I finally got myself some citric acid and some experience on other brass items and cleaned up the Radius burners on my Carlson and Sons marine alcohol stove. Granted the polish job isnt complete but... Enjoy the pics anyway. On the before pic, the alcohol restrictor is in place. I made that one myself from a piece cut out from the bottom of an empty fuel can. Rolled it up using a wood dowel for a form, drilled some holes and it fits perfectly and works wonderfully. The silent cap was cleaned up by electrolysis. Amazing the things I've learned from this web site.
Congrats for your nice cleaning. But how about the inside of the burner? I believe "cleaning" is more important at the inside. However outer cleaning just gives shining view though.
Thank you Sefaudi. I won't be disassembling the stuff boxes to clean those out. But other inside parts that I could reach were cleaned with the help of pipe cleaners. Slowly, the flames are losing their yellow. Now for the cleaning tek of heating and rapid cooling to break loose soot in the vaporizing chamber, I havent done that. Its probably a good idea. Most of the internal build up was from copper salts settling where the alcohol vaporized. I have no idea how to remove that with chemicals rather than a tool and elbow grease. I apologize for the low quality pics. I can only make images by scanning with my scanner.
Hi, I always think of a method to clean inside burner by citric acid. I have never seen any of us tried to do. The method is to use an aquarium pump to feed the acid through the burner threaded section. With this way one can create circular feeding the acid, going out nipple end. The only point that I am not sure is if the acid destroy the pump or this method would be effective way.
Hi, I routinely pickle my burners in Citric acid solution, once I have removed the nipple and, in the case of regulated burners, the rack and drive mechanism. I usually leave the burner in the solution for half to one hour but I sometimes use an ultrasonic cleaner to speed up the process. I use a stiff wire to "rod-out" any deposits in the two "Up" tubes of the burner, which can be accessed via the bottom inlet. I then attach the burner head to a water hose fitted with a plastic tube sized so that it is a very tight fit inside the burner head. This flushes out any deposits loosened by the citric acid soak and the "rodding out" with a wire. If the burner is totally blocked with petroleum coke, this method will not work. However, for the vast majority of burners it is very effective, and a lot kinder to the burner than repeated heating and quenching cycles. Best Regards, Kerophile.
Amazing!!! I didn´t know that You could translate with Citric Acid.. Should have known that before I bought the dictionary.. When I look on the "before" it says "SWE" on the burner, and on the "after" it has transmogrified into Arabic.. Maybe this could be a tip to the rest of the world? Just add some Citric Acid, to eradicate the language barrier? Hi from Uffe
Ha. You got me. They are two different burners. Both from the same stove. One before treatment and the other after. The Arabic writing on the burners is interesting. I suspect the ears on these burners were welded on specifically to be used for this stove. I dont think the ears were welded on by Radius. It was probably cheaper for Carlson and Sons to weld the ears on themselves. Just my thoughts. Thanks for the tips Kero. If I ever get a nipple remover tool.... Probably will have to make one. To keep citric acid out of the nipple apeture and thereby spare the needle from possible corrosion, I dripped a spot of wax over it.
