Everything Fisher

Anyone have any luck or knowledge regarding Auto Draft controls being added to a Fisher? Is there still a source for these and are they reliable and worth using?

Now that I have two newer style Grandpa Bear stoves, I would like to get a fire going in each and have the luxury of not having to tend them if I am away. The idea of choosing your desired temperature and now having to keep playing with the damper is nice.

I burn mostly red fir as I have a grove of it out yonder. Good and hot burning.

Redbear86 said:

I'll have to double check to make sure there is no play at all, I did have to get the rubber mallet out to get the pins all the way down (after painting them) I also still need to put a little grease in them also. For moving the hinge plate I toyed with the idea of "slighty" heating them before "gently" tapping them in. I wouldn't do that until other options were exhausted

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You said that you can see flame between the doors when looking from the side. I assume the doors still overlap with out seeing flame from the front of the stove. I have a Lopi Revere and I can see flame between the gasket and the door front and this is a new stove.

!st thing to do is to take a straight edge and open the doors. Put it on the lip of the left door that the right door over laps and where I think you are seeing the flame. If this is not flat none of the solutions below will help. The only thing that will help is to machine it flat or if you are good with a grinder use it. Then you may have to ajust with one of the following solutions. Rember this as you are doing this. Back in the day the Fishers were one of the first air tight stoves. They were not as tight as the stoves of today but they were a great improvement in the day.

If you move the hinge you COULD make it worse. Like Coaly said they are installed to not move. If you hit it hard enought to move it something else could go wrong and it will not shut at all.

Try this if you would. Shut the doors in a normal way. when it is in the closed position grab the handle of the fixed door or the left side. Move it like you are trying to pull it open and closed, open and closed. Is there any movement at all when you do this? If you can move the left side there are two things you can do. You open the door and the part of the right door handle that locks your door in place. If you heat the handle inside where it turns up You can tighten the doors together by then taping it towards the door. It does not take much to move it. I have a tool we made that slides over it and that way it only bends at the elbow where you heated it up. In time the heat of the stove and use and locking the door in place it can make this get out of adjustment. If your doors are shut in a normal fashion the angle of the right handle should look like the left side. If it is further to the right then tighten in this fashion.

Another thing to try and you may want to try this first. Take a dollar bill, with your doors open put the dollar on the hinge side of the left door over the channel where when the door shuts and you lock the right side in a normal manor try to pull the dollar out. Repeat this for the right side and between the doors last. If it slides out easy with out friction or fear of tearing the dollar you may can replace the gasket in the channel this could take the play out too.

If you are scratching your head and saying what??? Let me know. I have done so many of these I may not be clear in telling you how to do this. I may have to post some pictures or send me a pm and I can call you and talk you through it. If you think the thing to do is move the hinge you would be better off removing the hinges and clean them up and hang the doors again. I can talk you through this too. It is not hard, you just have to do things in a certain way to correct your problem. The stove will have to be on its back to hang the doors. So it would be a better summer project. After the stove is out and in the work area it would take about hours to remove the doors and hinges and replace them. It is not rocket science if you are used to welding etc.

I feel pretty stupid, i havn't replaced the gasket in the channel yet, didn't even stop to think it would effect the fit in the middle!

You can add gasket to probably 50% or better of the old stoves. It does not matter they did or did not come with it. If you have a Fisher without gasket the easy test to see if it will accept the gasket is to take a standard cardboard box and cut strips that will fit inside the channel on the the door front, sides and one for top and bottom . Just tuck it in and shut your doors. If it will still shut and lock normal you can add it. I have tested and done this to many stoves. If you have an old stove with out gasket and you are not satisfied with the burn time even with the draft caps shut down. You probably should try this test. Now it I agree it was not in the specs, drawings or in the production process but some things do work. It is like the baffles that are added. They did not come with them but it makes them better.

Yea there was a gasket on there, I didn't put it together that it could be the problem, it did take a little excessive force to latch the doors too.

I agree that you would not want to add gasket to the stove with the rod versus the channel . When I got involved nothing but channel was used on stoves. I have not even seen many with the rod. With that in mind I did not think about the rod style front stoves. I do not think the SE factory used that method for long. I do not know if my #1 stove has rod or channel. That does not matter to me I just wanted the stove. I will look at the stove today to see if they started production using rod or channel. I do know Carl was building stoves in Idaho before moving to Georgia to start this factory. If he felt using the channel was better than the Rod that is what he would have done.

3-piece top '76 grandpa on e-bay for $395, kinda neat looking

Like I said Coaly has information I did not know about. I have some of the 4 fin draft caps and 5 but not enough to get rid of any. I did not know the history of them and why the change. Interesting. Do you have a picture of the Baxter Stove? I would like to see that. Where can you still buy the draft caps?

Keep in mind I did not do the buisness end, I just worked there. I do know at some point all of our doors came from Alabama. Carl had all the molds sent back to him when things came to a halt and Carl sold them for scrap. I managed to find one that did not get scraped. I would imagine he did this to save freight charges accross the country. Do you know how royalties were paid? Were they in the cost of the door? Or paid seperate? That would be interesting to know and may shed some light on why the doors started coming from Alabama.

Doors are still available? I trashed a bunch of goldilocks doors since to machine them to work was not cost effective.

I have sorted some drawings I think you will like I just have not made copies. I will tho. I do not have velums so they will have to be black line copies. I would imagine Fisher only had the velums for original blue line drawings.

I saw an old post of yours showing a curved thinner hinge ontop of a door. I have those. I did not know where they came from or where they were used. Probably when he bought someone out and bought their parts.

What an informative neat website and page with threads for the classic Fisher Wood Stove! Going to go back and read from the begining, will take a month or so, but definately will read in spare time (spare time lol).

Welcome to the group!

You will find a wealth of knowledge here, especially from 2 or so real Fisher oriented types. These are great stoves for primary or supplemental heating.

Hello, And thank you Coaly and Comstock for the welcome.
Coaly Im indebted to you for the kind help and encouragement to me with the Fisher Stove line up. Its become such a interesting and fun hobby working with each stove. Your passion for the stoves and history behind the stoves and the innovator master is comendable. I get joy from tinkering on my early first generation Camaro's...now this stove hunting and care restoring them has become a joy as well.

I have recently sold my house and am sitting in front of my Grandpa Bear with two feet of snow outside and enjoying my last couple of weeks with my stove! This forum has been great and Coaly was a lot of help with cleaning up and rebricking my stove. I am building a new house and not sure what type of stove I am putting in looking at Hearthstone, Vermont Casting and Lopi. Anyone have any good ideas...besides another Fisher of course! I live on an island so my options are limited.

Personally I like the Lopi the best. I have been burning a Revere for years with out any problems. I settled on the Lopi for I felt it was built very simple and without alot of parts to wear out and need replacing. I also felt the construction was the closest to the Fisher and I was sure used to them. So far I have been totally satisfied. We sell woodstoves and we also burn a Heartstone at the buisness and it heats a large area. I like it too but still would pick a Lopi again for the house. The Hearthstone takes longer to heat up but it will stay hot longer after the fire is out. If you are gone all day and want to heat it up fast the Hearthstone may not be for you. Buying a stove is like buying a car. You are the one that needs to be happy. Good Luck

Thanks Guys! After reading everything I can on this forum I am pretty sure I am going to go with the Lopi because it does sound like a pretty simple stove. I am downsizing though so it will be the Endeavor or Republic 1750. No more Grandpa Stoves for me...my stove presently heats up 2233 square feet with no problem and I am downsizing to about 1200 square feet. I will continue to check out this thread though as I find all of you very interersting and I enjoy all the information that is on here. Maybe the Lopi threads will get some interesting people on them!!

Hello, new to this site.

I have pre 80 papa bear made by Hesston Corp in Hesston KS.
Stove is in good shape other than needing some new fire brick.

Has one 4 fin vent cap with a device called Fuel Saver II on the other vent. This device looks like it was made from a tin can, does anyone know how well they work?

R.J.