Lee Haefele wrote: > If you fill the canisters in place, tiny amounts of spillage will ignite, > heat the canister, boil out the remaining alcohol and make a BIG fire. Ask > me how I know this... > ALWAYS fill the canisters outdoors. > My main complaint was that the alcohol evaporated if you didn't put an > additional seal over the canisters. I used a piece of inner tube rubber > placed between the stove top and the canister. > Lee Haefele
I use a plastic funnel I got from Wal-Mart, it has qty markings, a lid, a filter screen, a hose on the end and a built in twist valve. If you shorten the hose as needed, then put some alcohol in the funnel and carefully open the valve while keeping the hose over the cannister you can fill in place with absolutely NO spills, much better than pouring from the can. And even if it does spill, unless it gets out of the stove any fire is safely contained, no reason to panic at all, in a short time it will burn down and only the cannister will produce flames then. It would take a LOT of spillage to burn long enough to boil the cannister! I have had many spills before I started using the funnel and none ever caused that to happen although I can see how it could. In fact I got so that I would just ignore the 'spill fires' if they were not big and just let them burn out, but that did result in the espresso coffee maker getting its handle charred! If the fire from a spill is getting to be a bit much, sloshing water on it will put out an alcohol fire although it is messy, what works even better is a co2 bike tire inflater, aim (placing its nozzle into one of the stoves side vent holes works best) and press and zap! the fire is out no fuss no mess. You can easily tell if any fuel was spilled by placing your finger on the surface, lifting it to your lips and blowing, if there is any alcohol you will feel the coolness. I put lead weights in mine to make it so that even with the pressure cooker on it full of food it will gimbal properly. I have a small squirt bottle that I use for lighting it, I first spray some onto the exposed cannister then light that and squirt more if needed, when it is cold alcohol is not very volatile and with no fumes coming up in the wick material of the cannistor it can be a PITA to light, but this method works very well. Once the cannister top is warmed it generates its own fumes and will burn and re-light easily. The stoves now come with rubber seals to place over the cannisters if they are not to be used soon to prevent the fuel from evaporating. Also I use a ducted fan (PC or 'muffin' fan) near the stove to blow the fumes away and out, with the low headroom in my boat fumes end up at nostril height and can be unpleasant. -Ken _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
