Wood cookstove questions.

[FarmboyBill]

Ive got a 1937 S & R wood cookstove. 3 burners in back are flat. Center one up front is flat , one shaped like a waffle iron, one with a removeable ring inside of it, A resevour, warming ovens. I know to start a MALL fire in it to create draft. I know to keep the oven closed off, I know to open the lower draft on the side, BUT, it still smokes when I put in a few sticks of real wood for awhile. It does quit, But, haveing never been around a real, good, wood cook stove, Im asking, is this normal. Course, I was born in 47. Im sure If I was born in 37, Id have a few leaks too, lol. For whatever reason, I dont have a rack for it. Have to keep an eye out for such. It cooks good tho, Oven works fine seemingly. It has the oven damper at the back in what feels like a piece of metal just hanging there, like a spatula being slid backwards and forwards by the handle. It goes from closed, next to the firebox, 1/4 open, 1/2 open 3/4 open, open.

[blooba]

Is it a leak or is there just some smoke before the proper draft starts?
Where's the smoke coming from? It sounds perfectly normal but you can seal up some leaks

[haypoint]

Many wood cook stoves have another lever/slide that forces the smoke/heat around the oven. If that is left in that mode, it will smoke at start up. Shove it over and the smoke/heat goes fairly directly from the firebox to the stovepipe.
If you don't have such a device, you'll need to get more draw started and add those bigger pieces one at a time. Limit how much air you give the fire. If it starts to smoke, close the air intake down just enough to stop the smoke.

[FarmboyBill]

Your first paragraph has got me wonderin. U saying there are sometimes 2 oven dampers? Well, as i say, this one only has one, and the other stove I had only had one, tho both in different places, this one in a much better place.

[haypoint]

All the wood cook stoves that I've been around had that second lever. Without that the smoke/heat would go from the firebox to the stovepipe and miss the oven. Then when engaged, the smoke/heat must go around the oven to make its way to the stovepipe.
If you try to get the fire going while the smoke/heat is forced around the oven, there isn't enough draw to prevent smoke escaping.

But, like I said, when it starts to smoke, close the damper a bit. On the rare times when my stove would smoke, it was just at the very beginning of the fire. I'd drop a newspaper over the cook top, sealing the places where it would smoke. I don't recommend that because if you don't know what you are doing, you'd set the house afire.

[FarmboyBill]

HP/ Thats the point of the lever i mentioned, to regulate by 1/4ths the opening the way to around the oven. With it closed, the heat does as u suggest, bypass the oven to directly go up the pipe. I have a damper also in the pipe, but dont use it till the fire is near embers