Just got one off ebay for £31 brand new - the Feather 442 compact model. It seems to be plenty powerful enough and is totally self contained - no bottles, hoses, etc to mess around with. I just fill the stove via a short hose from the bikes fuel tap and off I go - no gas canisters to find and store, and there's always fuel in the bike when it needs a fill up. I've added a small MSR stainless saucepan and plate, plus a plastic mug and a knife and fork. The whole kit weighs under 1kg and is all you need to cook up a reasonable meal and a decent brew afterwards!

I can highly recommend the MSR Dragonfly stove. MSR stoves are supplied with multiple jets so can burn various fules, from light oil and diesel, even cooking oil at a push, through to unleaded, paraffin and of course, stove fuel/"White gas"

I prefer the Dragonfly as it's small enough to fit inside the pan-set, and also has a flame regulator on it which is much more effecive than a bottle flow-valve alone.

MSR stoves require their own fuel bottles to work safely. a Sigg bottle will 'fit' on the threads, but as the threads are a different depth between Sigg and MSR bottle, a Sigg CAN be fired off when pressurised.

MSRs aren't cheap (£110 for the Dragonfly last time I checked) but are well worth it for their robust and easily maintained nature. I use mine for when I'm doing anything from rock climbing, camping, summer and winter mountaineering as well as bike touring.

hth

a

[QUOTE=Ken & Carol]
Trangia...Can be used with mets, petrol, and gas. Prefer the petrol version as no 'other' type of fuel is required. Its all on the bike. Mets and gas can be hard to find in some countries.

Lots of great comments, I decided the Trangia bi-fuel would suit me best, but then I fould this in their user manual

"E. NEVER use other fuel kinds than those the stove is designed for. AVOID use of automobile (car) gasoline as fuel for a stove. Automobile gasoline contains a lot of additives that are needed as lubricants etc. in a car engine. These additives are not burnt properly in a stove. Instead they escape as extremely health hazardous fuel vapor and exhaust fumes that may cause cancer. Furthermore, unleaded automobile gasoline may in some cases damage
rubber components in seals, o-rings etc which could lead to fuel leaks on the stove. Use white gasoline, heptane and similar instead of car gasoline. Please note that any fuel containing benzene and other additives is extremely health hazardous and should be used only for short times.

Is this a corporate responsible statement, are so many other overlanders wrong in using petrol.....

I guess the message is cook outside ...

[quote=goodwoodweirdo]Maybe they should add that using petrol stoves in the sort of confined spaces where these vapors could be hazardous may also lead to fieballs and explosions, which may be harmful to long term health!!!!!

Like you say - cook outside, or at least in a very well ventilated area. Common sense says this applies to any stove, whatever the fuel type.

I'd think that when stove manufacturers design petrol stoves they have the sense to use rubbers which are imune to the effects of petrol.

Sounds like they're covering their arses for all possible events!!

I use a MSR WhisperLite Internationale. It works just fine on pump fuel. It is designed to use several kinds of fuel and this is why I went with this version. I do not want to carry an extra kind of fuel. I carry two MSR fuel canisters that can be dumped directly into my bike's fuel tank in an emergency or I can drain fuel out of the bike to fuel the stove in an emergency.

Unleaded fuel does not burn as clean as white gas in the stove, but the MSR uses Shaker Jet technology to deal with the difference.

It doesn't matter what kind of camp stive you use, always do your cooking outside. You can buy small tents to cover your cooking area if you need to keep it dry. However, I have used my MSR stove in the rain and it worked fine (with the wind screen).

For food, I buy the packs of camping food. I buy the packs for two people and then I split them in half and vacuum seal them as individual meals. Doing this is a very inexpensive way to eat on the road and the food is actually better than what you can normally get on the road. The small vacuum seales meals pack very small, too.

The problems with propane/butane stoves is that they require a certain type of canister. Since you can't carry them on a plane, you must buy them on location. In Egypt and India I looked hard and never saw any for sale until we got to Kathmandu. This is an overriding concern that excludes gas stoves for less-developed countries

Liquid-fuel stoves have some minor inconveniences but they are not show-stoppers.

I bought a Primus Omnifuel stove which burns anything from meths to diesel. It has a remote tank that you can empty, wash out and fill with water if necessary for airline travel. I was knocked back at an airport once with a Coleman 442 (the one with the tank attached) because the airport staff could still smell a hint of petrol smell even after washing out.

The good part about liquid-fuel stoves is that you can use petrol (yeah I know about the additives, just use it in a well-ventilated environment). There is a slow build-up of petrol crud but it takes a long time to have any effect. I had an Optimus stove for 20 years that I used exclusively with petrol and it only blocked up the fibrous pressure-regulating thingy after about 19 years. The Omnifuel stove does not have a fibrous pressure-regulating thingy at all.

The Omnifuel packs down small, fitting down flat into my smallest billy. The tank can go anywhere. The other thing if you use petrol is that you can use it for the bike.

If you still want to go with a gas stove, the Kovea titanium is great. 89g, very small, 3kW heat output, piezo ignition and uses the screw-on cartridges.
There are two main types of cartridge for propane/butane stoves, the screw-on type and the click-on type. Both can be removed between uses but the screw-on is more secure and has a back-up sealing gasket. The click-on is supported by Gaz (the company), is a bit wobbly and relies on a single seal when in use.
The older style Gaz canisters that permanently puncture the tin are almost obsolete (thank goodness) and were only available with butane gas. Butane gas has a lower pressure and butane-only stoves only put out about 1.2kW maximum. Butane-only stoves are useless at higher altitudes and low temperatures.

I have it using for a long time and satisfied a lot. You can use the same gas of your bike with it.
Once I applied too much pressure and caused a small fire. It was my fault. Written it to MSR and they changed it with a new one for free.

__________________
"where the traveller goes, nobody knows ! "

I found this stove the other day which looks like a good idea if your out in the wilds. Just find some twigs and your cooking.
www.zzstove.com

To get petrol out of my bike for my Coleman I use 2 ft of pipe and a 50cc syringe. By pulling the inner part of the syringe out in one quick pull the syphon effect starts ok. No petrol in the mouth !

Dont go without one Jake!

Personally I prefer the spirit burner line of Trangia as they are not so dangerous. Check out Trangia Kök - Trangia Stoves Stoves, outdoor, Ultralight , Series 25, Series 27 for the complete range including gas (propane/butane?)burners. There is even a mini for the Lonely Rider

Do not ever use it inside a tent!!!

has anyone tried the old 'tommy cooker' method of sand soaked in petrol?

or one of these?
Wings -The Home Made Stove Archives - Index of Contents

i made a pepsi can style stove with just a leatherman tool once to win a bet and it worked quite well, but mine didnt hold enough fuel to cook a whole meal and dont try to refill it when its hot, thats all im saying about that.

__________________
dave

Hi,
We have used gas cookers but while in Victoria OZ bumped into a guy with a Trangia. We thought it looked great so got one. TBH we wouldn't take anything else now. It is bulky but when you way up the fact that it has a kettle - two pans and a burner all in the pack with two ally plates straped to it - it's not that bad.

Tips we learned. Take the spirit burner and use it when you have fuel or if you have to use it in the tent. The MSR petrol burner is good but blackens the pans but you can always get petrol.

Get a 2nd larger fry pan and place it over the 1st when cooking - speeds up cooking. You can also stack pans to keep food warm on top while the bottom pan is cooking and the cooker is stable.

Scratch a mark inside the kettle for 1 and 2 cups of water - saves heating to much.

Cheers

These Optimus stoves are good and the modern ones burn almost any kind of fuel [ including diesel - !!!] .
You can pick them up fairly cheaply off ebay .
Optimus Hiker+

__________________
Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

It depends on you. I use mine, but you might not.

I've got a couple different ones that both run off the same fuel my bikes do. Just pull out the line before it goes into the carb and fill up the stove tank. When I want the stove tank empty, I drain it back into my motorcycle tank.

Once I figure out a way of roasting coffee beans on my exhaust pipe, I'll be set!

__________________
Not Ted Simon since 1970!
http://nokilli.com/rtw

It seems the answer to the original question is, yes, a stove is useful and it should be carried - try getting a brew of tea at say 2 in the morning from anywhere else.

Having identified that, it is interesting what a range of types are available nowadays - this has taught me a few new ones, especially the homemade ones in one of the links.

As a note, my mate often lights up his gas stove inside his tent when hunkered down and it is freezing outside - we are all adults and make our own decisions but I like my tent to be a decent distance from his when we pitch!!

__________________
Dave