The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site

Better Force 10 Stove Mount

On unpacking our new stove, the first thing that jumped out at us was the chintzy nature of the mounting brackets stamped and formed out of 1/16” (1.6mm) stainless steel plate (circled on the picture below). On reading the manual we were shocked to find that after installing the stove in these mounts, we were supposed to bend the small tab, circled in the picture, over the pivot bolt to prevent the stove jumping out of its mountings in a rollover.

They’re joking right? Two pieces of 1/16” gauge stainless steel, ¼” (6.35mm) wide, already bent at 45 degrees, are going to stop a stove weighing at least 50lb (22kg) from flying across the cabin in a knockdown or rollover? I don’t think so.

Maybe, just maybe, it would work if the retaining tab was in compression, but it’s not. All the stove needs to do to come free is to continue bending the tab that the installer has already formed. (I was easily able to bend one of these tabs with a small pair of needle-nosed pliers.)

Worse still, the tabs will be weakened each time they are formed to allow removal of the stove for cleaning or service. In our view this bracket is junk and has no place on an offshore boat.

This is not trivial: a stove that weighs as much as this one does and that has its sharp edges flying across the cabin in a knockdown has the potential to maim or even kill.

Note that this does happen: one of the gimbal screws on the cooker on S/V Barrabas sheared off during Adrian Flanagan’s single-handed vertical circumnavigation (p. 117).

Manufacturer’s Response

I called Force10 and left a message stating my concern. Brad Clark, President of Force10, returned my call within three hours. He was courteous and listened to what I had to say; however, his position gave me little comfort.

His first defense was that they had been using this bracket for 25 years. Sorry, but I fail to understand why, when a manufacturer makes something cheaply and poorly, having done it for a long time makes the defective part OK.

He also pointed out that the stove is fitted with two substantial bolts, intended to stop the stove from swinging when not in use, that would help keep it in place in a knock down. Fair point, but it presupposes that both bolts are in the locked position when the knockdown occurs.

One bolt won’t help since the stove will simply twist a single bolt out as it comes clear of the opposite mount.

The Solution

To solve the problem, we had a machinist make two custom brackets from ½” aluminum plate with a retaining stop, as shown in the photograph above.

This cost us about $200, not unreasonable for a custom job. (A comparable mass-produced bracket would only cost Force10 a few dollars.) I’m incensed that we have had to spend this kind of money to make what is supposed to be a quality product, costing $1300.00, safe.

The Drawings

Here is a to scale CAD drawing of our design that any competent machine will be able to a brackets like ours from. Click to download.

Conclusions

  1. We can’t recommend this stove for offshore use until Force10 provides a properly designed bracket.
  2. We would recommend, even with custom brackets like ours, that holes in a strong area of the surrounding cabinetry be provided for both swing retaining bolts as a backup to the pivot, not just one as called for in the manual.
  3. The poor quality of the bracket has shaken our confidence in the entire stove; we will be watching it carefully for other problems and safety issues.

Lessons Learned

  1. Even a piece of marine equipment that has been sold for many years can have glaring safety issues that must be fixed during installation.
    Sadly, this is by no means the first time this lesson has been brought home to us.
  2. Going offshore in small boats requires constant vigilence.
    Watching out for this kind of thing is just another aspect of the constant vigilance that going offshore in small boats requires.
  3. We should have inspected several stoves in person before purchasing one. It would have been much better to make this purchase decision at a major boat show where we would have been able to inspect several stoves before laying any money out.

Further Reading

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Gus Beare

I’m amazed and appalled but not surprised by the attitude of Force 10. You take the trouble to point out a serious defect in their product which could destroy the company and they ignore it and treat you with contempt.

I hope it’s not something they live to regret at some poor sailor’s expense.

Gus

Claude Appaldo

To whom it may concern.
In 2010 while sailing in relatively heavy weather, and while I was boiling water on my gimbaled Force 10 stove, one of the 6mm bolts sheared. As a result the stove hit me, landed on the other side of the boat, and in the process I received boiling water on the arm and thigh. The stove narrowly missed a crew member sitting at the chart table.
I spent more than a week in the emergency burn unit of Mauritius with 2nd and 3rd degree burns on 10% of my body.

While trying to replace the sheared bolts at sea, I had to saw through the burner bolts, seized by oxidation.

I wrote to Mister Clark. He eventually answered that the bolts were of a sufficient diameter because calculated by his engineers and that the company had NEVER had a complaint in 25 years…
Upon reading the comment on the accident in 2009, I am really curious to know if other complaints had been received by Mister Clark and his company. Please contact me if you have had a similar problem…and if you have not…just be careful…

Claude Appaldo.

Greg Krisinger

John – do you have the name and number of the machinist that made the brackets, I need a pair.

Thanks,
Greg

Derek Hillen

I really love your website and have been reading it on and off for several years. There are so few reliable sources out there for offshore sailors and I find your views, always well phrased and balanced, to be very refreshing and thought provoking.

During a refit of our last boat, a Tayana 52, which we sailed from Asia to Europe, we installed a new Force 10 stove. When I saw the bracket I said, “Well, that’s crap.” We also had a new one made by a machinist. A hot metal stove is just about the last piece of equipment you want flying across the cabin in weather. We also found that the sparking function to light the stove fails in pretty short order. Also, the thermocouples need regular adjustment. Other than all that, we were pretty happy with the performance and my long suffering wife was able to bake many a lopsided cake on our 3-year trip depending on which tack we were on. Enjoy.

Looking forward to your safe return from this trip and future intelligent posts.

Cheers.

Derek

Al Livingston

We had a bad thermocouple on our Force 10 Stove. After waiting a month for the part it was the wrong one. This stove was not intended to be serviced. You have to remove the stove and take out a dozen screws to gain a 4″ space in which to make the part change. Unfortunately we did not know we had the bad part until we removed the old one. Then when we contacted Force 10 they sent photos of one end of the thermocouple of several different types and asked us to choose. We wrote back and said we needed pictures of both ends. This was after we took pictures of the part we removed thinking they would do the grunt work. I may buy another stove since when we removed ours the brackets you speak of were not bent into the locked position. The gimbal locks are lame at best.

doug cusick

I have had problems with the spark igniter, having to replace it when the stove was only 3 months old. While I applaud your bracket it is only as good as the bolts and cabinetry it is mounted into on this stove. The sharp stainless steel sheet metal edges have shredded my hands during cleaning many times! Servicing the burners is a disassembly nightmare.

rob and Terry

regarding the sheared off gimbal bolts:
We are currently on our THIRD set of bolts. After we noticed that the stove was not sitting even, we removed the unit from it’s mounts and tried to determine the cause. Imagine our dismay when we found the bolts cut 2/3 of the way through. We called Force 10 who insisted that they had never had any complaints before and that the size was sufficient. We replaced the bolts and have since cut through them again. Because we are aware of the problem we check frequently and keep the pins lubricated with grease. We feel that the existing mounting system is insufficient – the morgan’s cloud solution looks like a good modification since the support area in the oem mount is obviously insufficient for usage.
Another problem with the older stoves is an erosion of the burner caps which causes poor burning combustion, and problems with the oven heat distribution plate.

rob and Terry

yep we read about Claude and that’s why we commented…
We do have to admit that we have about 100k miles on our 36′ boat so that stove has rotated quite a few times. BUT, if we had a penny for every time that a boat mfg has told us or others that we know “we’ve never heard of that problem” we would be, not rich, but wealthy!
PS Thanks for hosting this website, we have enjoyed “lurking” in the background for years.

John Pascoe

Anybody have the problem with the oven making weird noises? A sort of roaring noise after some cooking tome has elapsed?
Wife says there is a flame coming from the back of the burner?
Any comments????

Andrew Troup

I don’t (and wouldn’t) own a Force 10 stove, but have been shipmates with several. While I haven’t had the misfortune to have a knockdown or inversion (at least, not in a boat thus equipped 😉
I don’t understand how they can claim to have a premium product.
I recall on one occasion wasting the best part of a day improvising a strong enough bending apparatus to reshape the slide rails (which progressively distorted with repeated heating cycles, such as you get when using an oven !!!!)
I had to do this in order to make the oven usable, because the racks would jam on attempting to remove them, creating dangerous situations when baking on the move. This, in a remote and very beautiful part of Fiordland NZ, was not really how I would prefer to have spent that time.

I’m never very impressed by the rejoinder “But nobody has ever complained about this before”. I’ve heard that twice from companies to whom I had personally complained on previous occasions! Conversely, I’ve had companies as clients who had little else to recommend them in terms of their management culture, but were spectacularly successful simply because they dealt so well with complaints. One in particular had a monthly prize … a family holiday! for the dealer who forwarded the ‘best’ (meaning, most well deserved and cogent) complaint from an end user.

I’m not generally the complaining type, but when it comes to “marine” equipment (except — usually but not always — reputable above-decks gear) , it irks me that the first thing one generally has to do is disassemble, redesign, reengineer in marine materials, and reassemble. In short, marinise. Sheesh!

Dave Benjamin

This is another case of a company pursuing consolidation over quality. There simply aren’t many choices of marine stoves in North America. Seems the parent company of Force 10 has acquired some of the competition. When we bought our Amel, the previous owner had removed the entire LPG system and we had no idea if the existing stove, an Eno, even worked. Since the Eno wasn’t really compatible with modern LPG plumbing (the hose was held to a barb fitting with a clap), we chose to install a Force 10. Our choices were limited to the narrower European sized stoves.We installed a Force 10 and have been less than impressed with it in all regards. I suspect we’ll explore Broadwater and other makes once we get “down under”.

In hindsight, rebuilding and modernizing the old Eno may have been a better choice. Or we should have bit the bullet and imported a quality product from Europe, Australia, or New Zealand.

Our other complaint with the Force 10 is that if you open the door while the boat is rolling the balance of the stove with a pan or something inside results in the contents spilling out. This point was driven home while cruising the Baja when a pan sprung out. My wife would have been badly scalded had she not been wearing foul weather gear. And a lovely dinner was spoiled and mess that took quite some time to clean up was created.

Petter

Having a Force 10 stove aboard my Koopmans vessel and seen the comments and issues regarding the Force 10 stoves, there is an issue I would like to air; I am using the burnes on top to heat something, after lighting the oven, the flame on the burners on the top goes out. If I try to relight, the flame is very uneven, just like after a water spill. When I let go of the regulator knob, the flame dies again.

Has anyone experienced something similar, and in case what may solve this?

Sailors greetings from Norway,
Petter

Petter ;-)

Have something changed at Force 10? Last time I contacted them, there was no response at all. I recontacted them with the same issue – and hopla – 6 hours late an e-mail is ticking in.
If more people are having the same issue as my, then for the benefit of more, here is the response from Brad Clarke at Force 10 appliances

“The issue you are having will likely be rectified with some simple routine maintenance. When was the last time you cleaned the orifices in the top burners?

The issue you are having is that when the oven is operating, as it vents, the hot air reduces the oxygen level under the burners and the flame is reduces and the thermocouple shuts down the burner.

The top burner orifices need to be cleaned at least once per year as routine maintenance.

You will need to remove the orifices, soak them in methyl alcohol and then blow them out with compressed air.

Enjoy the day!

Sonia

We don’t own a boat but have a small Airstream motorhome that is being remodeled. I have been reading boating/yachting forums as the stoves/ovens are a better quality than the units made for RVs.

I have been debating between the Force 10 and the GN-espace units (UK). Has anyone used the GN-espace ovens?

Thanks.

Dave Benjamin

The last thing I would recommend for an RV would be spending the premium for a marine stove. I used to own a couple of VW campers. I found the best thing was a portable stove that I’d set up outside.

Arne Nielsen

We have the following problems with our new (only one season) Force 10 Oven.
To light the broiler I need to light the oven first, turn it off, then without hesitation put a flame to the broiler, (the automatic ignition does not work). Then for the broiler to continue work the button needs to be pressed in without letting go. This makes making toast inconvenient. The broiler was the deal maker in deciding to get this oven.
The ignition works well for the top burners but have never worked for the oven and broiler.
The guards that hold the kettle, saucepans etc in place are cheap and nasty. They do not slide very well when adjusting. On occasions we need to take them off, one has to bend and twist to get them off, nor are they easy to put back into place. The screws do not tighten but that is ok as they don’t slide very easily anyway.
The top has sharp exposed screws; one has to take care when cleaning.
I bought this oven online and had it shipped at great expense to Curacao so did not have the opportunity to see it first. Situation now is that it would be extremely inconvenient to send it back for a refund or for repair. We are stuck with an inferior product…If only I had known!

Michel Bour

Well, with respect, something only has to be built to its needs. My Force 10 gimbaled stove has been on my 37′ sailing cutter for 20 years. I have sailed 10,000 ocean miles, a few times in 60kt winds, been knocked down four or five times, bounced around interminable times; I have pots, pans, dishes, books, cushions – almost everything you can think of fly around the inside of the boat, but never, never a problem with my stove and its “chintzy” mounting brackets. It just sits there quietly rocking.

Arne Nielsen

With respect,
One can assume that anything produced 20 yeas ago would be of a far superior standard to what is manufactured today.

Scott Reynolds

We bought a 1999 hunter 310 that came with a force ten gimbaled stove. The oven knob had been broken off. Upon closer inspection it became clear that the shaft the knob turned had been sheared off. I contacted Force ten to purchase replacement parts. They informed me that they could not provide the parts as they no longer supported that model. The oven had never been used and a replacement part could not be purchased from the manufacturer. So we had 60 lbs of junk stainless steel in our newly purchased boat. Force ten would be happy to sell us a brand new stove though. It’s a poor company that does not support their product.

Matt Foss

We bought a GN-espace. The offshore strength mounting and other build aspects at the boat show were selling points. On the boat and installled issues are the grill does not light with the quartz spark igniter or stay lit without holding the knob down for a looong time. The gas valves for the stove rings are not centered in their holes and jam and we need to pull them off and reposition them to make the rings stay lit. Silly deflector shield to slot in at top of stove opening to keep the hot air from grilling away from knobs.

Spoke to Julian on the rings and grill not staying lit, and he even came by the boat. But offered no solution other than a duplicate set of knobs.
Design:8
Build:6
After sales call to the boat:10
Action to resolve:0

Fair winds,

Matt

Captain George

Our force ten was purchased around 2005 and has never gotton much use except for stovetop things. I have had no problems with anything other than the ceramic broiler crumbling into whatever is being broiled. It works fine but drops grit into whatever is being toasted.

Phil Hogg

Having read this column here is my view. We had a Broadwater. The workmanship and finish was superb, far superior to Force 10, but the oven never worked properly so basically while the stove was a work of art it never worked poperly due to poor oven design. We sailed with the Broadwater for well over 100,000 nm with the only problem (other than the poor oven design) being the gimbol bolts half wore through. I do not see a solution for this with any gimboled stove other than regular inspection and replacement when necessary. The Force 10 stove looks flimsy in comparison to the Broadwater but it works! and that’s important. So far we have only traveled from Florida to Australia with it and it has worked flawlessly other than the spot welds on the heat disfuser breaking but then, even without the heat disfuser it worked so much better than the Broadwater. It is a pity for us sailors that the best of both companies couldn’t be amalgamated into the one product.
It’s good to come across an intelligent forum and we can only thank the internet and communication between users for bringing the truth to products instead of the standard reply of ‘we’ve never had a complaint regarding this before’.

Terry Thatchet

I have similar gimble brackets. I have always disliked them. Does anyone know if there is now commercial replacement or need I go to a machinist too?

Petter ;-)

AAC members brainpicking challenge! How to make a “inward/outward” moveable galley stove that gimbals?

Situation: The old Force10 stove is being exchanged for one with a more suitable oven for baking bread. The Force10 has an angled rear side, which enables gimballing with little use of space. The new oven does not have this the angled read side. With the galley on the port side of the vessel, there is now too little space for the stove to swing freely when on starboard tack.

I wonder is any of the members would care to share ideas on a workable solution for this. The obvious solution is to make a hole in the wood panelling behind the stove, which I am hesitant to.

Would it be possible to fit the gimbals on some sort of device that allows the stove to be moved 10cm outward when on starboard tack? Firstly, the device, whatever it could be, would have to be able to lock the oven in place, both in normal position and when slid outwards. Secondly, it would have to be able to sustain a full knockdown. Thirdly, it should be rugged, simple and easy to operate in a confined space.

Maybe is my thinking too limited; Any ideas or different perspectives are more than welcome.

Greetings,
Petter @Iris

Eric Klem

Hi Petter,

Can you move the whole unit upwards a few inches? Depending on where it is relative to the hull, you may be able to get away with this. In general, I dislike how low most counters, sinks and stoves are. However, be careful that you plan for port tack when the stove ends up effectively much higher in the type of galley you describe.

Make something that moves is possible but difficult to do right with low complexity. The first thing that springs to mind is to have 2 landing areas for the gimbal mounts with latches on them. You could then put a pivot halfway between them with the other end attached to the gimbal bracket. To move the stove, you would lift it through the arc and have it land in the next holder for the gimbal bracket which would then latch it in. The reason that I suggest this is that linear motion is really tricky to get right but rotational motion is much easier. I hope this description makes sense, let me know if it doesn’t.

Eric

Petter ;-)

Thanks for engaging Eric.
I cannot see how moving it up will help me. The panel behind the stove is vertical and not angling outward like the hull, or do I fail to see the effect of what you propose?

The last proposal makes perfect sence to me. Simple and effective. If I understand your suggestion, the pivot would also hold the stove if the vessel suffers a knockdown. Correct? I do not see exactly how the pivot would be make. If you would care to make a sketch and share it, I would be grateful and my email address is connected to my name in the reply.

Greetings,
Petter

Petter ;-)
Eric Klem

Hi Petter,

It sounds like in your case, lifting the stove won’t help. In many boats, the panel behind the stove is angled and not vertical which makes lifting the stove helpful. I will send a quick sketch over when I get a chance. Getting something heavy and sharp to move in a controlled manner is very tricky and in the end, you may well find that the easiest thing to do is as the other posters are suggesting and start cutting.

Eric

Marc Dacey

We have a Force 10 and I understand this issue.

Whatever you construct would have to be robust indeed. My first thought is a sort of “pin-rail”, like the screw-in Harken traveller type or a fabrication of a sort of drawer slide, but in heavy duty aluminum plate. But that’s not the first issue I see. The cooking gas supply hose would need to have enough slack in it to move back and forth with the stove. This introduces problems of chafe and possible damage and danger if a hot stove is “retracted” and comes in contact with the fuel supply hose. I know this is not the answer you’d prefer, but I think a deeper cabinet surround for the new stove to properly gimbal is the correct answer, because this does not involve possible damage to a fuel line that is required to “expand” to suit gimballed operation.

Petter ;-)

Marc, I wish I could say you are wrong, but regretfully I think your point is more than valid.

At the minimum, the utmost of shafe protection measures must be applied. If the “fancy” solutions does not work or produce shafe, then there might be the simple soulution of grabbing the saw, but that pains my heart – but maybe it is better with a bit of pain in the heart than being blown to pieces.
Time will tell -meanwhile thanks for engaging.
-petter

Rob Gill

Hi Petter,
Like Eric, I can’t think of anything that would reliably survive a knock-down with a heavy stove other than having two fixed gimbal positions. I believe Eric envisions a top hung bracket (on the cabinet) that pivots to allow the stove to move inboard or outboard in a fixed arc from one mount position to the other. I had a less elegant idea, by having a piece of alloy angle bar fixed between two mount positions (1 on each side), that takes the weight of the stove as you move it between the two. You would need to lift the stove out of the first mount. But what price warm fresh bread?
Good luck
Rob

Petter ;-)

Well Rob, I think your idea also would work, because the bar will allow the stove to be moved without risking a sudden drop, If I understood your idea correctly, the bar will carry the weight in the moving operation.
…. and to me there is not necessarily any good or bad ideas. In idea generation, building and expanding is the whole trick. Something that might not work on its own, might be super when added to another idea. But that was philosophy and not sailing.
As for the warm bread, I think that is a nice luxury, but if there is no good solution, cooking on starboard tack will be a challenge to say the least.
Friday greetings, P 😉

Petter ;-)

p.s. Rob,
The challenge is not to slide the stove on flat seas, becuase then it can be locked in level position. The challenge is to have something that works when the vessel and crew is thrown around, and cooking/eating becomes a part of keeping the crew alert and safe.
-p

Rob Gill

Hi Peter, Yes that was my idea – controlling the weight of the stove between the two sets (two each side of the stove) of fixed Force 10 supplied mounts (the old and new ones inboard). You could also put a second bar above the first so that even if the whole stove jumps on a wave or you become inverted, the stove won’t fly off. Of course it is very unlikely you would be trying to move the stove in the kind of conditions this may happen, but with those katabatic winds in Norway you never know!
Rob

Rob Gill

Hi Petter,
I also think you would move the stove to the inboard position as part of readying for sea process. The stove would then return to the original design outboard position for in port, at anchor or day-sailing.

Richard Hudson

I bought a Force 10 stove because it was the only marine stove I could find that would fit the space available in my boat–I didn’t want to redo the galley. After two years and 23,000 miles, it still does what I need it to (though I have to light it with a BBQ lighter), so I am content with it.

Your custom brackets are an elegant solution to the cheap mounting brackets that Force 10 supplies.

To address the problem of the tabs on the brackets being inadequate to hold the stove in a rollover situation, I put a bolt thru the Force 10 bracket and the bulkhead (with nuts and big washers to distribute the load on the bulkhead), just above where the stove’s pivot pin is (above the flimsy tab). I did this on both sides of the stove. This is a very inexpensive alternative (admittedly–and fortunately for me–not yet tested by a rollover!) to your much more elegant bracket, though the bolt method only works if one has access to the back of both bulkheads that the stove is mounted on.

I should note that I only gimbal the stove when cooking when heeled–the vast majority of the time, the stove is locked in place (so it is not a swinging hazard and so I don’t feel the need to frequently inspect the bracket for wear).

Brann

I do have a Force10 as well on my boat and have been worried by the gimbal lock-in mechanism for a long time. My initial idea was, as Richard suggested above, to screw a bolt right over the pivot point, but unfortunately I only have access to one side.

Reading through the comments section, I’m almost wondering whether it would make sense to order a dozen brackets as the one you had custom-built and to spread the costs across the member of this forum (surely a substantial part of the $200 you paid were covering design costs)

Aside from this, the spark ignition caused me trouble as well, but on my unit it is just a matter of clearing the corrosion on the battery holding pins (under the stove on the right side). This gives me about three months of working spark ignition before I need to clean again, and at this point I’m considering getting rid of their crappy battery holder and simply plug the spark-ignition directly to the boat’s 12v system using a down-voltage regulator.

I’m also having trouble using the oven and the stoves at the same time, but this might be a case of a contaminated gaz pipe.

Brann

petter ;)

Brann,
My force 10 also suffered from the stove/burner issue you mention. Never solved it, but as it was 15 years old, it was sold 2nd hand and replaced with a Dometic Moonlight, which I am happy with. The dometic had an oven burner located on the back wall, so it works well for baking bread.
//p

Brann

Hi John,
I looked into it some more today ; I think that my idea of plugging the spark ignition to the ship’s electrical system is not such a good idea after all, because the negative side is grounded on the whole oven, and I don’t like the idea of having such a large piece of metal grounded, even if it’s not in direct contact with my aluminium hull. So I’ll stick with the current holder for now.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that the system generates around one spark per second (maybe slightly more), which is significantly less than what I’ve witnessed on most gas appliances (where it was more in the 4 per second area). Is it the same on yours ?

Regarding the replacement bracket, would you care to share the actual schematics of yours ?

Brann

Rob Gill

Hi John, quick update on Force 10 cookers,
Our 15 year old ENO cooker needed replacing, so we went to the local importers in NZ of Force 10 to have a look. Guess what we noticed immediately? A completely flimsy gimbal bracket with just a small tab to prevent the stove jumping out on roll-over – surely not?
In the showroom, I asked the two attentive staff how the mounts would prevent the stove coming free in a storm roll-over event? They pointed to the tab and suggested we keep the two bolts in place whilst at sea. I explained patiently that was why the stoves had gimbals – was so we could cook in bad weather meaning the bolts may not be in place at the time!
I then recounted the events that caused a good friend (at the time a young man) with his family to abandon their well found forty foot yacht off the East coast of NZ caught out as they were in a big storm. Their cooker jumped off the mounts in a roll-over and punctured a massive hole in their wooden topsides which they couldn’t plug effectively. Losing the battle with the sea ingress they took to their liferaft. Being before the days of EPIRBS they spent over a week (as I recall) in a tumbling raft, with him personally being thrown out of the raft on two occasions and having to swim back. They were all but given up as lost by the authorities, but miraculously survived to tell the tale. The staff responded that there were thousands of these brackets out there in use and apparently no one had ever reported a problem – yea right – quite a worry really.
I so laughed when I remembered later to look on AAC and re-discovered this article, hence this post – I thought readers might like to know (as I was surprised to learn) that Force 10 was bought up by ENO in France, and apparently both stoves are now made in the same plant (or so we were told). They become importers of both models and had both ranges displayed side by side. We decided on a replacement ENO, entirely because I didn’t like the F10 mounts and we wanted to stay with the black enamel sided oven – stainless looks lovely when new but we suspected it could be a pig to keep looking nice and clean. Also the ENO seemed easier to completely remove the heat shields and fiddles for more thorough surface cleaning – the force 10 shields came off nicely but left a small sharp pressed and welded edge to trap grease and dirt.
We suspect though the Force 10 has a better oven (than the ENO which never excelled in this regard) having more thermal mass (being nearly 30% heavier than the same size ENO). We aren’t much into serious baking, so this wasn’t a killer for us.
Rob

Chuck Batson

The Force 10 mounting brackets are indeed a sad state of affairs. I found that a long 1/4 inch diameter bolt fits snugly into the bracket just above the pivot bolt. Not as good as a custom bracket, but significantly better than that sad little flap of metal! *smh*