Having recently ventured into the petrol stove area, it seems from reading other peoples posts that the majority of people advise against using petrol in said stoves 1. For safety reasons especially those with pumps. 2. Because the petrol carbon clogs up up the works. So an 111b should be run on Panel wipe? or similar. What about an 8R? or a Pheobus 625? or a Svea Campus 5? I can understand the concerns with a pumped tank the thought of a dodgy NRV makes me want to get rid of or never use the 111b! What are peoples thoughts etc? so that I can try and make an informed choice. Many thanks Nick
Petrol aka gasoline/essence in other parts of the World (yes, most of us know this, but a newbie might mistake it for petrole - paraffin - Grandma suck eggs etc.) is fine if all parts are known to be in good order and the lighting practice is correct - and of course if the stove in question is designed for that volatile fuel. The crux of the matter must simply be that the stove must be designed for the fuel, the stove in good working order, and used as directed. Petrol (UK) from the forecourt pump does contain elements that will clog a generator, so the likes of panel wipe and Aspen are advised as they are 'cleaner'. But costs are higher. I'm not an avid collector, so am quite happy with my 'little used' collection that run on Paraffin. Petrol goes in the car.
Hi Nick. The only pumped gasoline stove I have is the 111B and I never seem to use it. Like you I'm thinking of selling it. No great safety concern, it's just that I seem to reach for other stoves before the 111B. My gasoline stoves - Primus 71, Op 80, Op 8R, Op 99, Radius 42, Svea 123 and Lamb all run happily on Panel Wipe. Whilst I have no safety concerns with them I would never run one indoors. Others are happy to run them indoors, but I'm not. The impression I get from reading posts at CCS is that the preference for gasoline or kerosene powered stoves depends largely on where you grew up. Those in the US grew up with gasoline stoves. Indeed, I am sure that much of the US population are unaware of kerosene stoves. On the other hand, we in the UK mostly grew up with paraffin (kerosene) or alcohol stoves. The first gasoline stove I saw in use was in the Army! Essentially, I make my choice of stove based on it's intended use. For hiking I take a little gasoline or alcohol stove. At home I use a paraffin stove. Of course, if I can ever get my little Governor paraffin stove ( Link ) to run right, it will become the exception and will go on hikes . Hi Derek - I try and use the term 'gasoline' when referring to petrol in posts. As you correctly point out, 'petroleum' in Germany means kerosene (paraffin), which causes confusion and possible danger when people buy German made stoves. The situation is not helped of course, by the fact up until the 1930's, 'petrol' in the UK was a trade name registered by Eugene Carless for petroleum spirit (gasoline). His competitors had to use the term 'motor spirit', which became abbreviated to 'spirit'. Thus, if you have a pre-1930's British stove it may be marked 'for spirit only' meaning petrol (gasoline) not meths (spirit). Or, it could be marked 'for spirit only' meaning meths (spirit). But, it could also be marked 'for petrol only' meaning petrol (gasoline) . Regards, Terry
The term "petrol" for classic camp stoves is broader than pump gasoline. It is customary to call stoves that use "white gas"/Coleman fuel/panel wipe/Aspen, "petrolburners". But yes, pump (auto) petrol/gasoline should be avoided.
Thanks for those comments gents. It seems that the terms used for fuels in different countries and indeed at different times has led to some confusion,which your comments are beginning clarify for me. The safety issue seems to be less of a concern than my reading of many posts led me to believe, as long as common sense is used and the stove is in good order. I am sure there are many horror stories out there as well as many a second or third hand tale doing the rounds. Using panel wipe in stoves sounds no more safe than using petrol/gasoline to me, but has the advantage of not sooting up your burners.So I may go down this route but to be honest the amount of use and the duration of that use probably means its not of such high importance to me. Thanks again and I hope this thread proves useful to other new gasoline stove users. Nick
Absolutely has to do with where you live. It's not that we don't know about kero stoves, it's availability. We just don't have the variety the other side of the pond has. It's the same situation with cars. Very few diesels here, but lots of gas. We are slowly catching up in the diesel department now that there is a proper grade of fuel available.
When I first started camping it was with Scouts in the late 70's through early 80's. At that time, any stove I saw or used was either designed for Coleman Fuel (Coleman stoves) or they were the gasies (butane/propane/etc). The gasies had already been on the market for at least a decade by then and were well ingrained in the camping market. But a kerosene stove? Nope. I had never heard of a kerosene stove and never saw any alcohol stoves in use (but I wasn't much up on stoves back then). The first time I heard about a Kerosene stove was in (West) Germany, early 1990, when I picked up an Optimus 111 Hiker during my travels through there. As mentioned in another thread, kerosene can be hard to find here (Ontario/Canada). But walk into any sporting goods store and you'll find Coleman Fuel (and gas canisters) in various quantities and brands. Since getting into stoves I prefer kerosene as fuel, for a number of reasons: Kerosene is 1/2 the price of coleman fuel; has a more pleasant (or least offensive) smell especially when vaporized; longer shelf life, less volatile/more safer and the majority of my favorite stoves only run kerosene. I don't mind running Coleman Fuel in stoves, I like the fuel well enough and don't treat them any different then my kero stoves. I don't make any special arrangements when running whatever fuel or stove besides the normal precautions. Each sit on a stainless steel pan with raised sides, they are provided with adequate ventilation, adequate spacing (especially above), adequate lighting and proper tools close by (wrench/prickers/lighter/pliers/fire-extinguisher). Keep the fuel well stored and away from the heat sources: refiller 4 Liter+ fuel containers outside and/or downstairs but keep a set of 500 ml - 1 Liter SIGG and Nalgene fuel containers in the 'mud room' behind the kitchen. I've used stoves (primarily kerosene domestics) for all my cooking (excluding baking and BBQ'ing) for over a year now and have never had any problems (including with smell, no lingering kero smell).
I'm in a similar boat as SMolsen... I grew up in the states where kerosene/paraffin is unheard of. Every lantern or stove I used was a Coleman, and used Coleman fuel, which was cheap and sold everywhere. The notion that I need to think about fuel at all is only a month old (since I got into these crazy old brass things,) so the confusion over ingredients, types, names, countries, and jets is particularly intense with me.
Kero stoves weren't unheard of in the States, but they were barely heard of. My folks gave me an Optimus 45 in 1962. Nobody in my gang had ever seen one. I carried that stove as a hiking stove on the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier in Scouts. In those days, you cooked on campfires in the backcountry. That stove was a nonesuch, and greatly contributed to my status way back then. It was in reminiscing about that stove with my brothers (who knows which one lost it after I left home....?)after our dad died in early 2001, that I got keen to search the web about such stoves and found Ross's site, in April 2001. According to 1970s backpacking books, like Harvey Manning's, the Optimus 00 was sold in the US as a hiking stove, but I don't recall ever seeing one. When I was buying stoves on eBay in 2001-03, quite a few I found in the States, scattered around the N. Am. continent. So they were around, but very rare, relatively speaking. I had collected about 55 stoves when I finally found my "holy grail", a pristine Optimus 45 with flawless tin, like the one I had as a kid. Somehow, that put a cap on the collecting bug. I still have my collection, and remain interested in it and use many classics, but I stopped buying more stoves after that.
My only problem using gas/petrol is the ethanol added to the gas. It can reduce the gas fuel efficiency. Ethanol can also cause clogging by creating a gel like substance when a gasoline/BTBE blend in a storage tank is not completely cleaned out prior to being filled with a gasoline/ethanol blend.
There is no reason whatever to use automobile gasoline in a stove (unless you were stranded with nothing else), and many reasons not to. The ethanol in it would be the least of one's concerns.
Coleman fuel appears to be £7 per litre. Panel wipe about£16 per 5L. Petrol £1.40/L. Which may influence some people. What makes of panel wipe would any of the Brits recommend [I say Brits purely because they would know what brands are available here.] Nick.
Hi Nick. Have a read through this thread - Link . I've been using the unbranded stuff for 4 months and it's been spotty dog. I paid £11.95 in April in Brighton, but it's now gone up to £12.95 ( Link ). Regards, Terry
Surely, before anyone answers questions relating to fuels, they should find out which stove the enquirer is talking about, then there would be less confusion.Do we have a chart available which describes each fuel and its common name in each country?
If only things were that simple. See this Link . Add in brand names, abbreviations, slang, military designations and colloquialisms and even more fun ensues. Gas in the UK means butane/propane, but in the US they put 'gas' in their cars, but in the UK we put petroleum in our cars, but in many countries petroleum means kerosene, which we in the UK call paraffin, which in most countries refers to paraffin wax used to make candles. On an international forum such as CCS it is impossible to get everyone to adopt the same terminology so a little interpretation is often required. If in doubt, ask the poster to clarify. The only real answer is to never put fuel in a stove unless you know exactly what the stove uses and exactly what fuel you have in your container. Terry
Terry thanks for the links very useful. Its amazing isn't it that a fairly simple looking subject can be so involved! I have several auto paint places round here so will make enquiries during the week for some slow cheap panel wipe with a high VOC! I am surprised that the EU has not got round to banning it or changing it in such a way that it becomes useless for our purposes.They have made most oil based household paints pretty poor products since changing the formulae to lower the VOC content. But that I suppose is where the water based alternative panel wipe comes in! cheers Nick
Locally Go Outdoors has ran out of Coleman fuel, but I'm going to the lakes on Thursday so wanted to make sure I had fuel. Went to my local spray shop wholesale place and I bought their own brand panel wipe on the label it says Panel Wipe UN1268 containing NAPTHA (petroleum), N-HEXANE. It smells just like Coleman fuel, burns like it too. Tested it in my Sigg FireJet and Trangia X2 and it seems the same.
