This Rex stove is not entirely new to CCS but has not had a gallery entry of its own until now. It has the tank top open/closed lever position indicators only in Cyrillic alphabet in abbreviated Russian: (омкр /закр - closed) This single language marking coupled with the 2 lever combination on the bottom of the tank seem to suggest it could be earlier than those with multiple languages and/or only a single lever. The provenance is show as 'AKTIEBOLAGET PETROLEUMKÖKET REX STOCKHOLM SWEDEN', rather than 'Aktiebol Mekanikus' as some examples are. Does this relate to date or to presentation for specific markets? the male thread filler cap/ female tank boss is an interesting and unusual combination, but clearly shown in the patent diagrams (which are available to view here). The stove had long since lost both its original burner top plate and also the now exceedingly rare original cast trivet: Luckily a No.4 type Primus trivet was found to be an excellent fit, and a new top plate was cut and ground, made from some 3mm steel plate: Even more fortuitously the twisted and very fragile looking burner proved to be serviceable once the blocked jet was drilled out with a 0.23mm finger drill. But getting fired up revealed some unexpected idiosyncrasies in the design. The first was that the tube which extends down into the tank from the filler (see the early patent drawings) makes it all but impossible to fill the tank beyond about ½ way without it back-flowing all over the bench! The second is that, once heated up and pressurised, there does not seem to be any way of depressurising the tank other than simply letting it cool down again! Releasing the filler cap, because of the said problematic internal filler tube, only results in a rapid spewing out of a dramatic quantity of pressurised fuel, unless the stove has been run almost empty Maybe this is why the later dated drawings do not seem to show the tube anymore??? All of this said, with a little experimentation, is does seem to be possible to achieve some reasonable measure of control from absolutely flat-out to a tolerable simmer, though not as easily as with a 'normal' stove. As a cheap basic 'boiling stove', as Hjorth marketed their equivalent, fair enough, but not really a rival to the Primus! @optipri @Thumper
That's a rare survivor nicely presented with an impressive amount of research. Thanks for going to the effort of sharing it. I love these oldies. Ben
@igh371 Nice one Ian and a brilliant discourse on the fuelling characteristics and other details. John
Hi Tony, The short inner lever is a sort of fixed ring spanner used to tighten up the spindle assembly. This was dropped from later versions of the Rex. The big lever opens and closes an internal valve to allow fuel up into the burner once the stove has self-pressurised through priming. Anticlockwise to shut off, clockwise to open. Ian (There is useful further discussion here and here) @Tony Press
