Once again, I made the call to "Bring out yer dead!" and found this corpse with some of the body parts missing. The hinges were so rusted that it creaked like a door in a castle to reveal a ghoulish sight. The pump and the NRV and fuel cap had been robbed from the body. Layers of black soot and carbon covered the inside of the casket. It was left for dead and had been beaten on the lid in the field of battle. Rust had begun its task to return the poor traveler to its mother earth. Well, like I always say, "Never give up, never surrender." This stove has a lot of potential and isn't in too bad of shape. This time it didn't take me 5 months to breath some fire back into this forgotten device. Still have a burner and tank. That's all we need to make this work! The lid says, "Field Training FSTP - 547", so I'm assuming a military surplus stove. The lid is dented up pretty bad. No pump, NRV or fuel filler cap. I chose titanium silver blue, VHT engine paint, good to 650F (343C). It's not the same as original but close enough for the functionality I was looking for - high heat and gas & oil resistant. The instructions on the paint can say to cure the paint by baking it in an oven at 200F for 1 hour, so that is what we will do. I'll continue this in the next post to this topic. If you would like to wait, I will be posting the results of the above shortly. sam
Hi Sam i cant wait to see the next instalment i find it very satisfieying viewing and restoring a stove in a sorry state and neglected and seeing it transformed back to good health and as good as new doing its job what it was intended. That a good idea there Sam on the choice of paint a very close colour match and highly resistant to heat and oil
I went through the usual steps: 1. Tear down the stove. (Wasn't much to tear down). 2. Remove rust by electrolysis and sanding. 3. Paint, bake, paint and then bake. 4. Citrus/vinegar bath on the parts and removing dead carbon deposits. 5. Buy parts from other stovies and rummage through junk piles for parts you already have. 6. Put it back together I painted the stove after getting the surface prepared and then baked it in my home-made camp oven. I used an all-steel single drawer file cabinet for this purpose, in which I drilled holes in the bottom to allow heat to come up but dispersed to spread the heat out. Works perfectly. This pictures shows it without the thermometer. I put one in the next day since I had no clue what temperature the oven was during the first bake. Here it is all done up. The paint looks great. It's not the same as factory but I like the durability it will have. Made the heat shield for the tank and got a piece of chain from hardware store for less than a buck. Bought the flame control knob and NRV. Found a brass wind screen in my pile for the burner. No stove tool. The paint looks great! It has a metallic look to it that I was hoping for. Yes! Another look. That came out nice. The front shows some of the rust pitting and some of the denting on the lid. Brass looks sweet and shiny. Here are the brothers together. That was fun. I will fire up the brothers when it gets dark enough to see the flames. I fettled the green brother back about a year ago here. sam
Well done there Sam that realy is a fantastic first class restoration the paint job looks awsome and a brilliant colour match i can hardly believe its the same stove well done there Sam
Nice job Sam! I love it when someone takes a old rustbucket and transforms it into its former glory. Well done, and please post some pics of it burning when you get the chance. Take care, Dan
Thanks for all the great comments everyone! It got dark enough to light 'em up! Randy, I got the latest stove off ebay with a 111T in the same shape. I got 'em both for a really good deal about a year ago, but I can't remember what I paid. I think it was less than $30USD together, so about $15USD for each. I feel like it was a lot less like around $25, but I'm not sure. I was going to use them for parts but I have the parts to restore both. Will show the 111T in a bit. sam Simmering. Burning. Nice and orange! Not too shabby.
Stunning piece of work, well done I'll always find time to read inspirational posts like this where an old dog has been given a new lease of life. Just what I needed to get me in the 'Fettling Cave' to make a start on my equally scruffy 111B and if it comes out one-tenth as good I'll be more than happy Cheers, John
Yeah, I like it a lot! Just in case anyone else wants to do this, the file cabinet has to be all steel, railings, wheels - everything, so they won't melt. I picked this one up for $5 USD at a junk store. The more red-neck, the better! It's not the same anymore!!! Oh, heck, John. I'm not very good at this stuff. You'll do just great and even better than this. Can't wait to see your 111B when you are done! Thanks for the really nice comments. I appreciate every one of you! sam
That wasn't a restoration; that was a resurrection! Excellent job, Sam, and that paint looks GREAT. HJ
Kero? As far as I know the 111B are (White)Gas stoves. Anyway, very nice fettle indeed! I guess this is a true 'frankenstove' since you truly brought it back from the dead!
That'll learn me to read the header! Yup, B's are petrol, never owned one, tho since they share almost everything a kero 111, what's not to like? Correct if I'm I'm wrong here, but aren't B's a kero with a petrol burner? Thought they wuz....
