I have owned my stove for over 17 years. I also own my father-in law's old 2 burner stove that was built in the early 60's. They both work beautifully! I don't know of any camping product I own that I can expect to last 40+ years. Yes it rattles, who cares? I'm not trying to hide from the Taliban here. Yes the cooking area is smaller than my stove at home. That's why i'm taking IT camping and not my range. I don't know about sharp edges, I've had my bare hands all over these stoves and they have never cut me. If they did, I wouldn't touch that spot again. Be mindful the generator might still have fuel inside it which will burn so do it outside, keeping your fingers away from the ends and don’t look down the tube while it’s hot in case something hot and burning happens to spit out of it. I have a older Coleman 424 2-burner camp stove, and am using Coleman fuel. I am having some trouble getting it started in normal warmer weather, and have occasion had the huge-flaming-metal-box to deal with due to excess fuel burning off. This is a compact stove. However, if you store the fuel compartment in the stove (the logical place) this stove will really rattle when you drive. Plan on having some rags around to quiet the rattle. Value

It’s mobile: we not only can choose to cook inside our outside of the Land Cruiser, but we even took the stove on a glacier trek in Pakistan. The firepower and the flame control were superb, and the flame extinguished immediately when the control knob was turned off. There was no lingering flame in the burner. (Caution: if you max out the flame while using only the main burner with a wide frying pan covering the most of the grill, the paintjob near the fuel tank will burn and darken. The main flame gets that large!) One big downside: you can't really turn the stove off. If you turn the burner off completely, the flame keeps burning on low for minutes and minutes. So the only way to turn the stove off is to remove the fuel compartment and then find a safe place to set it. Even then, fuel keeps leaking out. The one minor advantage to this is that you can simmer very effectively for a few minutes. Ease of set-up You draw a line about two inches from the bottom of the bottle, fill the bottle with water to this line, then add the fuel you want to test, cap the bottle give it a good shake, let it stand for a few minutes if the water increases you know it’s got ethanol, and if it is less then 5% ethanol the line might drop slightly but if it holds your good to go, and if you can lay your hands on a graduated cylinder you can actually calculate the ethanol content, but if your in the middle of no where land (yes I’m envious) a bottle and a felt pen or even a piece of tape for a line shouldn’t be to hard to find.. Normally I will use a long skinny bottle so you don’t waste to much fuel, and I save it for later and use it to start a fire. It was brand new, so I didn’t think the manifold was clogged. I pressurized the tank, detached it from the stove, and just tried to spray fuel into the air. This didn’t work well. The fuel seemed to be spraying out behind the tip and not through it. Some fuel dribbled out, some sprayed out intermittently in different directions, and a good deal seemed to build up in the generator itself.

Our Verdict

But it is easier once you know it’s ethanol free to fill a Jerry can at the pump then making your own.

If you use a larger bottle, pour off the gas, and toss the water add some epson salts (Magnesium sulfate, common bath salts) to the bottle of gas shake it, let it settle, let it clump in the bottom and filter it again, and you will have ethanol free fuel.. Testing fuel for ethanol is actually very simple, all you need is an old water bottle or glass bottle, a felt pen, some water and fuel you want to test. If your going to burn diesel long term get a stove built to burn it, like a MSR wisperlite international or there dragonfly international ( they burn pretty much anything and simmer nicely ) but take a rebuild kit or two because you won’t find parts outside of north america / Europe and don’t expect a 50 year life out of them like coleman stoves deliver they have to much plastic in them to last that long, and they are not built for cooking for a crowd four to six people are about the max … ReplyThese stoves have gone everywhere from tailgate parties, multiple week hunting camps, emergency cooking in a week long snowstorm at my home, not to mention the inumerable family outings. My dual fuel stove has performed outstandingly all these years. I had one hiccough at a concert where the stove would pop then go out but I just unscrewed the needle valve, cleand it then continued on cooking. This stove takes a little skill to use but once you get the hang of it, it will be a camping buddy for life. I bought my barely used 424 Duel Fuel after my 425F quit working. I had the 425F since 1980. It never failed me. My 425F always had some of the lingering flame, and it had increased somewhat over the years of use. I used to pull the generator out of the expansion chamber, so I do not have to smell that nasty, incomplete combustion. I've cleaned out the burners themselves, but perhaps I'll take another pass at the expansion chamber area. But I am trying to figure out how the initial fuel-into-the-manifold should be working, to see if something is too rich or igniting early.