All great information, I fit into most of the hints/tips of what not to do....but, mine would be to make sure when you order parts like from base camp, you order everything you need...and the right part the first time Best, Rick
Tips for the cynics among us. No good deed wil go unpunished When one door closes, another slams in your face. A friend in need is a pain in the arse. When all around you are losing their heads, and you are not. Then you do not realise the gravity of the situation. When you turn off a stove, it's still hot, don't touch it. OWWW Neil
When lighting a blow torch for the first time, turn it away from the side of the house incase a flaming, long, thin stream of not-yet-hot-enough-to-be-vaporised kerosene should exit and cause extensive damage to painted surfaces, not to mention one's pride. Well, so I have been told .... Rob
Good morning all, Not a hint but a humorous story that goes to George's point about using the correct wrench (spanner). When I was stationed in England a dear friend of mine related this story. He told me that as a young lad he was an apprentice Fitter or in U.S.A. speak a heavy engine mechanic. Well Les went out and bought this expensive adjustable spanner what we call a cresent wrench. Well he brought it to work and showed it to his foreman. The foreman then took his brand new adjustable spanner and threw it as far as he could into the brush and then told Les if he wanted to keep his job that he would use the correct wrench for the job or he would be out of there. In those days it was very expensive to have the proper wrench as a set of Whitworth, Metric and AF (Across Flats, ie the type of wrenches we use in the States) was required. That was an expensive lesson for Les, but it was very good advice. Always use the proper wrench for the job to prevent damage to the part. Cheers
And you probably won't even have the pleasure of your burns featuring as a sub plot in "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
Stoves and ebay. Stoves are objects of interest/desire for collectors and also serve a practical purpose when utilised as per original intended use. They are not investments. The fact is any correctly identified (emphasis on correctly identified - we all find bargains through using our knowledge to identify something incorrectly described) stove you win on ebay means that you were the person at that point in time that was willing to pay the highest price for something you desired. Logic dictates that therefore there was not a person willing to pay a higher price for that stove and therefore logic further dictates you paid top dollar. Buying something at top dollar does not make the best starting point if your desire is to turn a profit. Therefore do not treat stoves as investments to avoid future disappointment 8)
Another tip for inserting a pump into the pump cylinder. Cut an empty beer can to make a small roll of aluminium. Insert one end into the pump cylinder and insert the pump rod into the other end. Keep a tight grip on this beer can funnel and encourage the pump down into the pump cylinder. Mind your pinkies on those sharp edges!
Hi, here is a tip relating to soldering operations on brass stoves. The area to be soldered needs to be really clean, oxide-free, and well fluxed before "tinning" the surfaces with a thin layer of solder. What you don't want is solder going everywhere on the tank and components...it is very difficult to remove and will involve some abrasion. It is therefore a good idea to do any soldering while the rest of the tank still has its oxide coating, ie un-polished, as solder will be less likely to adhere to it. If the tank is clean and shiny, you can "mask" the areas you don't want soldered using a proprietary product or one of the following: 1. Nail-varnish, allow it to dry before putting a flame near it. 2. A thin layer of tooth-paste 3. Milk-of-magnesia, painted on and allowed to dry. Sounds daft, but they work. As has already been said; when soldering "less is often best" Best Regards, Kerophile.
Here's one I forgot to mention earlier. I like stoves in tins. When not in use I keep a couple of sachets of silica gel in each stove tin to remove moisture and hopefully prevent rust. For the stoves and tins not on display I pack them in plastic storage containers with several silica gel sachets in each container for the same reason. Silica gel sachets can be bought in bulk on ebay very cheaply.
There was a thread recently about refurbishing old jets by rubbing a spanner over it. I have been trying this & it does work, at least on jets which arent too bad. I found the easiest way to do this is to place the jet in my opti 80 with the burner bell removed, & then rubbing a wrench over it. It can be tested in the 80, & switched back when you are satisfied. So far i have fixed three jets that were burning quite yellow with this method. If anyone has any further thoughts on this i would love to hear them. Brian.
SQEEZING NIPPLES....or JETS if you are not a Brit. I reckon the rubbing trick gives you a temporary "fix" since you are only deforming the top surface layer of the nipple/jet. Confession time: A few weeks ago I was fettling a couple of Optimus No.80 stoves that I had acquired...the photos are in the Reference Gallery. Both were burning with a very red flame, indicating an over-rich fuel/air mixture, and therefore an over-size aperture in the jet. I ordered replacements (0.23mm aperture diameter) at GBP 6 each, and waited. Patience has never been my strong point. I reckoned the existing jets were goosed anyway, so decided to experiment. I took out the jet from the first Op.80, Gripped the across-flats section in a good quality engineer's vice and squeezed gently, I then rotated the jet 90 degrees and repeated. I checked frequently with the correct pricker for No.96 stoves. Success! On re-fitting the jet to its stove and firing-up I got a lovely blue flame. I repeated the process with the second stove, again success....so I took the flame photos you can see in the Gallery. The new jets duly arrived, but I saw no reason to change the ones I had, so the the new ones are still in my spares box. Best Regards, Kerophile.
JET SIZES for popular classic brass stoves. The majority of 1,1.75 and 2-pint classic brass stoves, such as the Primus Nos.210,1,5 and Optimus 00,1,45,48,5 etc.(and their equivalents) use a jet with an aperture of 0.32mm diameter (about 13 thou). Optimus and Primus No.96 and No.100 stoves, with lipstick burners, use a jet aperture of 0.23 mm (about 9 thou). Of course the cross-sectional area of the aperture increases with the square of the radius. Most small petrol stoves, without built-in cleaning needles ( No.71, 80 and 123) use the smaller, 0.23mm aperture. Now, why didn't someone write that down somewhere? Best Regards, Kerophile.
LEAD WASHERS on Riser Tubes of collasible stoves: I think riser lead washers are probably one of those items that you shouldn't replace until you have to. You have to "dig-out" the remnants of the old seal with a sharp object, and clean the seating before adding a new washer. Essentially all the damage you see to these lead seals is due to over-enthusiastic tightening of the riser/burner assembly when erecting a collapsible stove. For a familiar stove, just hand-tight plus less than an eighth-of-a -turn with the spanner is usually sufficient to get a fuel-tight seal. After all, you can always "nip-up" the joint by using the spanner if you see a small leak in use. If you over-tighten the joint you just extrude the lead down the tube on the tank, until eventually there is no lead washer left in the joint. New seals are best made from soft lead, the sort builders and roofers use. You can adjust the thickness, to what you need by beating the lead carefully, supported on a hard flat surface, using a hammer. The washer itself is best cut with a concentric punch, whilst the lead is supported on end-grain wood to prevent damage to the punch-tool. Best Regards, Kerophile.
Regarding blocked jets. If you find yourself in the awkward position of having a blocked jet and are without prickers, guitar wire, bicycle brake cable or anything else used in an emergency then consider this 'absolute last resort act of desperation'. Remove jet, find a bearded gent and try to clear the jet with one of his beard bristles. Had to do this just recently using my brothers beard, it worked.
Tighten up slack legs: I have on occasion "tightened up" the leg fit in stove sockets by using small metal shims. I just cut some small rectangles of thin brass sheet, or even aluminium from empty beer cans. I insert these at the back of the socket, where they slot in and locate against the tank side. I find these can make a big difference to the stability of slack legs on veteran collapsible stoves. Give it a try! Regards, Kerophile.
SOLDER REPAIRS ON CLASSIC BRASS STOVES: I believe that classic brass stoves were soldered using Plumbers solder, which typically has a composition of 50/50, by weight, tin/lead and starts to melt at about 205degC/400degF. This alloy solidifies slowly on cooling, going through a "pasty" stage which Plumbers valued as it allowed them to ensure water-tightness by wiping the pipe joints as the solder cooled. I use electrician's solder, a eutectic mixture, of 63/37, by weight,tin/lead which behaves like a pure metal in going directly from liquid to solid on cooling. This alloy has a melting point of 176deg.C/350deg.F. I use this solder in thin wire form with a flux core. I like the immediate "grab" that you get when the electrician's solder solidifies, and the slightly lower melting temperature gives me a useful margin when I am soldering very near existing solder joints I don't want to melt and disturb! I use an ordinary plumber's paste flux on metals to be soldered. I use this same electricians solder on steel feet and legs of classic stoves. I "tin" both the steel work and tank sections seperately,with this flux and solder, before dry-assembling them, and fixing them in position with wire ties or a clamp. Only then do I re-light my torch and carefully heat the joint, adding more flux and a small amount of extra solder to get good fusion of the joint. It can be difficult to get good "tinning" of both steel and brass. The secret is to remove all dirt, grase and oxides from the surfaces you need to solder. You can use solvents to get rid of the grease and dirt, but wire brushing, filing or abrasive papers may then be needed to get an oxide-free surface. Apply the paste flux to this cool, clean surface and bring the metal up to temperature, testing frequently to see if the solder will melt, wet the surface, and then flow. If you have molten solder on the surface but it balls-up and will not flow, try wire brushing whilst the surface is still hot. You will often see the surface "wet" and the solder flow cleanly. Allow the soldered "tinned" surfaces to cool, clamp the joint together with a little flux and with a bit of luck you won't have to add any more solder as you melt the couple, and make a good joint. Once the work has cooled give the joint a good pull. If the joint moves or separates, check the tinning, make-good if necessary, and try again. Hope this helps. Best Regards, Kerophile.
REMOVING BURNERS FROM STOVES WITH FIXED RISER TUBES. I am thinking here of classic brass stoves such as Primus No.1, 2,3,4,5,etc. and their equivalents made by other Manufacturers. Some stove models, like the Primus Nos 0 and 4 (1.5 pint tanks), seem to have a real weak point at the tank/riser joint and you often find these stoves with damaged or crudely re-soldered joints. However for all fixed-riser tube stoves, I generally grip the riser tube firmly in the padded jaws of a pipe wrench, before applying any force on the spanner (wrench) gripping the burner head. Of course you must be careful not to collapse the riser tube by applying too much force on the pipe wrench! Sometimes, I also apply heat to the burner/riser joint to help get some movement on the joint. If you have an accident and break the tank/riser seal you can sometimes recover the situation by carefully re-soldering the joint. Hope this helps. Best Regards, Kerophile.
