This is one of the first commercial alcohol stoves I've worked with. It does exactly what it says it should and it does work fairly well. It does have a higher capacity for longer burn time, it does boil fairly fast.
I do find that the priming wick takes far more fuel to warm the fuel enough to pressurize than advertised, even in moderate temps. While not a major issue, the literature does set the expectations a little high.
My main troubles with this design revolves around the thumbscrew design. While this increases efficency of pressurization, it makes it fairly difficult to fill accurately. Unless you use a large capacity syringe it's hard to say how much actually makes it into the small hold and how much just sits on the top of the can to evaporate, or slobber off the sides and onto the wick. The second issue with the thumbscrew is that even when the aluminum base of the stove has cooled to temps sufficent to handle or refill the steel thumbscrew is still very hot. I also feel that the length of this thumbscrew is excessive, Three or four turns would be plenty to hold this in, but instead it's tons of spinning to get it all of the way in the stove. I also think that it would be very possible to grind a channel in the thumbscrew mount flush with the bottom so fuel didn't puddle at the top of the can and instead had a channel to go into the stove itself.
The flame jets seem more suitable for actual pots with a wide base than for things like my Fosters can. It still works but it just seems less efficent, but that may be more of an issue with the Fosters can than the stove.
The pot stand likes to bind up occasionally, nothing serious but the pressed aluminum joint likes to drift onto the bends where it binds up sometimes making it difficult to deploy smoothly. The pot stand also stays warm for a long time so caution is advised before you actually start just grabbing items to throw in your pack.
The pot stand is very light weight and seems very stable under use. I feel pretty confident in that part of the kit. I also really like the fact that using a pot stand reduces the likelyhood that I would ever knock a burning stove over while stirring my pot (that has happened with another type of stove with scary results).
Even with all of the small hassles with this kit I must admit, the build quality is excellent, and the design is very functional and it is very light weight. It however does have room for improvement the only real show stopper is it being difficult to fill with an accurate amount of fuel.
© Beartooth Media Group Inc.
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