I am new to the world of vintage stove ownership (and this great site), so please bear with me! Just obtained my first 96 - very nice compact little stove and against all expectations I prefer it to the 210s which I used so often at scouts many years ago. Having a few flame problems, however. When I first fired it up, it burned with a fairly symmetrical blue flame with yellow tips but after increasing the pressure with about 20 strokes the flame grew taller and the yellow tips extended. The flame then became unstable, giving the odd yellow flash. Increasing the pressure a little further resulted in the flame becoming entirely yellow, flaring and spitting partially ignited droplets of paraffin. Not exactly condusive to making a relaxing cup of tea on the beautiful Welsh mountains. I am sourcing a proper 96 cleaning needle, but in the meantime I tried the "hammer" technique described so well elsewhere on this forum to reduce the size of the jet, using 0.23 diameter fishing nylon as a diameter reference for the time being. I managed to close the jet up a little and this has helped a bit, but it still flares up when what I would consider "full operating pressure" is reached. Am I right in concluding that this problem is entirely down to the jet hole being too large? Is too small a jet better than too large? For the avoidance of doubt, I have cleaned the jet and the gauze "strainer" in the vapouriser tube and I am using new and (apparently) clean paraffin (Parasene Superwarm fuel). I have also made sure that the stove was fully heated up before firing it up. The jet is now asymetrical - is there any straightforward method to sort this out? I assume that the problem is that the jet hole has been skewed by my hammering efforts. Finally, a few further general questions: 1. The tank of my stove has a thin, cream coloured coating on the inside, but it seems stable and does not cloud the paraffin even after the tank has been shaken. Should I leave this, and if not is there any easy way of getting rid of it? 2. Is there some sort of safety valve that prevents the tank from being over-pressurised? I would be most grateful for any guidance - I really want to put this fantastic little stove to full and regular use but without the risk of me losing my eyebrows.
Twenty strokes ! It only takes a few to get started, then heat from the burner will self pressurize ... It sounds fine, with the blue flame.
Hi Strikealight As Steve has said, I don't think the 96 needs 20 or more strokes. I have never used more than three or four when three-quarters full and then only another five or six when the tank is about half-full. If you are really 'up-the-creek', I think Bryan (kaw550red) has a very fine drill for the hole in the 96.
Since 'Full Operating Pressure' is about 1/4 of what you were using, the nipple (jet) was probably ok. If you find that you need a new one, Base camp has them. See our forum sponser flashing up top....
So what you are trying to say is that I have been a bit heavy handed then! Got you - thanks to you all. Just for future reference - do all pressure stoves "flare out" like this if they are over pressurised? I must admit I don't recall any of the 210s doing this after many strokes delivered by hungry fellow scouts in the early morning.
Strikealight, in the pressureized kerosene stoves more pressure does not necessarly mean hotter or better heating. Okay there are a few which seem to need it but for the most part these stoves use an average of 4-8 good strokes,depending on the amount of fuel in the fount. lance
Strike a light try getting a High "E" steel guitatr string at the local music shop. should be 8.5-9 thou of am inch. Dont forget to pont the ends after cut them off on a stove or it will be bigger. Heaps of right size prickers then. Don't think they liked to be pushed too hard. Its got to vaporize all the kero before it comes out the jet.
The 210 has a different type of burner where the kero passes through the burner plate positioned in flame itself on it's way to the nipple - unlike the 96 where the vapourising kero never gets anywhere near the flame. Thus the 96 is less efficient at vapourising the fuel and is therefore more susceptible to over-pressurising...
I've just bought an 00 burner assembly to 96 tank adaptor from Doug. It's looking very promising so far. I just now need to replace all the soft seals in the stove as they are all perished from sitting about for 30 years - presumably after the hole in the vapourising tube became too large and the stove unusable. It would also benefit from a new lead seal, I think.
David and Lance - thanks to you both for the clarification. I hadn't appreciated the fundamental differences as to how the 96 and the 210 burners work. I fired up the 96 again this morning and sure enough with just 5 strokes it boiled a pint in just 4.5 minutes in the wind, even though the flame is still asymetrical. I will tackle the asymetry with further careful hammer taps and the "E" guitar string ( thanks Barrabruce). I take it that I can give a 210 a bit more welly to get maximum heat if needed without such a risk of flare ups. I've had an enjoyable weekend tinkering with my new toy in light of your advice - cheers!
The 210 has a bigger tank so will take more pressure, but all burners have a limit as to how rapidly they can vapourise the fuel. Once you reach that rate of fuel supply there is no point carrying on pumping, it won't make the flame hotter, it just expels more fuel only partly combusted. You can gain much more advantage by using an efficient windshield for your pans, remembering not to overprotect the tank so that it gets too hot.
Right - all sorted. Using the hammer technique I carefully closed the jet hole up until it was a little too small. I then took a strand from a bike brake cable (which I understand is about the right diameter for a 96 jet - haven't had time to get an E guitar sring yet) and sharpened ithe end into a long point with a bit of 600 wet & dry. I then twisted this cable strand into the jet hole until it widened it out into a perfect fit. This has straightened the jet hole out and has made it the perfect diameter at the same time. My 96 now burns with a perfectly symmetrical cornflower blue flame with just four strokes and tonight I managed to boil up a pint of water in just three and a half minutes with no lid on the pan. Very chuffed. Crude, but effective. I think this will be a useful technique to have learned as an owner of a 96, as I feel that they are a little delicate compared to (say) a 210. It seems a shame that they don't have replacable screw in jets like the 210s have - does anyone know why this is? My 96 is 70 years old, and it is therefore not surprising that the jet was a bit worn. This seems to be the only weak point on these stoves, but otherwise like a lot of others who have written entires on this forum, I think they are very neat, compact and appealing little stoves and I am only sorry that I didn't discover them sooner. By the way, for the benefit of other inexperienced 96 users like me I will tell you about the lighting technique that I have adopted over the last week (for what it is worth) - it differs slightly from the procedure given in the old manuals. I fill the primer cup around the vaporisertube up to the brim and let the meths burn whilst the air screw is shut. Then after about half a minute I pump half a stroke, and then a further half stroke or so about ten seconds later until I get a tiny flame started in the burner head. I then leave the stove to its own devices - when the meths burns out, this causes a blue flame to spring into life all by itself. I let this burn for about a minute, then pump the stove up with a further three strokes to get the full flame (not twenty strokes - who would be dumb enough to do that?). I presume that this method is so effective because it causes the paraffin to be drawn up into the vaporiser tube so it can be heated along with the tube itself during the priming process, and that this doesn't happen if you prime the stove with the air screw open. This may seem a bit tedious set out in print, but I find it a very satisfying way of firing up a stove, and it works with my 210 as well. I feel much more "in tune" with the stove and it feels much more as though you are coaxing it into life. It is certainly a lot more fun than just turning a tap and shoving a lighter into the burner of my Epigas (which I suspect will rarely see the light of day from now on). Thanks again to those who have advised me, and I hope that this thread will be useful to others.
