I have a friend who bought an old house, in the basement of the old section of the house, in the corner, was a 1972 model 2B Squirrel stove. I was looking for a small stove to put in my den to supplement my main stove in the living room, ( a Century Hearth Jacuzzi). He had no use for the stove and gave it to me! I started to clean the stove up the next day and found the back plate cracked, ahh, this is why the previous owners of the house had it stored in the basement. I took the stove apart and took the plate to a friend who owns a fabrication shop. He told me you couldn't weld cast, it would just re-crack when it got hot. He said he could use it as a pattern, and make me a new plate out of steel, but the steel had to be a certain kind and he didn't have any in stock, so I left the plate with him. I really wanted to get this stove up and going because it was the perfect size and I thought it was a very charming stove with the Squirrel on the sides! About 2 months later he called me and said he had the new plate ready, so I went and picked it up, brought it home and reassembled the stove with new gaskets. I made up some brackets of my own so that I could line the back of the stove with fire brick to keep the direct heat off of the back of the stove. Apparently the design of these stove, they had heat shields on the sides and top of the inside of the stove and fire bricks on the bottom but nothing protecting the back. The stove will take 25 inch pieces of wood, so the natural instinct when loading the hot stove was to toss it in and it would hit the back of the hot cast plate and crack it. This apparently was the weak link in this model stove! Since I installed the steel back plate and the fire brick in front of it, and I'm careful how I load wood, it has been a great stove. Puts out enormous heat, burn time is very long, and it is very easy on the eyes. I would have to say I'm a big fan of Morso Stoves, if the new stoves burn as efficient as the old, I wouldn't hesitate to purchase one!!