I live in wheat and hay country. There's lots of chaff from the hay and wheat that's going to waste.

My thought was to use a hammer mill to compress/form pellets from the hay and wheat chaff and stubble.

I'm wondering if it would be a good fuel source.

That's an option, but the bolt tends to loosen over time as the door is opened to drop the ash. Once it loosens enough it will back out completley and then drop into the ash... door and all.

I had a similar problem on a Quadrafire 1200CB that I resurrected two years ago.

I tried almost all the above with no good results. I went to my local hardware store and purchased a stainless steel washer that would drop the door down the width of the washer.

It's been in there two winters. Since installing the washer, I've yet to have the door bind and it's made cleaning out the fire-pot a whole lot easier.