Hi John Well i'm really glad that beast fell into your hands it looks like you were made for each other , & what a super fettle you've done 8) 8) looks like you'll be cooking for the whole street with that "handy gas" NICE FLAME SHOT 8) . Let me know if you can get a pattern for the grate on top & we'll see if the foundry can get one sorted for you 8) . Best regards Stu .
Hi Steve and thanks again for putting that post in the CCS 'Auction Watch'. "Made for each other" is probably right. It's a lovable old softie, docile as anything, which is perhaps as well with 2 gallons of petrol a few inches away from 35,000 BThU's up top. Yes to the offer of help with casting a grate. I'll be taking an angle grinder to a discarded Mazda MX5 (Miata in America) rear brake disc this weekend as a makeshift, but making up a wooden pattern is a longer term project. All the best. John
Brilliant post John. HGPs are tops in my book. Hope you have lots of fun with yours as I do with mine. sam
A generous gift from CCS member Iani of a HGP burner and generator (Ian threw in the fuel/air valve and f/a valve to generator fuel pipe also) made it possible to experiment with my existing generator. Gifted parts from Iani I was confident that the HGP would burn paraffin, but reasoned that it needed a smaller jet - think Primus Omnifuel and jet changing. I've already identified in a previous post in this thread that the generator tip from a 3-burner Coleman 'suitcase' stove will fit the HGP generator and it's got a smaller jet orifice. Why bother? Paraffin's a whole lot cheaper in the UK than Coleman fuel or Aspen 4T and the thirst of this monster stove makes a conversion worthwhile. The smaller jet orifice required for paraffin is a further economy, passing about a quarter of the amount of fuel of the regular HGP jet for petrol. The reason that Ian's gift made this possible was that I had to slim down the pricker jet on the pricker rod to fit the smaller jet orifice I was proposing to fit. The 'spare' I now had meant that I could swap generators and burn petrol whenever I fancied using the 'instant light' feature. Dressing the pricker wire with a Dremel was an easy job On the left, the HGP jet, Coleman 3-burner suitcase jet on the right. Working on the basis that that the area of a circle is constant 'pi' (approx 3) times the radius squared, I estimate that the HGP jet passes about four times the fuel as the 3-burner jet Just to clarify which 3-burner generator I 'borrowed' the jet from With paraffin in the tank, the 'instant lighting' feature was of no use, so I used a blowtorch to heat the generator and burner. Didn't take much and with a tank pressure of 25psi, the results were very good. The generator didn't go 'cold' on me and continued to vapourise reliably, even after a prolongued spell of simmering The original instructions for the Handy Gas Plant advise users to back off the generator control from fully open and sure enough, on paraffin too it overfuelled Control screwed in a little, the burner instantly settled down to a steady and reliable atmospheric blue flame John
Super! Whats next? Butane conversion? Cant get over those slit burners. Beautiful. Looks like the cameras was saying "OUCH HOT!" on that top view photo. Mike
Hi John "SUPERB" 8) stunning work 8) 8) A classic monster revived , fettled & converted beautifully , welldone Stu .
Now it can be called a Handy Paraffin Plant (HPP) or Handy Kerosene Plant (HKP) Nice work! I've got a spare 457 that I'll have to play with. Thanks, sam
In my first post on CCS, a couple of years ago now, I discussed the requirements of good wok burner stoves Good wok burner stoves In that post Wyatt I'd not had any experience of the Handy Gas Plant (later models named 'Heatmaster') then, but it proved to be a very sound suggestion from Wyatt. To try it out as a wok burner, I constructed a trivet, fixed to the Gas Plant burner framework with a single nut and bolt. Fuelled up with paraffin and pre-heated with a blowtorch, the stove comfortably got into its stride Until tonight, my favourite stove for wok cookery has been a Primus 85 equipped with a Primus tripod stand. The overall size of the Primus set-up is similar to that of the HGP. Theoretically, it has a higher output than the HGP's 35,000 BTU's per hour at 55,500 BTU's, or around 16 kilowatts, but in practice it's not so noticeable a difference I'm of the opinion that the HGP scores over the Primus for wok cookery. Why? Though a bit less powerful than the Primus in terms of sheer output the spread of heat is more even, which makes it more usable. The regulated burner is a great feature for a wok burner and it's that that's the clincher. Sure, opening the air valve on the Primus and depressurising the tank can get the output down to what passes on a burner of this size for a simmer, if the cooking demands it, but that's at the price of 'paraffin fingers', which doesn't go so well with the stir-fry ingredients! Fuelled up with Coleman fuel or Aspen 4T, the HGP is the ultimate wok burner stove. The 'instant light' feature offers great flexibility during a cooking session comprised of a succession of stir-fry courses. Economical, since stir-frying's quick and sparing of fuel, the facility to get instant heat without priming promises to be a real boon. Practice session John
You'll perhaps have noticed that the stove has a non-standard generator control knob. It's brass, and looks like it may have come from a machine tool of some sort. Thanks to the spares given to me by Iani (see previous post), I have an original control knob to take a mould (mold) from, using a block of 'Blu-tack'. Sold for sticking posters up on noticeboards, you'll see from the grubby state it's in that in my hands it gets used for projects like this instead Filled with casting resin ... ... which could have benefited from some pigment mixed in with it, since something resembling an American Hard Gum is the result. It'll get used though ... Another refinement in prospect, I took delivery of one of Bill McCall's masterly decals, the 'blue and orange' version appropriate to this thirties example of the HGP John
Very nice, John! I can't wait to see the decal applied. QUESTION: Does the petrol tank truck have difficulty getting close enough to you home to offload all the fuel you must be using? HJ
Very nice. I picked up a 457 G in a barn several years ago. Your information has been a huge help. I just started restoring mine and on the search for parts. Can't wait to hear it roar one day soon.
@Derick Ah, right. Old Coleman Parts. Presumably they’re still available, though I purchased mine eight years ago. Correction! Sorry, Gas Pressure Appliances. Letter heading in the photo with the label
@Derick You’ll see I corrected my post. Memory failed me! Gas Pressure Appliances. Google search doesn’t bring them up. Maybe OCP after all?
