RE: [Paddlewise] looking for a stove that can simmer

Robert MacDonald wrote:
>>>>>The best simmering stove I have found is the old Coleman 505 "Pocket"
stove.  The ones from 15-20 years ago are the ones to get.  They have TWO
controls, one that acts as the classic "turn up to light, left to run and
right to off" knob, and another that combines an orifice cleaning tool with
a very precise and functional simmering control.<<<<<<

I agree but let me pass along a word of warning. unfortunately these stoves
have a limited life. The seal at the top of the fuel tank gets old and can
fail when under pressure. The first time this happened to me I had got the
stove started cleanly but needed to top up the pressure as the starting
procedure bleeds off some of the air in the tank to improve the mixture
until the stove gets hot enough to vaporize the gas before it is metered.
(Note: the better simmering stoves meter vapor rather than liquid. once the
fuel volume has been expanded some 900 times or so it's much easier to fine
tune.) Anyway, I picked up that stove that I had used back packing for years
and started pumping up the pressure to where it should be. Just as I started
to wonder what was making my hand cold and wet, my hand burst into flames. I
dropped the stove in the gravel and started beating my hand into the gravel
trying to extinguish the flames on it. I saw the stove was engulfed in
flames and realized the tank could explode if the flames burning around it
lasted much longer. I warned everybody near to back away. My hand
extinguished, I was about to try to dump enough gravel on to it to dose the
flames when George Gronseth (who I'd met for the first time as or separate
groups shared the same campsite) ran up with a pot he'd dipped in the nearby
water. He poured the water over the stove to cool it and that spread fire
all around the gravel area where I was cooking as the gas floated on the
water. Several more potfulls kept the stove cool until the fire burned out.
I don't know if the stove was fixable but after all the salt water it was
all rusty by the time I returned home anyway. George said many people he
knew had had similar incidents. I liked the stove well enough that I
replaced it with the updated version. Now I pay a lot of attention to the
possibility of a leak when I pump the stove when it is burning. I leave it
on the ground and watch where I put my hand to hold it in place while
pumping. I didn't get burned. The vaporizing gas on my hand kept it cool
enough while it also fed the flames. Later, I wondered what it was about the
fire that hade made my hand hurt even though I wasn't burned, then I
remembered pounding my hand into the gravel to try to put out the flames and
the source of the pain was clear.


Matt Broze
www.marinerkayaks.com
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