Getting An Old Blowlamp Started.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by Cyril Bonnett on 07/09/2016 23:38:09:

The military petrol stove mention by Rick was basically the same cooking stove we cooked our meals on our tanks and ferrets well into the late 1970's.

On exercises our cooks delighted us with their fiery early misty morning displays of petrol vapour lighting up the ground around their cooking trenches with the British army No1 burners, brave men.

**LINK**

I still use a optimus petrol stove from the early 70's

Cyril

Edited By Cyril Bonnett on 07/09/2016 23:39:50

That looks very much like the petrol stove I used to have. It was known as O'Brien as it was second cousin to a petrol bomb. Took it to Corsica on a motorbike once. Trouble is it's already very hot in Corsica, so the safety valve on the tank lifted, and the jet of petrol vapour ignited like a flame thrower, fortunately not in the tent. Apply big wet towel and keep pouring water on till it all cooled down. Having said that I wish I still had it, it was a lot better than the Coleman I have now which won't run on more than half power without flaring up. I suppose I should buy Coleman's fuel, but that defeats the object

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Second-hand story. My late father-in-law was absolutely terrified of cotton wool. He couldn't stand the sight of the stuff.

He was in Korea with the Army Catering Corps and was badly burned when the trench full of sand and petrol they were using as a giant cooker exploded. Apparently a colleague had already overfilled the trench with petrol just before poor Jim added a another full jerrycan, leant over and fired up his Zippo.

He was airlifted to a US Forces hospital in Japan where the long and painful treatment somehow ingrained a permanent aversion to cotton-wool. Thirty years later he was still having nightmares about being trapped in a fireball.

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