Magic Chef Oven

	The original Magic Chef oven was perhaps the most rewarding appliance to bench check. Although the oven required no repair, its operation was verified four different times before reinstallation.
Although I enjoy baking bread, I had never baked anything in a gas oven. So to both gauge the performance, and establish a comfort level with its operation, I baked a loaf of rosemary herb bread. I was quite pleased with the result.
	Between the oven doing so good on the bread, and already being hot, I let it cook the evening’s meal of whole chicken rubbed with secret seasonings. Additionally, all this activity was occurring in my unheated shop where the outside temperature was around 50 degrees. The heat was most welcome!
A few weeks after the initial checkout, the house oven went south as I attempted to preheat it to cook a pan of homemade buttermilk biscuit. Magic Chef to the rescue!

Update: The pilot light, over the third season, started burner dimmer & dimmer. Although it never went out, the last time the oven was used, the reason the light was not burning strong presented itself when I noticed a second light burning - one of the gas lines had broken where it screws on to the manifold. The reason appeared to be vibration due to one of the two screws holding the main burner backing out.

The repair itself was easy although finding the parts was not. The line is 1/8” aluminum tube, and the smallest stuff home improvement stores sell is ¼”. Luckily, an HVAC supply house was able to sell me a short length of tube & two 1/8” compression ferrules. Total cost, with tax, was 32 cents.

Up until the repair was checked for proper operation, I was always under the impression that the pilot light heated a thermocouple which, when sufficiently heated, signal the thermostat to supply gas to the main burner. This is only indirectly true. If the gas distribution manifold is examined, you will notice three supplies of gas feeding it. One is for the pilot light, and a different one is for the main burner. The third supply is for, what I will call a secondary pilot light.

When the thermostat calls for heat, gas will flow to secondary pilot light and gets lit by the standing pilot light. The secondary light is what heats the thermocouple. Once the thermocouple is sufficiently warmed, gas will flow to the main burner.

You learn something every day! J