Rick Westlake
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« Reply #41 on: March 18, 2012, 11:43:25 PM » |
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Grime, the St. Paul Mercantile "Butterfly" kerosene stove looks nothing like my Origo stove.
The stove I've got is a non-pressurized stove that uses denatured alcohol. It's a two-burner stove that's set in the counter-top of my galley. Each burner has a "fuel reservoir" cartridge that's about 7 inches in diameter and 2.5 inches deep, which has a 3-inch (or so) hole in the top; the reservoir is packed with wool, which keeps the alcohol fuel from sloshing, and the "burner hole" has a wide-mesh screen over it to keep the wool in place.
Any camper who has used the Swedish "Trangia" alcohol stove will get the idea immediately. The Origo cartridges take a liter of alcohol and, supposedly, burn for several hours on one such fill. I haven't given them a formal trial, this way, but the fuel will last for quite a while if you put a rubber gasket on top of the "burner hole" in the cartridge between uses.
Alcohol, being an "oxygenated" fuel, gives you less heat (less energy) than a pure hydrocarbon fuel such as propane, butane, or kerosene. Propane is widely heralded as "the best stove fuel system in existence." But a new propane stove might cost me $600, the propane bottles themselves might cost $200 each, the gas-lines (plus solenoid switches and other safety gear) would cost hundreds more, and I'd have to fabricate a propane locker with overflow-drain lines and all ...
I would be surprised if it cost much less than $2000 to fit a propane system into my boat. That would buy me an awful lot of stove alcohol, even at $30 a gallon!
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