Hi Everybody! This is my first post in this forum, and before i begin I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for all the info you all have been posting here. I Have been reading this forum for months, but until now I found everything I needed and I didn't think I had anything valuable to add, so I refrained from posting.
Last summer our housing situation enabled us (me, wife and 2 kids) to get a wood stove for the first time. I started looking in Craigslist for something used that would fit our budget. Because we live in Connecticut it seemed to me, after a little research, like it might be a good idea to get an All Nighter (there are plenty coming into the market around here). As I kept looking for a good option, I kept reading a lot of posts here in hearth.com about how Morande had stolen Bob Fisher's ideas, etc. etc. Eventually when the time came to actually buy a stove, Somebody put an old Fisher Mama Bear for sale in Southern CT, so I went and got it -For just $180!
The stove wasn't in very good shape. The previous owner had let it rust deeply in some parts, mainly the back and the top (there are round marks that made me think somebody used it to cook or heat up water and never dealt with drippings on it). Besides this, it was a smoker's home and they had several cats on that house who had been pissing on the stove for some time, so to me it smelled really, really bad.
I restored it trying, to my best, to follow Coaly's suggestions: I used a wire brush cup on my drill and scour pads to get as much of the rust out as I could, then I wiped it with mineral spirits, and then applied lacquer thinner. Then I spray painted it with Stove Bright "Satin Black" paint.
My first attempt at painting was bad, so I read all the instructions on the stove bright site and watched their YouTube videos, scratched the crappy paint, applied mineral spirits and lacquer thinner again and then I sprayed it again with several light coats from 12-15 inches as recommended. I think now looks pretty nice, though it isn't perfect because the rust was eating up the plate in some parts of the top. I also removed all the ash and the firebricks that were crumbling and replaced those with brand new ones (I had to replace 7). Then I took it outside to cure it, following the paint maker's recommendations.
Here comes my question! As I was trying to connect an elbow pipe to hook it up to the flex liner I put in my chimney I found that the opening in the back of the stove is too big to work as a male, and too small to act as a female. I read this post:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/question-about-baby-bear-stove-pipe-connection.106668/
So I bought some crimping pliers and tried my best to crimp doing that "upwards pull", so the pipe keeps being parallel and doesn't look like a cone. I stuck the connector in the stove's opening, but because I'm such a noobie I'm not sure if I did a good enough job. It feels snug, but I'm a little worried of smoke leaking through the crimped pipe, or any other problems I'm not foreseeing. I should put screws on it, right? The guy at my local chimney supply store said I don't need to use cement if it's a tight fit, but because I had to do the extra crimping, should I put cement? Please let me know your opinions. And thanks a million again for all the info that has been posted in this forum, I bet many other guys like me are reading and getting tons of valuable info even if we don't post here.
Last summer our housing situation enabled us (me, wife and 2 kids) to get a wood stove for the first time. I started looking in Craigslist for something used that would fit our budget. Because we live in Connecticut it seemed to me, after a little research, like it might be a good idea to get an All Nighter (there are plenty coming into the market around here). As I kept looking for a good option, I kept reading a lot of posts here in hearth.com about how Morande had stolen Bob Fisher's ideas, etc. etc. Eventually when the time came to actually buy a stove, Somebody put an old Fisher Mama Bear for sale in Southern CT, so I went and got it -For just $180!
The stove wasn't in very good shape. The previous owner had let it rust deeply in some parts, mainly the back and the top (there are round marks that made me think somebody used it to cook or heat up water and never dealt with drippings on it). Besides this, it was a smoker's home and they had several cats on that house who had been pissing on the stove for some time, so to me it smelled really, really bad.
I restored it trying, to my best, to follow Coaly's suggestions: I used a wire brush cup on my drill and scour pads to get as much of the rust out as I could, then I wiped it with mineral spirits, and then applied lacquer thinner. Then I spray painted it with Stove Bright "Satin Black" paint.
My first attempt at painting was bad, so I read all the instructions on the stove bright site and watched their YouTube videos, scratched the crappy paint, applied mineral spirits and lacquer thinner again and then I sprayed it again with several light coats from 12-15 inches as recommended. I think now looks pretty nice, though it isn't perfect because the rust was eating up the plate in some parts of the top. I also removed all the ash and the firebricks that were crumbling and replaced those with brand new ones (I had to replace 7). Then I took it outside to cure it, following the paint maker's recommendations.
Here comes my question! As I was trying to connect an elbow pipe to hook it up to the flex liner I put in my chimney I found that the opening in the back of the stove is too big to work as a male, and too small to act as a female. I read this post:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/question-about-baby-bear-stove-pipe-connection.106668/
So I bought some crimping pliers and tried my best to crimp doing that "upwards pull", so the pipe keeps being parallel and doesn't look like a cone. I stuck the connector in the stove's opening, but because I'm such a noobie I'm not sure if I did a good enough job. It feels snug, but I'm a little worried of smoke leaking through the crimped pipe, or any other problems I'm not foreseeing. I should put screws on it, right? The guy at my local chimney supply store said I don't need to use cement if it's a tight fit, but because I had to do the extra crimping, should I put cement? Please let me know your opinions. And thanks a million again for all the info that has been posted in this forum, I bet many other guys like me are reading and getting tons of valuable info even if we don't post here.
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