all chrome and it seems to reflect the heat nicely.

Here is question for all of you, have you ever seen another Tappan with the front burners like ours? The outside is a big ring of fire but the center is a small ring for gentlely melting chocolate or making cheese sauces that you don't want to scorch?

Also, when we bought this cooking marvel from the Goodwill store, it had a cracked front grate. I need another. Anybody got one?

It's fun to receive notes from people that do serious baking & cooking with their stoves.  This is probably the #1 question I received about the stoves....how do they bake?

This is another one of these stoves with a combination of interesting features: chrome knob rings, stove top knobs say front and rear (I haven't seen this before, but went back to check Michale B's PHADV stove and his also has these knobs), chrome trim around the oven window, and Time Control clock for the automatic oven. Philgas Tappan appears on the oven door, a nice touch I also have not seen before.  It's a Super 60 stove. Also, notice the cute Tappan Doughboy salt & pepper shakers.

As first I didn't pay a lot of attention to the question about the burner. I thought it referred to a "giant" burner that has a ring of flames on the outside & inside, but then I took a closer look.  No, this burner was not like that at all. It has a mini-burner inside the large burners. And take a look at the interesting burner grates - with a small circle in the center. This topic inspired a lot of email exchange.....and I'm going to save some of it for another post devoted solely to this type of burner.

Also, take a look at the clock. Compare it to some of the older Tappan Deluxe stoves with the Telechrome and Timer Control clocks. More on this in a future post too.....

Rudiedog also tells us that in replacing the safety, she noticed the date 1955 on the part. This starts lending some credence to the theory that on these PHADV stoves, the final "-#" may indicate the manufacture year. Although, I suppose we have to be careful here as parts can be created before the entire stove. However, 1955 is later than most Tappan Deluxe stoves. So, more research on these PHADV stoves is needed.....

Rudiedog, thanks for sharing photos of Tilley Tappan.  Does your Owner's Manual have a date on the inside cover or on the back? And, I just noticed the switch on the upper right hand corner of the back splash....is this for the oven light??

The State Fair Mystery

I received an email from Michael over at the Cul-De-Sacshack blog with photos of his new Tappan Deluxe stove...and a mystery.

Michael's stove has the model #PHADV 668-7M with serial number 314964.  It came with it's original owner's manual. The gentleman that sold the stove told Michael that the stove was a 1958 model. The story that came with the stove was that it was a display at the 1957 Missouri State Fair and that it was purchased there and that the new owner had to wait for the fair to end to take possession of it.

My first reaction in responding to Michael's email was to assume that some of the dates had been remembered incorrectly. Deluxe stoves were essentially made from 1947 to 1954...or so we thought.  I guessed the stove was probably from 1950 or 1951.  I suggested that Michael look on the inside cover page of the original Owner's Manual and locate the date that appeared below Betty Brown's letter. I thought for sure I'd get an email back saying the date under the letter was 1950.

But, the plot thickened with the return email.

The stove's Owner's Manual did not have a date on the inside cover. However, it did appear to have an issue date on the back cover of the manual - "1040D 1-56."  (most likely meaning January 1956). On the cover someone wrote "1958." Note that the manual is for a "Super 60" (which up to this point, I thought was the stainless steel model - I haven't posted about yet).

This date lends credence to the 1957 State Fair story. So we have a mystery on our hands. Here are some of the clues......

This stove has all of the bells & whistles - amber glass burner rings, crisper drawers, the glass pyrogrates on the back burner grates, chrome trim around the oven window. This tells us this was an upper end model or a special build (remember Ron & Aiden's stove that was made specifically for one housing development?). The type of stove that might be put on display.

We know the features on this stove were new in the late 1940's...became common options in 1950. So, they weren't new in 1957.  The model AV 669 is a 1950-51 version. The model numbers aren't always in sequence, but it would seem 668 *should* be right around this time. The Deluxe models were being phased out in 1953-54. At that point they started to become much more mid-century modern.

But, there is strong evidence telling us the stove was from the State Fair. Could this stove have been part of something like a "stoves over time" display?

Any info, thoughts, additional observations, guesses?

Thanks Michael for sharing your photos and story.

Odie's Late 1930's Tappan Stove

I received these photos from Tappan Talk reader Odie. His house was built in 1939 and he was wondering if this stove was original to the house. The stove is a model # WD 11-4

My 1940's company sales manual includes illustrations of the current year Tappan stoves they produced for Philgas....but it also includes some general promo pieces for Tappan that use older versions of stoves (I'm sure these pieces were not updated annually). So, I pulled out this manual and took a look through it's pages looking for an illustration of a similar stove. Bingo.

The manual includes general promo pieces that include illustration of a stove similar to this model. The promo pieces are talking about the new "divided top" work space..and the "ease of cleaning" the burners. This places this stove in the late 1930's.

One thing that makes me think this may be a 1937 or 1938 stove is that the burner handles and oven/broiler handles are more of a boxy shape..and that back splash has a timer & a clock. Compare this to Ron's stove, which is similar but most likely a little later, that has rounded oven door handles and a Visiminder.  Both stove have that very nice opal glass back splash light.

Also take a look at the burner covers on this stove.....they slide down in back for storage! Very cool.

The oven window seemed to be an option into the early 1950's. It looks like this stove also came in a two oven body....which makes me think this was at just the time when the switch to the Deluxe (oven in the middle w/ storage on each side) body style was taking place.

I'm curious what is on the floor in the right hand storage. It looks built in. Any ideas? 

Odie, thanks for sharing your photos and keep us posted on your restoration!