Hi all I am a new to stoves and have just acquired a British army no2 off Ebay Should have taken advice first, but now committed to making it a good Usable stove. Can I change the total burner to burn paraffin or is it not that simple? I was thinking of using a head that has available parts. Any advice would be gratefully Received
First question; why do you want to change the fuel type. I recently restored a No2 and it worked beautifully. Mine was a MK2 which had a type of silent burner. I believe earlier ones had a roarer burner. A picture or two would help. Also, have you searched the site for the subject? I am sure that I have seen this question come up before. Steve
Morning ste chad. Does the No. 2 not burn paraffin ? Have a search & read previous ccs posts .. Brit. Mil. No. 2 ... Its a 'Marmite' stove :-) . Not saying that it burns Marmite .. But like the Advert goes ...you either love it or hate it . Nick OH ..BTW .. Welcome (neighbour ) to CCS.
As far as I can recall the No2 was designed to run on gasoline (petrol) as this was an Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) stove, and it was stardard issue for every AFV from a tank to a Ferret scout car, where petrol was the standard fuel for the army. That's why it weighs about 5Kg! Not for back-packing! I also think that later versions were designed to run on AVCAT/AVTUR (Aviation Jet fuel) and diesel, but have no firm knowledge to back this up. Steve.
First off, welcome! Not impossible, but not at all simple and not a bolt-on job, calling for brazing of a fitting compatible with a paraffin burner. I'm not averse to tinkering with stoves, but I'd consider it a waste of effort, given the fact that you'd have to plunder a paraffin stove for parts to make a stove intended for petrol burn paraffin. That's the bottom line, that a No.2 stove, whether the original Mk1 (roarer burner) or Mk2 (silent burner) are intended to burn petrol. They can't be made to vapourise paraffin - I've tried - because the heat-transfer characteristics of both burner types are inherently poor, and a mass of sooty yellow flames results. The later version Shed-man refers to (a No.12) burning petrol, paraffin or diesel, is a completely different design stove with no parts compatible with yours. Big money on ebay (£169 typical). It should be possible to get the No.2 to work ok, but let us know how you get on, perhaps with a post in the Fettling Forum. John
Hi all I need to fix a leak where the head meets the pipe from the tank (olive on tube , tube bent)) so I am thinking of silver soldering an elbow to the burner with compression fitting on the other end to enable me to put it back to original if my cunning plan does not work thanks for the input
Hi, I had that issue on my No.2. The way I fixed it was to unsolder the existing tube from the burner and replace with another length of tube, and obviously a new olive. From memory it's 8mm tube and IRCC I got the olives from a distributor of Calor gas parts. If taking a different route (I couldn't quite envisage exactly what you are proposing) you need to be careful not to change the height of the top of the burner in relation to grill otherwise you run the risk of changing the burning characteristics. In matters of stove soldering, especially petrol stoves it's always best to state the bleeding obvious, so apologies for doing so. Don't do this inside - there will likely be a ton of petrol soaked muck in the burner head that will put on an impressive fireworks display. In fact, before you do the remedial work I'd advise cleaning out the burner head anyway - check out the fettling section. I personally use the heat and quench method, others have alternative methods. To successfully achieve this though you will need to dismatle the regulator, which in turn will need a spare part in terms of the graphite packing. If you need details of the construction of the burner head to achieve this it is generically similar to an Optimus 111 burner and a parts diagram in the manuals section will provide the info you need. Cheers, Graham.
