Grandma Bear

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Good question of exactly when they started optional glass doors. By 1980, sales had trailed off due to market saturation (1.2 million sold) and other stove companies offering fancier stoves. So they made changes and offered more options to bring sales up and compete with competitors. To pinpoint the date, a letter from Fisher Int. to fabricators mentioning changes would be the most accurate. 1981 ads and literature only shows brass and nickel doors. Here's the earliest ad I found from 1985 picturing one. If I find other literature or a mention of glass, I'll let you know. I'm sure it was well before this;
http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AAIBAJ&pg=2388,5259261&dq=fisher+stoves&hl=en

Nothing special about flat gasket material. Some hardware stores sell it off the roll, stove retail shops always have it, or Home Depot and Lowes carry it seasonally. Match it up, or measure the old.

Many fabricators with a license to build the stoves numbered them, and added their state's abbreviation. Otherwise it could be initialed in weld by the builder. (The infamous SB) Can you get the number and letters from it? Sometimes rubbing a piece of chalk over the weld will bring out the characters. Reading it with a mirror is possible if you can't lay it over.
 
If you can read the initials or name please post it. Some welders are still around in town and I MAY be able to tell you who he was, actually we had one female welder too. It could have been me. I hope not most welded better than me. lol I am assuming since you are from GA that it was purchased in Ga. Only thing I could add to Coaly and his dates. I have drawings showing issue dates but it does not say that it is when they started making them. We could have set on a set of drawings until the spring time to start making them in the summer for the next year. I do no know if Fisher demanded a start date or not.
 
there are probably 2 names. one under the ash fender and one under the box itself. There one under the ash fender hung the doors and vented it and added the serial #. The name under the box is the original welder of the box itself. Our shop made stoves all summer and stored them until orders were taken for them, then the doors and vent were installed.
One year a tractor factory was slow and they had their welders build boxes and sold them to us. That would be the only time I know of the boxes were not built in our factory and sold in the South east. The best way to tell them is were the vent came out of the stove it was welded on the back of the stove or top before putting the box together and the weld around the vent pipe was inside of the stove. I bet Coaly did not know that one :) Who knows he probably does. I can not remember the name of the tractor company.
 
Is the top of the glass flat then going to the angle down? If so it is a grandma III. If the top of the glass angles up before it angles back down it is a Grandma IV as we called them.
 
Here it is... I am in the process of putting it in my home..
 

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my grandma sure didn't have them nice doors. Is there a metal baffle in that stove or can you look right up the stove pipe if you were to risk death and stick your head in there?

pen
 
This is a pic inside a honeybear fisher stove from Yamaha_gurl
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a few years back.

Coaly would be the guy to id the stove for certain for you based on dimensions. Looks like a grandma in the pic, I think the honey bears were a bit smaller. Reason I ask is the honey bears came w/ a baffle (all of them did I believe) but only a few of the grandma's did. Again, I could be off, Coaly is the guy if you want to know for sure.

pen
 
jimbo307 said:
Here it is... I am in the process of putting it in my home..

The doors on that stove are a Gma III, It is the first of the glass door Gmas. They are flat on the top and angle down, the glass that is. I do not have saved pictures of different stoves to show you a Grandma IV but it is a III.
 
Here is the inside of the fire box,it looks like a damper in the top of it..
 

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I got some # and letters off of the bottom, These were on the ash pan B9790 MC, these were on the box YH ONTV, I am not really sure about those as they were hard to read,I am going to try again when I can get some soap stone or chalk that I can rub over it to bring it out better...Yes I did buy it here in Ga. I live in Plainville just outside of Calhoun..
 
The numbers are the serial number for that stove and I think Mike McCoy may have been the one who hung the doors and vented it, I will ask him next week I will see him. As far as the other initials i do not know. I will have to ask him too.
 
I got my stove in and it is working great... Does anyone know where I can find a owners manual for a Moma bear stove? My dad has one and wanted to see if I could find one for it..
 
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