How to "feed" flat wicks into stove

Hello,
First, know that I'm not an English speaking guy, I'm Swiss, French speaking, so excuse my English !

I bought a "Flamme Bleue n°1" stove in very bad shape, I took it apart, cleaned it and it's not too bad, I'll put pictures later. Btw, I'm a mechanical engineer, so everything mechanical is ok for me.
I'm really new to this kind of thing, and I have the 2 old wicks removed (it's a 2 wicks stove) and now I just cannot put them back. It's hard to find replacements wicks these are 90mm wide, but I don't understand why they cannot be "gripped" by the toothed wheels. There are 3 of them, one at each end and one in the middle. I tried to guide the wick with a butter knife to force it on the teeth, but it just don't go.

Any advice will be appreciated.

I hope the images loaded ok

Silvio

 

Use two 130mm lengths of duct tape stuck to each other with 20mm of the wick sandwiched between them to create a ‘tail’ to feed through the mechanism and pull the wick through. Peel of the tape when done of course.

 

Great idea, thanks, I'll try that and keep you posted.

 

Love simple solutions

 

That's brilliant @presscall! I can't see why this idea wouldn't work as well with the smaller wicks of lanterns that are uncooperative.

 

Classic Camp Stoves is an treasure trove of knowledge.

Ben

 

I can confirm it does. Probably John who taught me that trick, too.

 

"John remembers."
He is one of the memory vaults here.
As is "George remembers"

 

In Europe it is known among collectors of wick lamps and lanterns like the feuerhand types.
Besides ducktape, painterstape will work also like many other sticky tapes.
But be carefull with to strong sticky ones, they can pull the outside of the wick apart. Esspecially on smaller sizes.