Kerosene pickings have been a bit slim at the local garage sales and swap meets and such. I've seen this stove on a couple prepper sites and was curious, so when I saw it on the large online retailer named after that river in south America, I grabbed it. I adjusted the wicks so they were all even, put some kero in it, and gave it half an hour to wick to the top. Lighting all the wicks was a smokey mess which I never figured out how to do cleanly, it would only burn cleanly when the burner assembly was all on and proper airflow established. You'd think that a low enough wick would work but I got to unable-to-light before I found a setting that would light cleanly. Once all the wicks were burning, I put the burner assembly in place and let it preheat, eventually burning blue and cleanly. It actually burns quite oddly. The wicks have to be turned up a fair bit to be able to light them(lower and they just won't light when cold), but once burning and as the burner heats up, that same setting is far too high for clean burning. When turned low enough to burn cleanly, the burner assembly gets SO hot that it heats the kerosene in the tank(unsealed, just a basin for the wicks to sit in) and eventually causes enough kerosene vapor to come out that it stinks terribly and made me concerned about fire hazard. This turned out to be well founded, as when I turned it down(all the way - still burning) and tried to blow it out, it back-burned the vapors with a loud WHUFF noise and a spout of orange flame. When turned up enough to get enough airflow through the stove to keep the base from heating, flames come out of the top of the stove, it is clearly over-fueling, has a strong odor, and blackens pots. A taller pot rest may increase efficiency and cleanliness of the flame. Others undoubtedly have better insights and experience and may have a better way to operate this stove(and I'd welcome the input), but I simply can not recommend this stove. My Union boiling stove is 10x the quality, burns cleanly, isn't picky, isn't a fire hazard, doesn't stink, and cost 1/2 what this one did.
@Marc That's a very fine write-up, an honest appraisal of a stove that you certainly gave your best shot to get working. I don't believe you've stinted on technique or effort. On the contrary, you've persevered and have been very thorough in your approach and diagnosis. I've experience of using British-made Bluet 10 and 6-wick kerosene stoves on similar lines and they work really well, so a pencil-section multiple-wick burner isn't inherently flawed, is clean-burning and odourless (apart from when lighting up or just after extinguishing the burner flames). I wonder what went wrong with the Chinese design? John
@presscall John- Thank you for the kind words and for sharing your Bluet examples. I've read about Butterfly and other brands of multiple-wick stoves that are reported to work well, and now your Bluet stoves, so undoubtedly the basic premise is sound. I think what went wrong was the execution with this particular stove. It had also occurred to me that this cheap Chinese stove may be intended for a different part of the world, at a very very low price point, and with different quality expectations. This may be considered acceptable performance in those areas of the world. Finicky and troublesome as we consider it to be by first world standards, if the only alternative is cooking over a dung fire, this stove would be sheer luxury. Thanks again. -Marc
Hello Marc You remind us very well, these stoves are not made for people like us. Could it be this stove is made for a fuel other than kerosene? Diesel is usually cheaper and does not vaporize easily. The residuals which would clog a brassie are not really a problem in a wick stove. Best Regards Radler
Hi Mark, could you post pictures of all the parts of the stove: tank, burner, wick holder? I got quite used to these"dirty and cheap" version working and living for years in country where even a charcoal burner was a luxury item, being myself a "rich" consultant, a Musungu, or a Gringo (depending from the continent) I got used to the top of luxury, that Indianan and chines kero wick stoves, so maybe (not probable, but possible) I spot a specific, reparable flaw. Did you tested the wicks? from the behavior you describe I suspect a partly synthetic composition, as they do strange things. Low end builders put in their cheap lowest end products just what they get at hand, the cheapest even if almost unsuitable. The level of kero in the tank is also important, they burn best with the tank from half to 3/4 full. By the way, NEVER EVER EVER let spilled boiling water (or milk or whatsoever) go down on the light burner, as it will immediately and fiercely surge to a fire column. Been there, done that (happily, in a corrugated iron hut, not in a dry grass one).
@Radler Thank you! I actually did try this stove with diesel, in fact it's purported ability to burn diesel was was part of my motivation for buying it. I tried it on kero first(same exact fuel that my Dietz and Aladdin lanterns/lamps love), then switched to diesel and did not notice any difference in burning characteristics. @orsoorso Thank you for the info, your experiences must have been quite interesting. The wicks do appear to be natural fiber of some sort, they are charring instead of melting as I would expect a synthetic fiber to do. I'll be happy to get more detailed photos when I get home from work. I'll definitely take your advice to never spill boiling liquids on the burner to heart, thank you for the tip! Thanks again folks, really appreciate the help.
Overview of stove components Burner assembly showing shaft that the wick raising knob used to be on. The knob softened the last time the stove overheated and came off. The burner assembly twists about 1/4 turn to lock loosely onto the fuel basin, you can see one of the indentations that lock onto the basin on the burner assembly underneath the wick adjustment shaft. View of the wick carriage, so that they can be raised and lowered in unison. They're friction fit to the carriage and can be individually adjusted simply by pulling each wick up or down. Burner assembly disassembled far enough to light, only the inner-most can remains. Wicks lit. Middle ring installed. Outer cover installed. View of the flames as they're heating the burner assembly. The flames are orange, moving around a lot, and not centered on or attached to any one wick at this point. It looks like that bottom wick is not lit, but it's burning, there just didn't happen to be flame that the camera could catch at the moment I pushed the button. Heating up, starting to get some blue flame. More blue. Yet more....... Well on it's way. Burning well here. This is about as clean as this stove burns, and despite the orange tips is odorless at this point. Note: All of this done on diesel fuel, that's what happened to be in the font. My replacement wick knob is sitting next to the stove. Not sure why the photos up to here have been upside down. Here's the stove as it really starts to heat. Left in this state, it will eventually overheat the fuel in the font and become a significant fire hazard. Fire extinguisher 12 feet away from where this photo was taken. Turned up enough so that it won't overheat the font. It'll burn at this setting until it runs out of fuel, although it's clearly not burning cleanly and does have an odor. I didn't bother putting the pot support on, it doesn't seem to make a difference to the flame either way.
@Marc The photo sequence is great, thanks. It's given me an idea for a suggestion to try. Combustion when the wicks' height are at what they should be is obviously good, so the issue is thermal feedback to the fuel and I think the wicks may be responsible for that. The twin strands of wick emerging from beneath the burner reveal that the wicks aren't the compact section type the stove requires. They look like twists of cotton mop and not the properly woven type I'd expect and that are installed in my Bluets. If you measure the internal diameter of the wick tubes and determine the length each one should be to reach the bottom of the fuel tank when installed, then multiply that by the number of wicks, you'll arrive at the length of round-section wick you'll need to order to be cut into even lengths - sharp knife on block of wood. My reasoning is that the wicks you have aren't fully (densely enough) filling the wick tubes and heat from the flames is percolating through to the fuel. False economy. On the part of the manufacturer. The components otherwise look ok. John
The wick control is turned to max to light the stove only. After all the wicks are lit you'll need to turn them down. Just as with a kerosene heater as the fuel starts heating it changes the vaporization rate and for the first 15 minutes or so you have to keep turning the flame control lower and lower. The flame should not be lifting off the top of the burner. Keep the flame low inside the burner and it should burn blue and hot. Not really a good stove for a quick cup of tea but they are hot enough to run a skillet or pressure cooker. Ray
Hello Marc As Ray wrote, there are heaters with a comparable system like this one I have: Your stove/heather seems to be a simplified version of it. They recommend: Best Regards Radler
@Ray123 @Radler Marc's got the blue flame fine and knows how to set the wicks to do so. The issue is that at that correct setting there appears to be too much heat reaching the fuel, to the extent that it's vapourising and igniting it, with a WHUFF as he described it. John
John, just trying to help. Long distance troubleshooting can always be difficult. I have a 16 wick Butterfly. Mine has a gasket between the wick carrier and fuel basin and the burner is pinned together and cannot be separated into the individual pieces as this one can. Other than that they're similar designs. The wicks for these are cotton mop strands. Mine aren't in the wick tubes tight enough to prevent any heat backflow into the tank. My tank gets hot but after running 20 minutes, removing the fill cap and looking in with a penlight, I'm not seeing peculating fuel. My wicks are single strands and not doubled as in Marc's photos. I crank the wicks all the way up for lighting and adjust them down a couple times during the 5 to 10 minute warmup. After the stove heats to operating temperature the flame is nothing but blue. Even so, if I turned the wicks to the highest setting with a hot stove I'd get that same yellow flare up pictured above. All I can offer here is my own experience with this stove.
True. Well, @Marc I conclude from what @Ray123 has said and from the text and diagrams that @Radler has provided that there's scope to refine your lighting technique and the wicks aren't a factor. John
Hi Mark, maybe I got a possible issue. You told you adjusted the wicks so they were all even; the wicks are inserted a bit tight in the riser group, I mean, in the lover group of metal tube, held together by the lover plate, from the center of witch rises the dented crane that engage in the regulating gear, turned by the control knob. The point is: how much the wicks protrude from the metal tubes of the riser group? It seems to me that they protrude too much, the length of the wicks out of the riser tubes should be no more then 3 millimeters, that is 1/8 of an inch, If they protrude more, the heat feedback to the outer tubes of the burner inside of witch the inner tubes slide, is too much, and the burner will overheat. this said, all the other observations about the necessity to keep regulating the control knob while the stove is heating up are correct. Please, let us know if this will improve the performance.
@Ray123 @Radler @presscall @orsoorso Thank you gents! Just to be clear, I have turned the wick down to a clean blue burn several times, and back up to sooty orange when the font starts getting hot again, and back and forth. After several attempts I had frankly written the stove off as simply poorly designed, it would be great to discover it was operator error all along and I'm eager to try the suggestions of people far more versed in stoves than I. I wish there was another plate between the wicks and the fuel basin, as a heat shield.
I bought one of these off the bay out of boredom. At $15 shipped what could go wrong. My dilemma is what to do with the ling thin metal strip with a short bit of wick on the end which is spot welded to the underside of the filler cap? I guess the band is like a cap chain, but the bit of wick crimped on the other end? Thanks in advance.
You ask: "... what to do with the ling thin metal strip with a short bit of wick on the end which is spot welded to the underside of the filler cap?" Answer: Make a picture of it and post it here. Radler
OK, for those who haven't worked with these stoves, they are REALLY cheap with no seals of any kind. If you tip them when lit you lost any building you were in so stay outside . Only in China. But they do produce a pretty good amount of heat and the flame can be clean if there is no wind and you tune it properly. The cap does not seal, it is more like a dust cap. The metal band just goes into the tank with the fuzzy end first. The strip is very flexible and feels like if you bend it more than a few times it will break. If the bit of fuzz on the end were a cross bar then I would think it is a cap retainer, but this bit is not large enough to keep it from coming out of the filler hole. At first I through it was a lighter, light it to use to light the wicks. But then you have an open filler hole and would put a possibly glowing wick into the tank. Not a big deal but any ideas would be appreciated.
I just found the instructions hidden under a bottom flap in the box and it is a long reach igniter so you do not have to disassemble the burner to light and then reassemble while burning as mentioned above. The instructions do not caution about this, but one would have to make totally sure the igniter is out and cold before putting it back in the tank.
Don't remember if mine came with an igniter, it definitely didn't come with instructions. Would you mind taking detailed photos of them and posting them?
