Galley stove/ovens

  • 19 May 2016 18:08
    Reply # 4029261 on 1195343
    Deleted user

    I'm considering replacing my 1979 Force 10 2 Burner Kerosene Stove Top with an alcohol stove -  the previous owner handed me a box of spare parts and a small bag with two pricking nipples and the admonition that, "Of all things on the boat, don't lose those two little piece of metal.  They're harder to replace than the rigging."

    Is there anyway to view the Maxie 2 Burner here in the United States?

  • 19 May 2016 09:28
    Reply # 4027932 on 1195343

    Amos,

    I had one, and it worked fine, except that it was vulnerable to draughts - a little puff from the top would blow it out, at low flame. The problems are fivefold, I think:

    • I don't know of a model that's made from marine grade non-corrodible materials, that would last long enough to be worth installing.
    • I don't know of a model that is able to work in a heeling, rolling, pitching boat. They all have loose parts and rely on being in a static environment.
    • They are tall - there's the tank, then the burner, then the flame modifying device that makes it burn hot and clean.
    • At the beginning and end of burning, there's always some part-burnt fuel and vapour released. You would have to live with darkened paint around the galley.
    • When not in use, there's always a small amount of evaporation of fuel. The cabin - and you - would smell of kero.
    Everything can be fixed, if you are a skilled sheet metalworker and can design and make your own cooker, but I don't know of any commercial model of marine wick-burner cooker having been made.
  • 19 May 2016 00:50
    Reply # 4027390 on 1195343
    Deleted user

    I have always been curious about kerosene wick stoves.  I have never used one and have always wondered why I have never heard of one used on a boat.  Is there a reason the wick stoves are not used?  

    We currently have a propane stove but would like to replace propane with kerosene or alcohol but have found no solution we really like.  I bought an Origo single burner to experiment with and used it a while at home and found that it was just as hot as the gas stove if excellent ethanol alcohol was used.  I used Klean-Strip® Green™ Denatured Alcohol.  It is 95% ethanol and it was excellent but the fuel cost a small fortune.  I love the simplicity of the Origo, the cost of good fuel not so much.


  • 18 May 2016 23:57
    Reply # 4027364 on 1195343
    Deleted user

    I've been exploring this in depth recently. I at present have six kerosene/paraffin cookers, including a three burner "Shipmate" with oven, three classic brass in the Primus style, and a Coleman I converted from white gas.  In addition, there's  two "Homestrand" alcohol pressure stoves, and  pressurized gas stoves not a few. Forgive me, I'm OCD.

    I don't like butane or propane. The small cylinders corrode far to easily, and the large ones are a bomb.

    I have to say that my favorite stove thus far is the now relatively rare Toyotomi kerosene cooker, which is currently out of production, (a close second is the Korean "Alpaca.") although a newer model is available outside the US. It's a non-pressurized wicked "flame spreader" stove much on the same plan as the "Perfection" kero/paraffin stove that was popular in the US for about 100 years, and is still in limited production among the Amish.

    Lighting is simplicity itself. Raise the fiberglass wick and touch a flame to it. Wait three minutes for the flame to regulate, at which point the unit will be burning with a very pure blue flame. When cooking is finished, lower the wick. At this point, there may be a small puff of smoke. 

    However, there are no flare-ups. There is no chance of explosive vapor in the bilge. The stoves will only leak fuel if heeled over 45 degrees or more. These stoves burn pure enough on good fuel so there is no blackening of pots or other issues. They are also relatively easily adapted for pot rails for cooking whilst underway.

    I bought enough wicks -- still a very commonly available item, and the only consumable part  -- for my Toyotomi to last four or more years of of constant use for $36 USD.

    The easy way is hard enough. 


  • 08 May 2016 21:02
    Reply # 4008909 on 1195343
    Deleted user

    cookers have always been a sore point with sailors , so here is my 5p worth. 

    last two boats i sailed we went from cheep caravan rusty gas cookers to tailors paraffin 

    the cookers were great , on both boats we had a permanent tank with double shut off valves and the paraffin went through a filter , the last one had a primer on the filter.

    the other post was we never used meths to warm the stove but used a portable blow lamp with a igniter built into it no flare ups

    this boat in work shop will have the same set up

  • 05 May 2016 22:32
    Reply # 4005333 on 4005233
    David Thatcher wrote:


    My last four boats have been equipped with LPG stoves and based on my experiences of the last 20 years with these stoves, LPG would always be the fuel of choice for me. LPG is generally readily available at very reasonable prices. If the installation of the pipes is done correctly with the proper connectors then leakage of fuel into the boat should not occur. Any proper marine gas stove should be fitted with automatic shut off at the burners so should the flame go out the gas will not continue to flow. I have an American Force 10 stove which is now almost 20 years old but still in excellent condition. On Footprints our gas is stored in two 4.5kg alloy bottles which are easy to handle and easy to stow and cost less than NZ$20 to fill. We also find that one bottle of gas lasts a very long time. On our cruise to New Caledonia in 2013 I knew that LPG was very difficult to obtain in that particular country. So I took along our two 4.5kg bottles and an extra 9kg bottle of gas to hopefully see us through the three months of cruising. On our return to New Zealand at the end of the 3 months one of the 4.5kg bottles was untouched.


    As ever, it's horses for courses.  I have no problems with kero stoves per se, but there are three things  that put me off having another one: the cost of the spares, the difficulty of finding good-quality fuel and the fact that they do make the boat grubby.  Oddly enough, I think it's the latter that I find myself objecting to the most!

    I don't like the fact that the Powers That Be can interfere with my cooker arrangement in NZ.  I don't like the bottles running out when I'm cooking.  I don't like the fact that even a 4.5 kg bottle is quite a lump to lug into and out of a dinghy and carry to a filling station when I'm cruising, to say nothing of the difficulty of finding somewhere to fill the bottles in the first place.  I can think of no anchorage, offhand, that is in easy walking distance of a place that would top up my bottles for me.  It would be different if I had a home base and access to a car.  However, I'm planning for self-sufficiency, and liquid fuel from the handy 4-Square store seems the best bet for me.

  • 05 May 2016 22:23
    Reply # 4005300 on 4004497
    Darren Bos wrote:

    If the cost of the Maxie is just replacing the burners occasionally, that doesn't seem so bad.  The parts to rebuild the pressurized stove weren't cheap and I was never

    It's not the cost, Darren, it's the fact that once the burners start corroding - de-zincifying, as David suggests - they shed bits of metal all over the cooker base which makes for messy cleaning.  Moreover they get increasingly sharp and I've cut myself on the before now, while cleaning up.
  • 05 May 2016 21:31
    Reply # 4005233 on 4002908
    Deleted user
    Annie Hill wrote:

     

    There is no way I'm going with gas on SibLim.  Quite apart from the fact that it always runs out when you are cooking for guests, the bottles are big and awkward to handle, I have to have good access to somewhere where I can get them refilled and gas is still not a particularly safe fuel to use.


     


    I have been following this discussion and it seems that there are a number of problems involved in using alcohol or kerosene stoves, including the quality of the stoves and availability of quality fuel at reasonable prices. Throughout my boating life I have used pressurised alcohol and kero stoves, and unpressurised alcohol. I have experienced all sorts of problems with burners for these stoves and have had some good flare ups, and lingering fumes from the fuel.

    My last four boats have been equipped with LPG stoves and based on my experiences of the last 20 years with these stoves, LPG would always be the fuel of choice for me. LPG is generally readily available at very reasonable prices. If the installation of the pipes is done correctly with the proper connectors then leakage of fuel into the boat should not occur. Any proper marine gas stove should be fitted with automatic shut off at the burners so should the flame go out the gas will not continue to flow. I have an American Force 10 stove which is now almost 20 years old but still in excellent condition. On Footprints our gas is stored in two 4.5kg alloy bottles which are easy to handle and easy to stow and cost less than NZ$20 to fill. We also find that one bottle of gas lasts a very long time. On our cruise to New Caledonia in 2013 I knew that LPG was very difficult to obtain in that particular country. So I took along our two 4.5kg bottles and an extra 9kg bottle of gas to hopefully see us through the three months of cruising. On our return to New Zealand at the end of the 3 months one of the 4.5kg bottles was untouched.

    Of note also is that stove on Footprints is ungimbaled and sits athwartships. We have proper potholders to hold pots, or the kettle in place and we have found this to be a very satisfactory arrangement even for cooking on an ocean passage, and does away with the need for the complication and space robbing gimbaled installation of a boat stove. 

    Last modified: 05 May 2016 21:36 | Deleted user
  • 05 May 2016 18:30
    Reply # 4004796 on 4002908
    Annie Hill wrote:

    ... or a fast and corroding Maxie. 

    Thinking a bit more about why the Maxie burners corrode, I conclude that it's due to dezincification, as they show the characteristic red coloration. This happens when the brass used has more than 15% zinc in its makeup. The answer is clearly to use stainless steel, copper, bronze, or brass with more copper in it; but copying the design directly is not really an easy option for small quantities, as some of the components need specific press tools and others need some precise machining.
  • 05 May 2016 17:10
    Reply # 4004581 on 1195343

    I agree that the design of marine alcohol cookers has got some catching up to do, now that the fuel has become both more readily available and cleaner, as a result of two things, I think - 1: the growth of the market in flueless room heaters, and 2: surfing the web, I found several instances of NGOs and non-profits pushing the use of alcohol as a clean-burning cooking fuel for third world countries. However, the design of alcohol burners has been inhibited, I think, by the fact that the designer of the Origo is doing much of the pushing, and has even brought out a simple cheap version of it, called the CleanCook.

    At least as far back as the 19th century, there have been whale oil and then kerosene cookers that used a wick and a perforated chimney as a way of introducing jets of fast-moving air into the fuel vapour, ensuring complete combustion. I've seen them relatively recently, in places as widely spaced as Iceland, South Africa and Tonga. These are still made in vast numbers in India, China and some other places, and would work with alcohol, too, with minimal adaptation. There have also been gravity fed versions with the same kind of perforated chimney (but neither version has been suitable for marine use). However, I feel that the first version suffers from the same drawback as the Origo, ie, when not in use, the supply of fuel is not totally closed off, and there is a faint odour of fuel. A good marine cooker needs to have a needle valve, or more expensively, the kind of carburettor that's found on Dickinson and Refleks heaters, to regulate and to totally shut off the fuel. The second version of kerosene cooker has such a needle valve. 

    The ideal KISS alcohol burner might be something along the lines of a perforated chimney, on top of a simple cup (probably with some wicking material in it) into which the fuel is controllably delivered. There remains the not entirely trivial problem of designing such a perforated chimney style of alcohol burner that's easy to make, at low cost, with minimal tooling, out of marine grade materials. The rest is straightforward. The fuel can be supplied by either gravity or a low pressure tank, and offshore sailors are aware of how to gimbal a stove properly, and how to keep the pans where they belong when it's rough. 


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