Plumber pot fuels

[Tad Houston]

I have an old plumbers pot i use for smelting and use colman white gas in it. I was wondering if i could use somthing cheaper like diesel or kerosene? maybe even gasoline?

Thanks!

[grumpy one]

If it is made for Coleman fuel you can use gasoline in it, within limits. Don't use kerosene, it has too low a vapour pressure and will be hard to start, then will give limited output. I did it for years, but it was a pain.

The downside of using gasoline is that it will leave a small amount of residue in the vapour generator, and this will build up over time until it starts to block the jet intermittently. Nothing that can't be dealt with, but a small additional hassle.

FWIW, I've done all my smelting with the same single-burner Coleman stove (which I bought in a flea market, very second-hand) for twenty years, and am still happy with it. I've never used any fuel but gasoline or kerosene in it.

[Bret4207]

Walmart sells camp stove fuel for considerably less than Coleman.

[mazo kid]

When I was a kid, my dad had a gas blow torch he used to heat a small dipper full of solder to dip wire joints in; this was before wire nuts. He always used "white gas" which (I THINK) was just unleaded gas. Emery

[jerrold]

On the subject of plumbers furnace, I have a friend who bought a old furnace. As I recall I has a valve stem to put pressure in the fuel tank,[ metal] a control for the fuel out put, and a cast burner. Is it a reasonable assumption to say it uses "white gas." It is definitely pre-colman fuel era.
life is short
I hope we don't make it too short fooling with this thing
jerrold

[Tad Houston]

Walmart sells camp stove fuel for considerably less than Coleman.

Our Walmart gets nearly $8 a gallon! Seems like yesterday the stuff was around $3. Guess the price of energy is going up accross the board. think i will try some old unleaded gas that has been sitting around in an old boat can. Hope i dont blow myself up!:roll: :mrgreen:

[grumpy one]

Whether you blow yourself up is primarily determined by the condition the stove is in. It needs to be checked out carefully - fuel explosions are extremely hazardous to people and property.

So far as the fuel is concerned, the danger factor depends on the vapour pressure - in other words how volatile the fuel is. Coleman fuel and gasoline differ in that Coleman fuel is - AFAIK - the same product year-round, whereas automotive gasoline has a higher vapour pressure in the winter than the summer, so that cars will start in winter and won't vapour-lock in summer. The vapour pressure may also vary from the warmer to the cooler states. The Reid Vapour Pressure can vary from around 7 p.s.i. to about 11 p.s.i.

When it comes to personal safety, the only way to proceed is to satisfy yourself first, regarding both the equipment and the way you intend to use it. When you use a substitute fuel, review how much pressure you apply to the reservoir by pumping - don't assume that different fuels will require the same tank pressure prior to starting.

[BulletGeek]

If it is made for Coleman fuel you can use gasoline in it, within limits. Don't use kerosene, it has too low a vapour pressure and will be hard to start, then will give limited output. I did it for years, but it was a pain.

The downside of using gasoline is that it will leave a small amount of residue in the vapour generator, and this will build up over time until it starts to block the jet intermittently. Nothing that can't be dealt with, but a small additional hassle.

FWIW, I've done all my smelting with the same single-burner Coleman stove (which I bought in a flea market, very second-hand) for twenty years, and am still happy with it. I've never used any fuel but gasoline or kerosene in it.

It's my understanding that you can tell a kerosene burner because it runs a loop of fuel line through the flame front. Pre-heating the fuel drives the vapor pressure up considerably. :-D

I wonder if you could clear out the residue left by auto gas by running one tank of Coleman fuel through the burner every time it starts to load up. Would the Coleman fuel dissolve the residue? Would adding a bottle of fuel injector cleaner help? Hmm...

[omgb]

If it was designed for gas, either Colman or "white gas" that's what you must use. Kerosene will not work well if at all. One can substitute unleaded pump gas but be aware that certain additives present in pump gas should not be breathed so do this onoly in a well ventilated area. Second, these same additives will eventually gum up the generator unit in the burner. It can be cleaned out but it's a PITA. You can run carb or FI cleaner through the unit but it may gum things up too so do it without lighting the stove.

Kerosene burners can run deisel if you wish. These put out a lot more heat than gas and are cheaper to run. They do require a higher pump pressure to get things going. But, you can add 10-15% Coleman to it to make starting and warmup faster, they do have fewer moving parts and they don't have a pesky generator that get clogged.

As to blowing yourself up ..... if the stove doesn't leak when pumped up, you're OK.

[TAWILDCATT]

while i realize you have a working pot you would be better of to get a turkey cooker for propane.no chance of spilling gas.:coffee: :Fire: :coffee:

[WineMan]

Back in the day tetra ethyl lead was the antiknock/octane booster in gasoline. It would leave lead residue in the "generator" (vaporizing device) of a Coleman stove or lantern and put lead in the air.

I was told that 100 octane gas allowed higher performance of aircraft piston engines and helped win WWII. Pictures of German aircraft always have an 87 over the fuel filler cap as they did not have the higher octane fuels. Lead has been removed by EPA. Electronics now allow cars to run on lower octane fuels without detonation.

White gas was gasoline without the lead and Coleman fuel is an available form of white gas. I had a Coleman lantern from 1903 so they have been around awhile. Modern gasoline has Ethanol or MTBE to add oxygen for winter, smog and state issues.

Interestingly the Thermos company competed with lanterns and they could burn any type of gasoline but who knew where the lead went?

Propane has less energy per gallon than gasoline, something like 2/3rds but at Coleman/Walmart fuel at $8 and propane at $3 your net is around $5 per burned gallon and the turkey cooker looks pretty good. If unleaded regular gas is at $3 per gallon, I would stay with the plumbers furnace.

Happy melting!

[felix]

Propane is 90 percent of gasoline in heat generation; methane at 50 percent heat. Natural gas might have up to 20 percent ethane thru propane included, giving something like 60 percent or so heat. Some locations do strip the higher gasses before sending the proceeds through the pipeline. Just depends on where the gas in "mined". Louisiana natural gas has a reputation of having the higher gasses. ... felix

[madcaster]

What about good ole Oak wood,pour some oil on it,really heats up good!

[grumpy one]

It's my understanding that you can tell a kerosene burner because it runs a loop of fuel line through the flame front. Pre-heating the fuel drives the vapor pressure up considerably. :-D

I wonder if you could clear out the residue left by auto gas by running one tank of Coleman fuel through the burner every time it starts to load up. Would the Coleman fuel dissolve the residue? Would adding a bottle of fuel injector cleaner help? Hmm...

My Coleman stove runs the vapour generator through the flame front, but it isn't a loop, it is a straight piece of pipe with the control rod running through it. To run a gasoline stove without a vapour generator would be likely to present some challenges in winter.

Coleman fuel is white gas, which is a form of gasoline that does not have additives required for automotive use. Running white gas through a clogged generator will not clean it - the crud (in mine anyway) consists of hard black residue baked onto the interior parts. I clean it when necessary by removing the generator, taking the control rod out of it, and scraping the crud off its exterior with emery cloth. It doesn't take long, but the hair-thin jet-cleaning wire projecting from the end of the rod is delicate, and if you damage that you have trashed the generator.

Please don't use leaded gas in a Coleman stove, since the TEL is converted to metallic lead by the burning process. Airborn lead is a health hazard.

[knothead]

Whats it look like, I have an old one that I use kerosene in. It is a wand with a pan that has a can with a generator in it attached. You put some fuel in the pan on a napkin, it heats the generator the kerosene atomises and ROAR you get a little jet engine to melt a LARGE pot of lead. I melt 2 5 gal buckets at a time.

[454PB]

I smelted several thousand pounds of lead alloys using a plumbers pot fueled with unleaded gasoline. I never had any problems or plugging.

[Bret4207]

I alos use regular pump grade gas in my pot. I do get flame out fairly regulary so I leave a small propane torch going near the base. I want to try a fuel system cleaner like Berrymans B-12 or Se Foam and see if that helps. FWIW- my pot's fuel feed has a steel cable looking object within the tube, I assume to both filter and help heat the fuel. Mine was rusty so that may contribute to my problems.

[BulletGeek]

Please don't use leaded gas in a Coleman stove, since the TEL is converted to metallic lead by the burning process. Airborn lead is a health hazard.

Good luck finding tetra-ethyl lead in any gasoline around here. As far as I know, all pump gas in North Carolina is lead-free. You're much more likely to find a mix that uses ten percent ethanol to drive up the octane rating, and that would burn nice and clean.