[pct-l] SVEA-123 Adventures

[Ned Tibbits]

All in all, there's nothing like a hot meal on a cold day in the woods!

My Svea lasted forever and still runs great, though we don't do any hiking 
with it anymore, just teaching our students what stoves did "in the old 
days!"

Part of the morning's joys were to see if you could start the stove. I 
didn't try any of the "crotch-cuddling" that Chuck spoke of, but rather used 
a plastic eye dropper to place fuel in the basin on top of the tank, light 
it with a BIC lighter, and pray that it was enough to get the "little engine 
that could" going!

Loved that noise, too, Scott! There were times when you couldn't hear your 
friend talking to you from the next tent over because of the stove roar. 
Outstanding fun.

Only had one disaster with the little stove and found out that you can't 
cook for too many guests one after the other on the same running stove. The 
problem with the Svea was that the burner was attached to the tank. The 
hotter and longer the burner ran, the hotter the tank got...to the point of 
explosion!

I wasn't in the tent at the time (had to step out for a minute), but those 
running the stove said that a little flame appeared coming out of the 
pressure-relief valve in the gas cap while the stove was running. They 
yelled out to me the situation and I yelled back (it was snowing at the 
time) to throw the stove out of the tent immediately!

Unfortunately, they shut the stove off, then threw it out the door into the 
snow whereupon the pressure grew even more and the fireball outside the tent 
must have been 8 feet in diameter!

Needless to say, we couldn't use the stove until we got to the next town and 
found a way (in southern New Mexico) to replace the cap!



Ned Tibbits, Director
Mountain Education
www.mountaineducation.org
-----Original Message----- 
From: Scott Williams
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 8:52 PM
To: CHUCK CHELIN
Cc: PCT listserve
Subject: Re: [pct-l] SVEA-123 Adventures

There's some memories.  I've still got my original Primus Stove from about
1959 or so, brass tank and little tin box it all sat in as a pot stand.  If
you couldn't get your freezing hands to warm it up enough to force some gas
out into the little cup at the top, we'd all stand around it and light a
match and hold that under the gas tank to build up the pressure.  Then if
it still didn't send up any gas you realized the nozzle was jammed and you
had a very fine stiff wire attached to a little piece of sheet metal which
could be used to clean out the nozzle.

So then you finally got some gas in the cup and lit it, and it sputtered
and started to heat and pressurize the tank.  As it did so at first it
would send out a jet of pure, unvaporized white gas which would always
splatter a bit, not good for white gas.  Then quickly enough that
sputtering liquid would heat the nozzle  enough to vaporize the following
gas, and it would set up its miniature steam engine, staccato clamor, a
signature sound in the wilderness in those days, and start to heat your
food.

I just Googled vintage Primus and discovered that it was based on the hand
held blowtorches of the 1890s.  Well, it sure sounded like one, and you
could probably weld steal with one.  It didn't shut down when you had it on
its side.  If you took off the little brass plate on the top it would have
had a straight jet of flame.

Those were the days.  I guess.  I can still hear that stutter in the woods.

Shroomer

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 10:30 AM, CHUCK CHELIN <steeleye at wildblue.net>wrote:

> Good morning,
>
> Regular users of the SVEA-123 are correct when they responded that under
> average conditions the stove really isn’t all that difficult to start,
> however my situation was a bit different:  I didn’t use it under average
> conditions.  In the late-50’s and through the 60’s I mostly used a tiny
> campfire to heat food in a modified, traditional Sierra Cup – by modified 
> I
> mean the wire handle had been re-bent to allow the end of a stick to be
> inserted for security over a fire.  The fire was seldom fed with sticks
> larger than a pencil.  That worked well except that during three of the
> four seasons here in the Pacific NW -- autumn rain, winter snow, and 
> spring
> rain -- the little sticks are wet.
>
> That’s when I got the SVEA-123.  When conditions were right it started OK,
> but there was none of this modern-day turn-the-knob and touch-a-match
> business.   It was first necessary to put some fuel in the little recessed
> channel at the top of the tank which, when lit, would simultaneously heat
> the tank so fuel would be slightly pressurized and available to the valve,
> plus it would get the burner hot enough to vaporize the gas when the valve
> was opened.  Simple…sort of.
>
> One problem was, it was difficult to pour the correct amount of fuel into
> the little recess.  Too little fuel wouldn’t hack it, and too much would
> run out and all around the tank so it was necessary to wait for it to
> evaporate before lighting, else there would be a nice fireball.
>
> Some people carried a separate little squeeze bottle of fuel which was OK,
> but it was just one more thing to fuss with, and there was a risk having 
> it
> leak all over the pack.
>
> A more typical plan was to warm the stove tank with the hands, thereby
> creating just enough pressure inside to blow a small amount of fuel out of
> the valve when it is cracked slightly open; fuel which then ran down the
> stem to fill the little recess.  When the recess was full the valve was
> closed for lighting.  In theory that works OK, except for two things: 
> When
> the stove was shut off the evening before the tank was sealed.  The next
> morning when the tank was very cold a small vacuum had probably been
> created inside, and my hands couldn’t provide enough heat to overcome it
> unless I first remembered to briefly open the valve to “let the vacuum 
>  out”
> before closing it again for hand-heating.  If I didn’t do all that in the
> correct order, and usually even if I did, the tank wouldn’t blow like it
> was supposed to, it sucked -- both literally and figuratively.
>
> In the cold conditions when I used the stove I didn’t want to fiddle 
> around
> seemingly-forever trying to get the stove started, and my hands got cold
> faster than the stove got warm so when the valve was opened nothing
> happened.
>
> The next step was to find some greater source of body heat for the tank
> but, believe me boys and girls, on a frosty morning I didn’t really like
> having to spend several minutes crotch-cuddling a 1-pound chunk of 
> ice-cold
> brass.
>
> One solution was to retrofit the stove with a little pump by changing to a
> tank cap that had a check valve to accept the pump.  Problem solved ---
> maybe:  Push on the pump, give it a few strokes to increase the tank
> pressure, crack open the valve, and then watch as fuel is quickly blown 
> out
> to enclose the outside of the tank and soak my glove.  It worked
> eventually, but I had to remember to remove the pump adapter cap after the
> stove was shut off, and replace it with the standard cap – assuming I
> didn’t forget to bring it – because the check valve was notorious for
> leaking fuel into my pack.
>
> None of that addresses the regular need to field-strip the stove to find
> plugged orifices or leaky o-rings.  Oops, I didn’t really drop that tiny
> o-ring in the gravel, did I?
>
> The solution for all of those problems was to retire the SVEA-123 to the
> back of the gear locker and begin using solid fuel in bad weather in just
> the same way I used a little wood fire in good weather.
>
> All of this eventually lead to the current method of not jacking-around
> with a stove at all, but eating cold chow instead.
>
> Quite often the “good old days”, weren’t.
>
> Steel-Eye
>
> -Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965
>
> http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye
> http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09/
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