Gear Heads

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Comment by Kevin on September 20, 2009 at 1:51pm

Yeah likewise. I myself use the jetboil. Anything I eat can pretty much be cooked in or on that. They actually have a bunch of little addons to cook with. Even though I cook over the fire 85% of the time.

Comment by Joshua Cocks on April 16, 2009 at 1:27am

Titanium tent pegs save a lot of weight.

Comment by sparklehorse on March 6, 2009 at 2:52pm

They sell a similar one called a Bush Buddy at backpackinglight.com that I've looked at a few times. It only burns wood though. I'd like to try one of these wood burners but I can see a couple of problems that have kept me from getting too exceited about them. You'd certainly save some weight on a long trip by not having to carry fuel, but at the end of a long, rainy day I'm not sure how much fun it would be to have hunt down dry fuels for it in a wet forest. Sometimes you just want to eat and go to bed. That's where the alcohol option would be nice, but now you're back to carrying liquid fuel. Might as well just use a one ounce pepsi stove. Another problem I see with a wood stove is the pot and stove would quickly get blackened with soot which you're likely to eventually get on your clothes and other gear if you're not careful. Alcohol and butane both burn very clean so you don't have this problem. I think for now I'm sticking with my alky stove, but that littlbug junior is interesting.

G

Comment by Paul Sheehan on March 5, 2009 at 10:04pm

I don't use this stove my self but it looks really cool. Anyone ever used one? What are your thoughts on it. http://www.littlbug.com/

Comment by John Smith on March 4, 2009 at 10:34am

There are other types of stoves to choose from as well. Wood burning, alcohol, wax (liquid and solid), solid fuel, cartridge, and white gas. I will break down the basic types as I understand them:

1) Wood burning stove - this can range from a kelly kettle http://www.kellykettle.com,
to a coffee can with vents
to a down draft wood burning gassifier http://www.garlington.biz/Ray/WoodGasStove/.
I think the best of all of them is the bushbuddy, http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/xdpy/sf/Cooking%20and%20Hydration/Wood%20Stoves/index.html?

These stoves allow the user to pick up fuels while walking or at camp. They generally don't use very much fuel. They are an advantage on very long trips that you don't have the ability to resupply. The big disadvantages are challenging to start damp fuel and dirty to store in pack after use. Both of these are fairly minor in my opinion.

Alcohol stoves - Once you get started with these you will become and addict. They are fun and because the concepts are so easy to grasp and the materials needed to build them so easy to get and use you will likely find yourself making stoves.

The best stoves for purchase in my opinion on the web are at http://minibulldesign.com/mbdstore/
or
http://www.brasslite.com/

Advantages: ultra light, easy to make, easy to find fuel, cheap, fun. Disadvantages: don't use in weather below freezing, most stoves are fragile but then again most any stove will break if you step on it. Slower than white gas or cartridge stove. They can require fiddling to get used to them

Solid Fuel stoves: Most people use esbit tabs for this. Esbit tabs are a brand
name and not the chemical name for the fuel. I like these quite a bit and have hiked with them for years. Once you get the hang of them you can use them in most conditions. I actually keep a couple tabs in my fire starting kit. They burn for about 11 minutes for each tab and that will dry out most damp tinder enough to get a fire started in an emergency.

Some examples of the stoves can be found at:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/titanium-esbit-wing-stove.html

or

http://www.rei.com/search?query=esbit&button.x=56&button.y=4

Advantages: weight of stove. .38 oz for a stove is super ultra light. easy to calculate exact weight of fuel. Can't spill fuel on the ground or leak in pack. cheap stove. If you are creative you can even skip carrying a stove. Tabs can be cut into smaller pieces and can be blown out once lit. Let them cool and they can be re-used later.

Disadvantages: price and availability of fuels. Various sold tab fuels have various amounts of energy in them. For example esbit (hexamine) has mor thrmal potential in each ounce than trioxane (what is generally found in surplus stores). They do smell a bit, some people notice it more than others. I don't notice it once it is burning but I do notice it when opening the packages. Can't really control flame output with these. It is an all or nothing kind of thing.

Wax stoves - I have no experience with these except they are in my home emergency supply kit. Along with many others. I can say based on weight alone I wold never carry them for camping, although they do seem to burn for a long time.

Cartridge stoves: I love the stoves and the cartridges since they are so simple. I think everyone should have at least one for occasional use. Easy to use and require almost no skill to use like a pro. They are not easy to use in cold weather. I have used them in very cold conditions -30f but a lot of effort was required. I had to carry the cartridges in my jacket and sleep with them at night along with my water. I had to have an insulated pad to cook on and the first thing I did was boil water and put in a shallow pan to set the cartridge in afterward so the temperature of the cartridge stayed up. So cold weather can be done. There are various fuel cartridges and not all are interchangeable, although many are. Some of the fuel mixes work better in cold weather. You will have to do some research into this before you do cold weather camping with cartridge stoves.

An example of a very cheap stove:
http://www.rei.com/product/636832

Advantages: Ease of use (a dream in my opinion) Stove weight is generally very light. Stove cost can be had for fairly cheap.
Disadvantages: Cartridges can be unique to stove brand, and may not be available everywhere. Weight of cartridge can be a disadvantage. If you are hiking overnight they offer small cartridges but they still have more fuel than a person will need for a 1 to 2 days trip. Cartridge weighs something even after empty and they are not environmentally friendly. Cost of fuel is expensive per use. If the stove breaks there is no way to use the fuel.

White gas: Tobin did a great job explaining them. I love my MSR Whisperlight and have been using it since 1990 (I have probably used mine easily for 500 campouts). I don't use it much anymore except in winter. In winter these stoves are the best or a wood fire. Nothing else comes close. They are heavy and if the stove breaks you are down to using the fuel as a fire starter. The fuel itself can be used to sanitize a wound.

In the end if you are a year round camper and do so in cold climates then I suggest a white gas stove for winter use and an alcohol stove for summer use. If you only go out once in a great while then I would suggest a cartridge stove.

Or you could be a real gear head and own all the types and annoy your spouse by starting fires in the bathroom or the kitchen table.

Comment by Kevin on February 22, 2009 at 10:20pm

Wow, good sized group already.

Comment by Tobin on February 12, 2009 at 3:30pm

lol i just copy pasted form a website lol

Comment by Tobin on February 11, 2009 at 6:07pm

http://www.netbackpacking.com/white-gas-stoves.html
White Gas Stoves
Before selecting a particular model of stove, you must first decide what type of fuel you want to burn. North American backpackers have two main choices: white gas and butane. Both fuels have strong advantages and distinct drawbacks.

The main advantage of white-gas stoves is high heat output in all conditions, even in severe cold. A minor advantage is the lower cost of the fuel compared to butane cartridges, but few people spend enough time backpacking for the cost to make much difference. (As an aside, white gas, more accurately known as naphtha, is not the same as automotive gasoline, either leaded or unleaded. Trying to burn automotive gas in a white-gas-only stove will result in rapid clogging of the burner orifice where the vaporized fuel emerges and ignites.) The disadvantages of white-gas stoves are the inconvenience of lighting them, the racket they produce when they're burning and the greater amount of maintenance they require. White gas is extremely volatile, which means that spills evaporate readily without leaving an oily residue like kerosene does; it also means that accidentally igniting a spilled pool of fuel would cause a disastrous fireball that would make my little epic seem like a candle-lighting ceremony.

A modern white gas stove consists of a tank to hold the fuel, a pump to create pressure in the tank so the fuel will flow out through the fuel line, a valve to control fuel flow, and a burner assembly where the gas mixes with air and burns.

To burn efficiently, white gas must be vaporized by heat. Once the stove is running, vaporization takes place in the fuel line as the line passes directly through the flames emitted by the burner. The vaporized fuel then burns, vaporizing more fuel, and the cycle is completed. The trick is getting the cycle going. To do that, most white gas stoves must be primed, which is tech-talk for preheating the fuel line by releasing a teaspoon of fuel into a small depression at the base of the burner, then igniting it. The easiest way to get the priming fuel in place is to give the pump a dozen strokes, then open the valve a crack, which lets a small amount of liquid fuel escape through the orifice and dribble down to the priming cup. Priming with white gas is a potentially dangerous maneuver that must be executed with great care well away from anything flammable. If you use too much priming fuel, the stove will flare up. If you use way too much priming fuel, the Russians will think we've launched an ICBM. (A few white-gas stoves don't need to be primed unless the temperature is below freezing). An alternative to priming with white gas is carrying a small squeeze bottle of stove alcohol or a tube of priming paste. Neither alcohol nor priming paste will flare up like an excessive amount of white gas will.

You may occasionally run across old white-gas stoves that lack a pump. Do not be tempted to buy. These ancient geezers are supposedly "self-pressurizing," meaning that the heat of the flame was supposed to keep the tank hot enough to maintain sufficient pressure inside for the stove to continue operating. Set the stove on cold ground, however, and you could gradually lose pressure and heat output. The pump found on all modern white-gas stoves makes the whole operation a lot less finicky because you can reliably add pressure to the tank whenever you need it. For years, the best white-gas and multi-fuel backpacking stoves on the market have been made by MSR and Coleman's Peak 1 division. If you choose to buy a white-gas stove, select a model from either of these two companies, and you won't go far wrong.

Comment by Tobin on February 11, 2009 at 3:06pm

not surprised to see Izzy G here haha