O'l Filthiecus is all proud of his Fartboil Bunsen Burner and he never fails to remind us of it .
See he's a confounded Canukiestanian and he's more messed up than most but its not really his fault . He's surrounded by Lib-Tards and it seems they have done a job on him . Right now he is more messed up than that sketchy giffy cat that's has been making the rounds on the interwebs for a while .
Yes, we love him just the same . Unfortunately in his evident distress he has fallen for the Gear-Queer marketing scheme aimed at the pajama-soy-boy man-bun crowd . Its OK , we forgive him . But friends don't let friends run astray , so it falls to us to correct the failures in his ways .
Just look at the steep price for that heap , and he has to use their proprietary cup to make his Chai Tea too . Plus those three and a half ounce Lindal valve butane canisters must be about ten dollars Canukiestanian at Canadian tire . God only know how much more they gouge him at the Late-Soy-Boy Emporium he bought the glorified Bunsen Burner at .
I don't know . . . is a man bun required attire to enter one of those establishments ?
Jeezum . . . Banish the thought and pray old Glen hasn't strayed that far on us .
For true versatility you really can't beat liquid fuel and those stoves are still lower priced than that Fartboil thing . But for the sake of argument I will stick to the butane / propane mix stoves .
Behold the Hank Roberts Mark III Mini stove . Production date circa 1989.
About four and a half inches across , fits in your back pocket and all the components are stored inside the two halves .
See Glen , here it is running on one of the Lindal valve butane / propane mix cans and I can put a real skillet on that rig so I can cook bacon and eggs instead of just boil Chai Tea .
And here I have it running on one of those tall eight OZ butane canisters that cost me a $1.68 at the local Vietnamese grocer . That's more than twice the fuel for one fifth the price of the Lindal cans . Can you rig up that Fartboil thing on a tall skinny can like that ?
Maybe if you have one of these adapters , but you are going to have a heck of a time keeping it from tipping over .
And here it is running on one of the green one pound Coleman propane cans . Those run under four dollars American around here . That's a whole lot of cooking time right there . The point being that as it is fed by a hose and does not depend on the fuel canister to provide stability , you can use multiple different sources of fuel and as you are not stuck with the proprietary cookware you can do more than just boil water with them .
Now if you insist on the can mounted stove , Wallyworld sells a nice Coleman labeled rig for eighteen and a half dollars American , that's a whole lot less than that Fartboil thing . Just like the Mini Mark you are not stuck with their proprietary cookware and you can put a skillet on it to fry eggs and bacon too .
And if you really got to have that Bun-Boy Chai Tea you can add five dollars for a stainless steel cup that you can actually throw on some coals in a pinch and you are still under twenty five American dollars .
And when you peel the red plastic decoration off the thing you'll find that underneath you have honest to goodness French GAZ Bleuet cause Coleman bought out the company a few years back .
And it breaks down to the size of a cigarette pack for transport .
Now the advantages of the canister type stove is that it packs down real small and you are not dealing with smelly flammable liquids and the hazard that may imply . The disadvantages beyond finding fuel for it way out in the sticks , is that once it gets much below freezing they are useless as they will not vaporize the fuel . So if you really are counting on it to work in the cold . . .
. . . your best option is liquid fuel , and these here can run on Coleman white gas , regular unleaded car gasoline or even 100 octane aviation fuel . In a pinch a tank full of 50 / 1 chainsaw mix won't do it any damage either .
Some , like the Optimus 111T on the right , will run on Kerosene and probably even some of that rotgut Canadian Club swill the bums drink up there in Soscratchyerbum .
Sob…! That’s so hurtful! I can’t even…sob!😢
ReplyDeleteA couple points of order, Mike:
The fartboil will run with skillets and other containers.
I am liking the hank roberts…but if you nest it inside another container it will take up as much space in the pack as the fartboil. The fartboil will heat water faster too.
Finally… all the stoves will get balky at really cold temps, and none of them will behave well at -30C. The work around is easy though put them in your jacket or fart sack and warm them up… and they will all run like tops!👍
Finally - I am quite frankly offended that you would simply assume my stove orientation without using xour preferred pronouns. I will expect a formal grovelling written apology and that Optimus stove as compensation for my hurt feelings and damaged self esteem.
Otherwise I think your screed on the subject is better than mine. The fartboil isn’t a bad stove, and has a few trivial features Hank doesn’t… but it is grossly over priced for what it is.
Hey you know the lessons that really stick are the most painful . The little Hank Roberts does not really fit in a cup . At four and a half inches its too wide . You need something wider than a regular cup to put on top of it and that is actually an advantage . Heat transfer is all about surface area . Volume being the same , a wide pan will boil two cups of water quicker than a tall one so you use less fuel . And this is where the HR has an advantage. Takes all of three minutes to boil two cups of water if its only an inch deep . As for cold weather use , I've had a couple occasions in the middle of a 50 mile traverse of Baxter state park in February that no amount of warming the can in my coat could get the thing to flow well enough to produce a flame . Meanwhile the gasoline fueled MSR Whisperlite saved the day .
DeleteWe aren't going to agree on efficiencies. The fartboil is fast as it should be - it has the dedicated heat exchanger built into the pot. Is it worth the fuel saved and extra money built into the purchase price? For most of us... I don't think so. Our mileage will vary on cold weather operation. I've had to sleep with fuel canisters and aircraft engine batteries at night to keep them warm - and I'd rather have the little fuel bottle in the fart sack with me rather than the big naptha can or colemans. For whatever reason, warming them up had them running like charms. But that is the hell of these things I suppose - there is always this or that situation that favours this or that product. Of all the stoves I love the coleman one burners the best... but I really fall hard for the Optimus. It's not about efficiencies and advantages in the end. An MRE or a cup of Chai Tea will taste the same coming off the Optimus or the fartboil. It's the experience of the toys that counts. I need to get out camping again.
DeleteYea the Optimus 111T is the hot-rod. The 111 comes in different flavors , some burn just white gas, some kerosene. Some have the silent burner like mine , others have the roarer cap , and those sound like a buzbomb when they run . The T suffix means it is set up to burn gasoline of any variety , kerosene/diesel and alcohol with the right spigot . Trouble is they are stupid expensive these days . Over four hundred American when you find them on Fleabay . They are not small either about 8X8X5 inches and built like a battle tank . They were military issue .
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