Just picked up an unused Optimus 96. The directions for it (moidels 96, 100 & 200) say for use with petroleum. Any 96 I've ever seen has been kerosene fueled. Did Optimus make a white gas version? Thanks for any info.
As a follow up, I lit the stove with kerosene after the alcohol preheat. It burned, but sputtered and flamed up. It never got a roaring blue flame. Dumped out the kero and filled it with Coleman fuel. It burned like Svea or 8R, hot, loud and blue. It looks like this is a gas version. Any history anyone? Jeff
pergl, be very careful here, the 96 is a kero burner, petrolium in countries like Germay means kerosene empty the tank, rinse with denatured alcohol, refill with kero, this time prime the stove well before you light it, not forgetting to prick the burner jet first I would say DO NOT use petrol or coleman fuel in your 96, strip and clean the stove and try again with kero if my advise does not work mate.
What Rik said. What he didn't say was what happens when this goes bad. or how it goes bad. Take the 96 fill with petrol or white gas prime and pump - nice blue cooking flame - boil water make coffee - and - so far so good. Now, how to turn it off? The normal routine with any of the classic kero burning swedish stoves is to open the pressure release screw (usually built into the top of the filler) - this goes "Hissssss" and the air comes out, the fuel is no longer pushed into the burner and the fire goes out. If however you filled the stove with white gas, then the "Hissssss" is mostly gas which might not catch fire - but if it does you are going to want medical help. Edited to add: I can't help noticing the similarity between the user_name and "PERGYL" - the welsh word for DANGER.
Hey, Pergi, Rik and Doug are 100% correct! It is very dangerous to use Coleman fuel in any 96-type stove!! As has been pointed out, there is NO way to turn off such a stove without venting very flammable vapours, which very well may ignite, burning you, others in the area, and maybe your house down, too!! Better to follow Rik's directions, and give it another go with kero, for which all 96 stoves were originally designed. Good luck, and let us know how it goes. Take care, and God Bless! Every Good Wish, Doc Mark
Hi All, A small question. If you have an adjustable burner connected to your conventional stove. And the jet is suitable to burn kero. And if you attempt to fill the tank with coleman fuel. I think you can burn this fuel in kero burner without problem. And this should not be dangerus. Any idea? Best regards, Sefa
Hi sefaudi I presume you mean that you can turn off the flame on the conventional stove using the adjustable burner. There is, however, another really dangerous problem. On a 'conventional' stove there is a pressure pump which was designed to be used with paraffin (kerosene). The non-return valve on the paraffin pump relies on a very low-tension spring and a couple of millimetres of rubber. This non-return valve, after a lot of use, often fails and paraffin comes gushing under pressure through the pump housing and out of the stove. Being paraffin, this is just an inconvenience which needs the valve to be fixed. If the fuel is Coleman or any other form of petroleum spirit (gasoline), this will usually ignite immediately and at the least form a fireball, and at the worst can cause serious burns. The message is: 'Do not use Coleman fuel in stoves designed only for paraffin.' |imgRemoved|
Another thing, when you vent the tank to stop the stove you have all the lovely warm vapour hissing all over your hand. Carry on and give it a try if you really want to but have someone handy with a video camera and we can show them in the major burns unit how it happened
To all, thanks for the replies. I'm not above listening to the wisdom of those more experienced than I, thus my posting of the question in the first place. The real confusion for me was Optimus's use of the word petroleum in the English directions which in the States means gasoline. Other 96 directions I've seen indicate parrafin. No more coleman fuel for me in this unit, and really do appreciate the dark humor (burns, house destruction, death and the like) it defines us as "stovies" doesn't it?
A useful discussion, which we have from time to time. I must take exception, however, to the notion that "petroleum" in the US means gasoline. I've never known it to have that meaning. In US English, "petroleum" means oil, that is to say, the black stuff that comes out of the ground, which is in turn refined into many things, including gasoline and kerosene.
Petrol, the shortened version of petroleum is commonly used in English speaking countries to refer to tthe fuel that powers gasoline engines, thus my confusion. And it is my confusion, altough it may not be shared by others. The words kerosene or pariffin would have done the trick for me and I don't believe petroleum, refering to crude oil as suggested would burn in this stove at all. Thanks for the comments, all this is very worthwhile. Jeff
There have been threads before about fuel names, I'm sure a grown up will be along soon with a link to the web site
Top of the Fettling Forum you'll find this thread complete with necessary link. Spudz ... (an adult at last )
