Stripping a white gas stove

The MSR Simmerlite is the lightest production white gas stove readily available, at ~8.5 oz for the stove and pump. There's also a small, hand-crafted stove… the Borde benzin or something, that I think is about an ounce lighter… EDIT: oops, well, the Borde is about 9 ounces, but that includes the small fuel tank. My guess is you'd need another bottle of fuel for winter. The weight also doesn't include windscreen, etc. An old thread: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=25967

Hi Nia

> I don't want to use a canister stove for aesthetic reasons. I've never
> figured out what to do with the partially empty canisters.

I just use the canisters until they are empty, then I puncture them and recycle them.
Some people have refilled them, but I am not going to recommend that for safety reasons.

Personally, I find the winter canister stoves much lighter than the white gas stoves under all scenarios, and a huge amount safer. (Yes, that is based on real experiences.)

Cheers

"I just use the canisters until they are empty, then I puncture them and recycle them."

That means you need to take an extra partially full canister on some trips in order to empty it out. That's an extra 3-4 oz that is not needed. I went through this using canisters for 3 season use and I was never happy with it. But to each their own.

The borde bombe looks like a cool stove, but I don't like how the flame adjusts. If I could design a stove from scratch it might be the basis of what I want to do but I see no modding that would work.

Ok I'm fudging with the numbers a little. My basic premise is that if you strip down a white gas stove to it's minimal burner only components and then integrate it with titanium pot stand/windscreen you'll have the lightest white gas stove available. Even the simmerlite has a fairly heavy burner and you still need a windscreen. I bet I could beat it by 2 or 3 oz. Plus the simmerlite seams to get average reviews and doesn't simmer well, so starting with a better stove would be a plus.

An extra plus is the windscreen is also the basis of my wood stove. So I can have wood and white gas for incremental (< 1 oz) weight gain over white gas alone.

Any technical issues that would make my idea a poor one? Thanks again.

The wire pot stands are easy enough to remove. I've got a friend who has done it on his stove, and it didn't really affect the stove in any negative way.

However, the Dragonfly is one of MSR's heavier stoves. The metal "cup" around the burner adds some weight, as does the second valve and its assembly. Also, the Dragonfly's reputation is that it needs more maintenance than other MSR stoves. My own experience certainly bears this out.

A Simmerlite or Whisperlite might be a better option. Combining the pot support and windscreen functions into one might indeed give you a lighter stove. The legs/pot supports on a Whisperlite are pretty easy to remove, but you'd have to figure out how to secure the remaining sections of the burner within your windscreen/pot support. I think that's where the real trick lies.

Interesting idea.

HJ

I've been playing around with a similar idea. I purchased a used whisperlite for cheap here on BPL and have since been stripping it down as much as possible. Starting weight for the stove body was 8.8oz and after removing the legs and trimming the burner ring, it's not down to a respectable 5.1oz. I don't think fabricating a set of legs will even be necessary. The stove stands up straight and stable just from the fuel line alone. I will likely utilize tent stakes into my windscreen for a pot stand.
Does anybody remember the conversion kit put out a few years ago that stripped down the whisperlites with a lighter leg set and a lighter aluminum stalk (?) instead of brass. That vertical center stem on these stoves is a big chunk of metal.

"That means you need to take an extra partially full canister on some trips in order to empty it out. That's an extra 3-4 oz that is not needed."

Do you never go on overnight/weekend trips?

The idea that you describe is all well and good, but it is not until you try it out that you find the practical problems. For instance, all the heat has to go somewhere (and it doesn't all go into the pot).

Let us know how it turns out.

> I've been playing around with a similar idea. I purchased a used whisperlite for cheap here on BPL and have since been stripping it down as much as possible. Starting weight for the stove body was 8.8oz and after removing the legs and trimming the burner ring, it's not down to a respectable 5.1oz. I don't think fabricating a set of legs will even be necessary. The stove stands up straight and stable just from the fuel line alone. I will likely utilize tent stakes into my windscreen for a pot stand.
Does anybody remember the conversion kit put out a few years ago that stripped down the whisperlites with a lighter leg set and a lighter aluminum stalk (?) instead of brass. That vertical center stem on these stoves is a big chunk of metal.

That's a very interesting looking set up you've got there, Shawn. Do you have any photos of it in operation? I guess the flames just come out of the sides of the baffles? Any operational/performance problems without the underlying bowl that is found in a stock Whisperlite?

I've never heard of an aluminum replacement "core" (I think you called it a stalk), but it sounds like a good idea. That central core is a big hunk of metal. Love to hear about it if anyone has experimented with an aluminum core on this or something like it.

HJ

Hi Shawn

Forgive me, but … you may be committing suicide.

Look, companies like MSR may have an excessive share of paranoid lawyers, but the guys who designed some of those white gas stoves are not totally stupid. The stoves may be over-weight, sure, but the designers put bits into the design for very good reasons. Remove those bits at your own risk!

In this case you have trimmed off the base plate for the burner. Did you ever stop to wonder why the base plate is there? Obviously not, so I will explain. It is there to deflect the flame away from the air inlet holes down below. Without that deflector you will find that the flames at the burner will quickly transfer to the jet inside the air column, and the top of the burner will 'instantly' become red hot. Continued operation like that will not be good for anyone's health.

Test your modifications by all means, and let us know the results. But do so at home with adequate facilities to quench any accidents!

Cheers

The Dragonfly is my winter stove because it is very reliable and can simmer low enough to bake with my Backpacker's Pantry aluminized fiberglass pot cover & lid handle thermometer. Jelly filled Bisquick muffins are a fantastic dessert on a frigid -5 F night.

Yes, the Dragonfly is MSR's heaviest stove so the MSR Simmerlite could easily be used instead. Be SURE to bring MSR's rollable/foldable aluminum wind screen. It saves a lot of precious heat.

Also a make a light, urethane varnish painted plywood base so the stove doesn't melt down into the snow. Aluminum screen "holder tabs" (carried by most hardware stores) can be screwed or bolted on the plywood so they rotate to hold the stove base to keep it from slipping off.

BTW, If you do buy a Dragonfly and keep the potstand on (I would) you can file many small grooves on the top of the stand where the pot rests. This is necessary to give enough friction to keep the pot from slipping on the stand.

Yeah, interesting what might happen when one starts cutting bits off a white gas/petrol type stove. Could be very good stuff, but be careful. I am curious why that stem or core is so tall and whether or not it really needs to be so heavy, but those questions are beyond my understanding to answer.

> Yes, the Dragonfly is MSR's heaviest stove so the MSR Simmerlite could easily be used instead.

The Simmerlite could indeed be used for a white gas type stove, but don't expect it to simmer. If you need simmering, stick with a Dragonfly or something like an Optimus Nova. Simmerlite stoves, with a few exceptions, do not simmer. MSR succeeded in creating a lighter weight white gas/petrol type stove, but then ruined a reasonably good stove by naming it the Simmerlite, implying a capability it simply does not have. Yes, you can monkey with it and bend over backwards, but you shouldn't have to go through all sorts of gyrations to (maybe) get a stove to simmer. If one buys a Simmerlite and expects straightforward reliable, repeatable simmering like a Dragonfly, one will be sorely disappointed.

> Be SURE to bring MSR's rollable/foldable aluminum wind screen. It saves a lot of precious heat.

It might also save your precious butt. :) The windscreen not only protects the flame from wind, it protects the fuel tank from heat. If you ever do have a leak at the pump, the windscreen can help prevent a flash fire. Remove the windscreen, and the chances of a flash fire go way up. I speak from hard experience on this point. Don't just use the wind screen to improve your cooking; use it to protect you.

HJ

Anyway ever end up building one of these liquid fuel / Caldera Cone hybrid stoves?

Roger: What pressure do WG stoves want out of the fuel bottle / pump assembly?

My thought is that some 1/8″ fuel grade tubing and string to hoist a lighter bottle into a tree might weigh less than the metal fuel bottle and pump.  Most any repurposed HDPE container could be used then.

Interesting idea, but I don’t think the gravity would produce enough pressure. I don’t know a psi spec, but I do know there is quite a hiss of pressure released when you unscrew a pumped up white gas pump.

Someone out there knows the psi spec. Some expidition-oriented people have installed pressure gauges on their MSR XGK bottles.

Never been into canisters, and then fire restrictions made me retire the alcohol system. To carry on cooking in the backcountry I did exactly what the OP of this old thread talked about. I have 3 seasons of use on the setup I describe here.

My Whisperlite/pump/windscreen/11 oz bottle combo is 9.8 ounces. The stock same is about 14.5 ounces.

The process to get there is a tinkerer’s dream, so maybe not appealing to all. In short, the weight savings are found by collecting older stoves and mixing parts with the latest model; ditching the leg assembly; and making your own windscreen with an integrated pot stand.

The long version:

Old grey pumps are lighter.

Newer Whisperlites sport a center column made of much lighter aluminum. Older ones are steel.

Non-internationals skip the extra brass sleeve on the fuel preheater tube – thus lighter.

On the other hand, International ‘cups’ have a bigger cut out to make room for above sleeve – lighter.

Newer models come with unnecessarily fuel long supply lines. Older ones are much shorter – again lighter. But def avoid going all the way back to the less reliable fiber wrapped lines.

So with the above optimized parts on hand I first removed the swiveling triple legs and replaced them with a single bent spoke – serious weight loss but kinda wobbly, and won’t hold a pot. Not a problem if you do this:

Next I ditched the oversized windscreen with a piece of aluminum flashing perfectly sized to fit my Toaks. Punched breather holes top and bottom, plus a notch for the fuel line; then installed metal snaps to lock it into a round shape with a diameter slightly bigger than the pot.

Four tiny holes near the top of the windscreen takes two other bike spokes running horizontally at the correct distance above the burner. The pot sits on these. Using a snug and well proportioned windscreen at all times saves fuel = weight.

The result is 7.9 oz for stove, pump, caldera unit. Bottle and fuel extra.

Find out your fuel usage per day. It will vary seasonally w temps/altitude/stove maintenance. In the summer mountains above 10k’ I use 35g/day for two people making a big dinner and four 16oz mugs of coffee.

This translates into one medium bottle filled to limit for 6 days: 5 dinners, 20 cups of coffee, with enough left for the unexpected.

While not a Whisperlite but a similarly modded Firefly (another kickass stove for winter use), this pic reveals the general idea: https://imgur.com/a/ON8TdbP

And this show the winter version applying the same mods but adding a snow plate: https://imgur.com/a/6UhoYx4

Awesome work nunatak, this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.  7.9oz for an extremely functional white gas stove is very respectable.

I really like liquid fuel stoves; I hope to do similar.

Did you ever have problems with any part of the system overheating?

Thanks!

No overheating. No other problems either.