Help with choosing a toaster oven .

I’m stupid here . Where does the power come from . There is only a gas line connection . Always has been . I have used this stove for over twenty years before the oven went on the blink . There is a small cord that runs the clock and have never plugged that in since it never worked .

Hello emglow101 - You are not stupid at all. I leapt to a conclusion. Thermostats, even on gas ovens, have for the past 50 years been electrically controlled solenoids. Your Wedgewood appears to use one of several mechanical thermostats. I have little personal experience with such things - not since I last touched my grandmother’s antique oven in the early 80s.

Speculating, I suspect that there is a small bimetallic element that looks like a coiled sprint connected by a linkage to a gas valve. A little searching with Google indicated that parts are still available. Your problem could be as simple or a stuck gas valve, a linkage that has become disconnected, or a broken bimetallic element.

1 Like

I have fixed old stoves and furnaces and replaced thermostats etc.But I’m not a ‘pro’. The power may come from heat, which creates a small current, or bimetal mechanical movement. There are thermostats and thermocouples. Some of the old stoves did not have standing pilots for the oven, You would turn the gas on and light it with a match ever time. The small pilot gas would flow from where you placed the match and the flame would travel backwards to light the pilot. The pilot then warms a thermocouple or thermopile (a big thermocouple) that lets the main gas flow to the main oven burner. Occasionally the gas port needs to cleaned out (it slowly clogs up) at the burner to allow enough gas to the burner. A thermostat controls the temp within the oven. The thermostat goes from the control knob to the inside of the oven. If you have a pilot that stays on all the time, it’s basically the same principle. That’s what I remember.

2 Likes