Simple Baffle Solution for your old FISHER ! More Heat Less Smoke under $25

Hello Coaly, Getting started on a baffle plate for my parents Mama Bear and the dimensions you stated are 15 x 8 then take half off of length so it would actually be 14 1/2 x 8 right. Just want to make sure so I order it the right size cause I don't have a way to cut it. Did you have to make it smaller to get it to fit correctly or does the 15 x 8 fit good. Thanks

Folks, I tried to put a small baffle plate inside the air inlet of my Baby Bear stove, hoping to direct more air to the burn zone. In short, the experiment was a a failure. Without the baffle plate, the stove produced virtually no smoke after the stove and chimney was hot. After putting the baffle over the air inlet, no matter how I adjusted the air inlet, the chimney would smoke, indicating, to me, very incomplete burning.

My baffle plate was a 4 by 6 inch, 1/4 inch plate, mounted with the long dimension vertically, about a half inch inside the door. The typical "whoosh", or "whup whup" sound of air rushing in the air inlet from the outside was not present. The outside air temp was about 30 degrees, usually plenty cold enough for a solid draw in this particular chimney.

My conclusion is that the best situation is the most air, coming in at the highest velocity, to the burn area creates the least smoke. If anything, like my baffle, slows down or diminishes the intake air, we get poorer combustion.

From now on, I will continue my practice of opening the air inlet fully and controlling the burn intensity with my damper in the chimney. That seemed to work especially well with the baffle.

Does anybody have any insight, or experience that may be useful. Does anything think a smaller baffle might be worthwhile?


Thanks, Dave Howell, western Maryland

I have a Grandpa bear stove with

Coaly,
Thanks for all the info. I'm new to the forum and have a question.

I have a top vented Grandpa Bear that seems to have Draft box in the rear. The interesting thing is that it has a weighted door that opens and closes to pull in air if needed. Have you seen this and is this an effective set up?

Thanks, Anthony

One mystery solved. The weighted door, I just found out, is called a "Barometric Draft Control". Any experience with this? Apparently it's supposed to automatically regulate the chimney temperature for the Grandmas and Grandpas. But my Grandpa does have what looks like your description of the draft box in the inside rear. I'm wondering if it's still feasible to make a baffle for it...


Update - Ok, I searched the forum and got what I was looking for.

Last questions: Will a baffle in this design still work and do you have any suggestions on the layout given the baro box on a grandpa?

Thanks!

Thanks. Looks like I'll give putting a baffle in a shot. I'll have to cut out the section of the baffle where the inside box is and angle it up towards the front where the top curve is.

Here's the baffle I cut for my Grandpa bear to make room for the barometric draft control. Measured and had the shop cut it for me. It fits perfectly. They didn't have have 5/16", only 1/4" and 3/8". Figured 3/8" was overkill so I went with the 1/4". Kinda looking forward to firing it up in a few months...We're up in the mountains in CO. Thanks Coaly.

In post #1 this thread, point #3 you comment on the shelf below outlet on many rear vent fishers.
In my baby bear, that ~ 5" x 10" shelf is <5/16" above brick clip and touching bottom of the outlet.

With the baffle plate on brick clip of larger models, about how far is it from outlet bottom?

I will have to notch baffle, and that edge would be touching bottom of the outlet if left as is.
I'm worried this to close, and could choke stove.
I have 10' single wall to 7' of duravent chimney above cathedral ceiling.
I've cut a cboard template that has a notch like the one in the prev post, and it was pretty tough getting a flexible piece of paper over and around pipe and shelf. If I z-bend the plate about 60-65°, the tabs will close the gaps at the side of existing plate, the edge of the notch will sit at the front of that plate , and the front lip of baffle will point at the step a little better and add a little more clearance for wood.

I guess my ? is - how 'original' is the existing 'baffle' ? Would I be better off to remove it?
I haven't found a shop with lg brake yet, so I'm thinking easier in and out- less work fabbing- still close.

My baby bear has the same small factory installed shelf under the rear flue. I bought a 5/6" thick piece of steel plate that measured 13" x 8" and it fits real good in my stove. There is a small gap on the back and sides but it doesn't seem to allow enough heat or smoke to sneak through those gaps. I have the front of the plate resting on half a firebrick on each side of the stove (the firebrick is turned sideways), which creates that 2-3" gap above the baffle plate.

Thanks Todd67 - is that the yr u we're born or maybe ur age? Gonna keepitsimple, and do the plate like urs and go from there.

Thanks Coaly! If I decided to mod the baffle like Fisher, I could cut the front corner and weld it on the back.

The story on this stove - I watched local cl off&on most of this yr for wood stove & building materials. After seeing searchtempest mentioned on this site, I saw a post from cl memphis that had since expired. Just to take a chance on something so near I called and the seller said he decided to hold it for someone that had done a job for him. He also told me his grandfather had put it in their hunting cabin in the 70's but didn't think it had over 10 fires on it. With a grain of salt I looked it over and noticed only a small scratch on the lock side of handle and no wear on the wedge side of lock. The outlet, brick clips and smoke shelf still had crisp edges. The door was very clean as was inside of stove. Bottom bricks missing but all others in place and solid but no markings. Ball feet on long angle legs.

Only flaws were a bad bottom weld on a rear leg, and hinge mounts are misaligned. Hinge pins tight on door, but appears that the hinge mounts may be sleeved.
Do you think that drilling them out might produce a slight ridge around the hole looking like a sleeve and not used enough to wear? When I remove the pins I"ll mic. them. What is original size?

It's the year I was born. I'm going to start a new thread for the mama bear that I restored and installed last month.

Thanks to encouragement from Coaly and others here I decided to build and try a baffle inside my Fisher GrandPa!

The first step was that welded up this one piece angle iron frame (that would eventually hold a shelf of firebricks) to rest the back of on the upper course of 3 lengthwise firebricks that rest in an angle iron channel that came from the factory in my Concord NH built 1978 GrandPa:

In case you've never seen the upper course of firebricks I'm referring to, here's a picture showing them:

OK, the 1-piece all welded frame wouldn't quite fit inside my GrandPa despite a lot of wiggling and trying different angles of attack, so I cut it in half and welded on some tabs, and drilled/tapped for some flathead #3 Philips bolts that wouldn't interfere with the firebrick. Here is the 2-piece frame:


It will hold a shelf of firebricks and the short legs will sit on the existing side firebricks, while the whole rear of the shelf will sit on that upper course of firebricks on the rear wall of my GrandPa.

Here is what it looks like fully installed:

After the first fire with the baffle installed (I am comparing to 7 winters of experience running this GrandPa without any baffle) I can report that it does seem like less smoke comes out of the chimney. Also, the chimney temperature thermometer reads lower - so it seems that less heat is going up and out the chimney. The stovetop also seems hotter from how much more rapidly the water in my steamer was boiling. This all looks good!

After a couple more fire I would confirm everything I said above, and add that the stove-pipe temperature has become more stable. It is now far less critical to stand-by ready to choke the input air as the stove-pipe temperature gets too high. The lower stove-pipe temperature does not try to "run away" like it did from flames blasting up the flue. The stove just runs better with the baffle installed! Here's where the temperature gauge is on the stove-pipe:

So this year i finally took some time and built a baffle. Unfortunately I neglected to take pictures as i built the baffle only of the installed unit.
2 pieces of .25" plate 26.5"x8". Overlapped them by about an inch and welded some angle to the one so i could slip fit them together once they were in the fire box. Final plate worked out to be around 26.5"x15". I installed a 2nd row of firebrick in the back of the box to act as a shelf as seen in some other people's setups. Then I took my diamond wheel and cut 2 more bricks on an angle to allow the baffle to prop up inside the box. This leaves the ~2" spacing for proper exhaust venting for the 8" flue.



Seems to really do the trick!!



Lots of heat pouring from the stove and LESS going up the flue!
So glad I took the time to build one this season!

Hello all, new member here, just joined today. What a fantastic Forum! I have had my Fisher stove for 31 years and recently decided that I would like to decrease the amount of wood cutting/splitting that I do so wanted to increase my stoves efficiency. I thought about the new baffled stoves and sketched up a baffle for my stove, decided to Google it and low and behold I find this Forum and the wonderful posts herein, with tons of info on baffles! Looks like brilliant minds think alike (cough, cough)

I am overwhelmed by the amount of information on this forum. I found that the dimensions of my stove don't match stoves listed (or I am not looking correctly) so I am wondering which model I have. I have always called it a Momma Bear but I see that it is likely a Grandma Bear (?) Mine is a two square door model, that I bought used in 1981. It measures 25 1/2" across the top plate, 26 1/2" deep including the ash tray and 33 1/2" tall at the back, 27 1/2" in the front. It has angle iron legs (with the feet and I have the screen for the front doors when open) top 8" vent. I have a damper installed in the stove pipe about 20" above the stove. I have some 3/8" steel plate so I will use that for a baffle, maybe do that tomorrow. I like the round baffle suspended below the pipe opening as well but I imagine that the plate baffle would be more efficient, just a guess.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this forum, I am happy to belong.

Tom L.
Hingham, MA