I purchased this 111 quite a whille ago and have shifting it from place to place, often stopping to admire it, but procrastinating with the best of them about getting it going. Well now it goes. Here is what I bought I got it dismantled and all cleaned up and I discovered that the burner was bent in two ways. Here it is after I annealed it ready for straightening. Here it is straightened Cleaned up and back together, waiting On fire but can't see the flame, you will have to take my word for it Kettle on and boiling I got out the car paint cutting compound and managed to get all the over spray off the outside of the case. It has been repainted twice, I can see silver under the black but I have no idea what the original colour was. Perhaps I will find out when I eventually strip it for the full resto. In the meantime here it is polished and waxed and ready to live again I would love to hear any opinions as to the age of this beast. It has a strong heart and hopefully will now out live us all.
@Geoff Chirnside I’ll stick my neck out and say: Embossed tin with Optimus 111 + white control wheel + style of filler cap = mid-1950s. Happy for a better date from someone else, though. Cheers Tony
Thanks Tony, I don't know much about these but I think the shape of handle and the case clip may date this stove. The case clip does not work well and I have tried to tweek it to get it to hold but maybe I need to wait for a day when I hold my mouth a bit better.
Hi, @Tony Press as Geoff Chirnside says : The shape of the handle on the case, with almost right angle corners rather than rounded corners. The lack of a slot in the case to locate/secure the catch. Are both indicators of a first series Op.111 case, early 1950s However, looking at the stove itself, the burner has got one of its four tubes adapted to feed alcohol down to the spirit cup. The first series Op.111 did not have this feature I believe.... So perhaps a transition stove, between first and second series Op.111? Mid-1950s? I think I am are probably pushing the accuracy of “dating by features” to its very limits in this case..... Putting a date to Optimus 111 Best Regards, Kerophile.
Thanks @kerophile I am a bit of a transition model my self, early to mid fifties depending on who's asking. I will be interested to see if any original paint still exists when I eventually restore it. A darker green would be my choice when i do.
That's a lovely stove. You have done her justice on the restoration. Now we need to see some coffee or food cooking on her
I have the exact same model here, still the light green metallic paint the rest of it in a very poor state,but it works very well. I have the matching white control knob 22 model to go with it CCM in christchurch have the repair kits
Hi Garth, yes I have seen that green in photos, it looks very nice, I might go that way if I restore it. Having the matching model 22 to go with is pretty special. @Robert Radcliffe gave me the instructions how to refit the pricker but I must have got it wrong. The flame is beautiful from low simmer up to full blast, the problem that I have is that hard left is full blast so I am not raising the pricker enough to clean the jet. I do not know if I should try again at four clicks or go up to five or reduce down to three. Have you had to reset your pricker?
@Geoff Chirnside I find that although four clicks is usually optimum sometimes the magic number is three or five clicks. I use a pencil eraser to install the pricker on my 123R last time and it worked well and enabled me to firmly count the clicks. Just place the needle into the eraser and apply slight pressure when turning the knob.
Thanks Cookie, the pencil eraser sounds like a good method. I have just redone the pricker, it had gone all the way through and was not picking up on the first tooth. I had to hold the burner upside down and shake it to get it to engage so I could get it out. Here you can see the slightly chewed tooth that resulted from this exercise. With this burner three is the magic number, checked all was working as it should before I refitted the jet. Just tried it out, it goes from low simmer to roaring like a jet plane and pricks the jet when it should.
Very well done getting her up and running Geoff, I'd like to find an early 111 at some point to fill a timeline gap in my Campingo, 11, 111 series of stoves.
Congratulations to a very nice eleventy-one @Geoff Chirnside ! Quite an interesting unit, it shows that product modifications/updates seem to be made step by step independent of each other. Probably component inventory was used up resulting in different combinations of different generation components. As has been pointed out, this unit has the older type of case closure and handle - but - it has the bracket at the bottom of the case to hold the burner in place when closed, not the clip on the back side of the case (see for instance one of my units: Optimus 111 embossed probably 1953/54-ish.) Also, as @kerophile pointed out - the burner has the slightly newer open tube for preheating fuel - but - the base of the burner is in the older hexagonal style. So a guess is that this unit is an "early mid" fifties (if something can be early mid...).
@Staffan Rönn @kerophile @Geoff Chirnside Very, very interesting! As a lover of eleventy ones, I think you have a gem, Geoff. Cheers Tony
Thank you Robert and Staffan I am very happy now that I have this !!! running as it should. I will probably use it for a while before I decide to give it the full restoration. Staffan I am very impressed by your 111 collection and thank you for sharing your knowledge of these stoves. I have a couple of 22 models waiting in my shed, I am working on a rather unusal stove at the moment but when that is finished I think one of them will be next.
Thanks Tony, I am now wondering why I had this stove sitting and waiting for so long. I think I am now a lover.
