I have read about white and green control knobs on old 111:s before they switched to red on all models... But it seems that I have bought one with blue knob on it, any idea what model it could be? It's blue embossed box with blue knob, hole in the windscreen for preheat alcohol and wrench on the lid.
Hello Mikko S. I sold an old Optimus 111 some time ago that had a 'cookie cutter' control knob that was blue(slightly darker to the colour of this thumbup) . That stove case was embossed like you described and was dated around the 1950's. Is your control knob the same colour. I'm sorry I cannot offer an explanation why it was coloured blue which seemed unusual to me as well. John
Same colour yes... I have only the sellers picture now, but I'll put some pictures up in the gallery when I get the stove and have some free time.
|imgRemoved| |imgRemoved| |imgRemoved| The knob is green plastic, but painted blue... Seems original to me.
That's the same one alright and I would say that it is original. Why would Optimus colour over the control knob with that blue colour?? Maybe someone else here may know why. The case on the 111 I sold had the usual Optimus green colour before most of the paint had peeled away. Cheers, John
That stove looks be one of their transitional stoves changing from a green case to blue, but also the case styles. You can see that it has the older burner without the priming hole, but the case has the newer style priming cup holder. I can't see from the picture if it has the older priming shoot /spout on the windshield. Could be the first of the blue painted 111's and Optimus , utilizing old stock as they often did ,just painted a green knob to suit the case better before going to a red knob, but also,used an old stock/style burner and wrench. I think that was also the case with the white knob version.
Just to add a bit more confusion to this, I'm sure mine had a black knob and a much thicker knob too.
Can you somehow make something like this to look good again? Is that chromed, nickel plated or just painted originally? |imgRemoved|
Looks like there are no holes rusted through it, so I would strip it back to the steel, pickle it in citric acid or some other rust remover, and then either just keep it bare metal or you could paint with a good high temperature paint. My preferance would be to keep it bare steel and rust free. Steve.
Nice, I started to read about citritic acid and then found my way to electrolysis cleaning. I'm "borrowing" an ac adapter and steel computer case from work tomorrow and going to try to clean the whole case with it, especially the hinge area is badly rusted. I hope my wife knows what washing soda or sodium carbonate is
Hi Mikko, Hopefully this is just a langauge issue When you say "ac adapter" I hope you mean ac to dc transformer. Mains voltage ac won't work, and will be dangerous. Just want to make sure - your English is far superior to my Finnish! Cheers, Graham.
Yes, don't worry, I'll get transformer, something like 12v/1A DC or closest to that I can find in the spares box.
It was my first time painting with the spray gun, but I'm pretty impressed. Too bad some crap from trees landed on the case and I got a bit of paint running on the sides. I'll do the light sanding and new topcoat later. The paint is mixed from blue hammerite and silver hammer effect paint and then thinned down a lot for spraying. I think the surface is beautiful and surprisingly very hard, much better than the case I painted with just the hammerite paint. |imgRemoved| |imgRemoved| The stove is now ready to be put together, It needed a new spindle, packing and needle too, the gears on those were mangled and stuck.
Wow, I'm really impressed with this one... So much power and it seems easier to preheat than 111T. Cheapest stove I have ever bought too |imgRemoved|
