F&W Steel Star 37: any way to find date of manufacture?

[DennisT]

That about says it. I have a F&W 10-foot Star Zepher going up soon. I'm not an expert. Are there any markings on it that would reveal the year it was made? I know Aermotor mills have the machined off spot on one side of the hoop that has the year of mfg.
But F&W's....?????? Comments.....? Thank you.

[DennisT]

I'm beginning to think there is no way to tell mfg.d date.....................

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

The only thing I can tell you is they were manufactured from 1937 to about 1957 I believe.

[Jim Corcoran]

I had the same question regarding the one I restored a couple of years ago. This tag was on the bonnet. At the time no one was able to help with the details on the tag so never determined if the "8-3" gives any indication of a date of build.

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Regards,
Jim

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

Jim if it was my guess I'd say AUGUST 1953.

[Jim Corcoran]

Dan,
But is that realy a date? It says "Series No." Were there actually other series of Star 37's? Just another conundrum.

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

I don't believe they had different series Jim. Later on they added a 5 and 15 ft model to that model. Is yours a 8ft ? Maybe that's what the 8 is. But the 3 don't know.

[Jim Corcoran]

Yep, mine is an 8 footer. That's what I thought the 8 referred to as well.

[Kenneth]

I will just throw this out there. When I worked in manufacturing, we had revisions on our drawings. It could be the 8 is for 8 ft. and the 3 could be the 3rd revision. I know they made changes through the years. Just a thought.

Kenneth

[Kenneth]

Also, on the tag, it says, "refer to above numbers when ordering repairs". That tells me there was several variations of this mill.

Kenneth