Around 2016, I completed my DIY stripped-down two-burner camp stove (see below), and I realized that I’d inadvertently amassed an eclectic collection of camp stoves. We (we Groffies) have done an enormous amount of camping over the years. From 2001 to 2006, we camped practically every summer weekend at a leased private campsite beside a creek near Mt. Hamilton a 50-minute drive from home. The stoves in the collection, plus a few discards, are presented below in order from most to least frequently used.
DIY wood-fueled backpack stove
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After a lot of workbench prototyping, in about 2011, I finally settled on this design for a wood-fueled stove. We’ve used this 18-oz. stove a lot on remote fishing excursions in the previous few years. We also used earlier DIY incarnations before 2011: rectangular steel and aluminum versions in the 1990s and round and early hexagonal versions in the 2000s.
Since this photo was taken, the upper body (stainless steel) has taken on a pleasing gun-metal patina due to the heat.
Coleman 425B camp stove
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The Coleman 425B is a classic American car-camping stove that was made from 1954 to 1962. This particular one dates to 1962, which makes it a sort of last of its kind. I bought it cheap at a garage sale around 2002, after which I gave it a mild restoration: painting of the box and tank. It’s been a workhorse for us many, many times in campgrounds and at base camps on wilderness fishing excursions. Its tank gets switched between this stove and the DIY robust retro backpack stove, shown below.
DIY stripped-down two-burner camp stove
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In late 2016, I constructed this base-camp stove, with moderate effort, from an assemblage of discarded components. I intended it for car camping when the car is a tiny one (a Karmann Ghia) and space and weight are at a premium. The legs of the grate fold inward for stowage. Note how it is truly stripped-down to the basics: there’s no containing box or “suitcase”.
I discovered another plus of the stove: it doesn’t get dirty. Overflows of coffee and splatters of bacon grease just fall through the grate rather than collecting in the painted-sheet-metal box/suitcase of my other two- or three-burner Coleman camp stoves.
DIY robust retro backpack stove
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I built this stove starting with a burner from a discarded Coleman 425F. The fuel tank is from my 1962 Coleman 425B, and I switch the tank from one device to the other. The stove disassembles into its three major components, and the hinged, stainless-steel windscreen obviously folds down to one-third its unfurled size for stowage.
The stove is low and thus stable and is easier to assemble than it looks.
Svea 123 backpack stoves
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I obtained the Svea 123 on the left, used, when I was about 11. I think this particular one left the factory in about 1970. I’ve used it often over the years. The model was introduced in 1955, although it was derived from the Campus 3 model of the 1930s (by the same maker), and the basic design concept dates back to the late 19th century.
It’s a self-pressurizing design: I believe that a wick draws liquid fuel from the tank into the vaporizer, and then tank pressure (due to heating) drives the vaporized fuel up into the jet and burner. Made in Sweden out of solid brass. Fuel capacity (white gas) is 4 oz. It has a separate cleaning needle for driving soot out of its tiny jet. There was once a small aluminum cup/pot that fit over the top, but I never had much use for it and consequently lost it.
Unbelievably, in November 2017, I was gifted with another Svea 123 (shown on the right) by a nephew who encountered it while cleaning out someone’s garage. This one appears to be fairly new: it has a label glued onto the tank, and it has a self-cleaning function. The original aluminum cup/pot is shown on the right. This newer stove probably dates to the 1990s or 2000s.
DIY wax-fueled backpack stove
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I developed this quirky stove in the summer of 2017 mainly as a challenge. It’s a revised version of a similar stove I designed and constructed in 2011 and used a few times. Anyway, it runs on wax(!) and is supercharged with a lightweight 9-V-battery-driven blower. Starting it requires some coaxing from a squirt of kerosene, but the flame in wax mode is magnificent.
I’ve used it a few times thus far. It first served on an overnight backpack trip along the San Antonio River (Los Padres National Forest, Calif.), where I still needed to work out some of the stove’s teething problems. It performed well on an overnight backpack trip along Isabel Creek near Mt. Hamilton, Calif., in November 2017, when the temperature fell to about 35 ºF. And it served well on a solo backpack fishing jaunt in 2018.
Coleman 502 backpack stove
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Coleman made the 502 from 1963 to 1985. Some collector-users regard it as the best single-burner stove Coleman made. It was developed primarily for hunters and anglers at a time when backpacking was rarely practiced. This model was followed up by the 508 and 533, which are the mating of the squat tank of the 502, seen here, and the lightweight burner of the Peak 1 backpack stove (see below).
Using the simpler Peak burner might have simply been a way for Coleman to streamline their manufacturing rather than tap into the backpacking market. The fact that the 502’s descendant, the 533, is still being made confirms that the stoves in this family were and are favored by outdoorsmen wanting a single-burner stove in their hunting blind or ice-fishing shack. Although it weighs 2.3 lb, dry (empty), it might make a decent backpack stove on a short trip with a large group.
The date stamp on the bottom of this one indicates it was made in 1984, making it one of the last of its kind. It was a cheap garage-sale find by a relative, who flipped it to me in the summer of 2017. It and its original box and instructions appear to have been gently used. I’ve used it a couple times on car-camping jaunts, and it performed fine. It’s the weakest of the Coleman stoves, but it might be the best at simmering.
Coleman 425F camp stove
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Coleman made the 425F from 1980 to 1995. A date stamp on the underside of the fuel tank indicates that this one was made in 1986. I acquired it, along with its original box and instruction manual, from an in-law in 2017. It had been gently used. It fired up fine in a boil test. In 2020, however, while in use on a picnic, it leaked from the fuel dial stem. I thereafter gave the stem a few fresh O rings, which solved the problem.
In a sense, I have used this stove many, many times, although that’s shading the truth. From about 1992 to 2009, I owned one of the stove’s littermates, a 425F that probably sat right on top of this one on a shelf at the Sears in Eastridge Shopping Center in 1986. Remarkably, these sibling 425Fs came to me via separate paths (long, long story). The one I owned earlier broke at a threaded connection on the tank. Yes, the stove had been heavily used (and adored). I did save its primary burner for use in constructing the DIY robust retro backpack stove (see above) and its secondary burner and grate in constructing the DIY two-burner (see above).
Coleman 413D camp stove
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Coleman made the 413D from 1950 to 1953. Note the three-piece cylindrical tank and a bar on the lid for, perhaps, hanging your dish towel and ladles.
I acquired this item in 2019 as a gift from a nephew who had cleaned out someone’s garage. The stove has performed well on car-camping trips in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
Coleman 500 single-burner stove
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In the summer of 2017, my nephew found this stove while cleaning out someone’s garage, and gave it to me. Coleman made the 500 from 1938 to 1954. A date stamp on the side indicates that it was made in the second half of 1947. The tanks on most, like this one, were nickel-plated brass, whereas the tanks on those made during and a few years after World War 2 were instead painted ivory or green.
In 1954, Coleman replaced the 500 with the similar 500A and 500B, which had a tank painted green and a grate that was round rather than scalloped, and which were made until the mid-1970s. The 500 and descendants were intended primarily for utilitarian jobs in farming, construction, and the like, and perhaps for hunters. At 4 lbs, they were too heavy for backpacking, which was barely practiced at the time anyway, and the big two-burner suitcase stoves were better suited to car camping.
It came with the original instructions. This 70-year-old stove, containing fuel of who knows what vintage, pumped, held pressure, and fired right up on the workbench, and I used it a couple weeks later on a car-camping trip to Big Sur. It looks like it would be a rare, valuable item, but in 2017, essentially the same stove in decent condition was offered on Ebay for $90. This stove may be a kind-of misfit in my collection: I don’t see where I’ll get much use out of it, and I tend to use each item in my collection at least occasionally.
DIY Baby bullet backpack stove
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“Baby bullet” might not be the best name for this DIY stove. It’s a tiny baby indeed, but the tank is shaped more like a Tylenol capsule. Anyway, I built this stove in late 2021 out of cannibalized and switched-in parts from other Coleman stoves.
My design goal was a stove that was very low and stable, and very wind resistant, and reasonably lightweight, and powerful, and yet could simmer well.
It does its convenient Coleman priming thing, and its output then dials easily from a towering blast down to a gentle simmer. At 2.1 lb., I think it might make for a good backpack stove when a large fuel capacity is desired. In late 2023, on a very short backpack trip, I used the stove, which performed delightfully.
Coleman 426E three-burner camp stove
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Coleman made the 426E from 1980 to 1990. A date of “8 84” is stamped on the bottom of this one. This particular item was another gift from my nephew, who obtained it while cleaning out someone’s garage in 2019. It later performed well for me on a car-camping trip to Uvas Canyon (Santa Clara County, Calif.) in 2019.
I swap the tank between this stove and the DIY stripped-down two-burner stove (shown above).
American Camper 1080 camp stove
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These stoves seem to be everywhere, like a plague. This one looks like it was made in the late 2010s, perhaps. That tank holds 16 oz of propane fuel. It’s low and stable and lights easily, but windscreening is poor.
Primus Touristsky backpack stove
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The Swedes made a popular camp stove, the Optimus 8R, from about 1960 to 1980. The Soviets copies it. This stove is such a copy, manufactured in 1981. I’ve long admired the horizontal burner-beside-tank configuration, which gives much greater stability than the “tower” configuration. The “tower”, as in the Svea 123, was the obvious, default, consensus configuration for something like 7 decades previously. A self-cleaning needle function is included.
Posts in the forums typically say that this Soviet copy works at least as well as the Swedish original. I found that it fires nicely. The clamshell lid, however, doesn’t provide nearly as much windscreening as desired, so I built the windscreen shown next, below.
DIY PT backpack stove
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After obtaining my Touristsky, I discon- nected the clamshell container from the “guts”, i.e., the tank and burner. Around the guts I fabricated a very lightweight pot/pan support and windscreen. The discon- necting and reconnecting involve just a few snaps and are fully, quickly reversible. I’d been trying to achieve this sort of configuration with my DIY robust retro stove and DIY Baby bullet (above), and I think this DIY PT finally achieves that goal.
Esbit stove: a backpack featherweight
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The Esbit stove consists of three pieces of aluminum riveted together so that the outer pieces fold open as shown here and fold inward for compact stowage. Fuel tablets are placed on the central piece and lit. This fuel typically consists of hexamine, commonly sold under the trade name Esbit.
This particular stove was manufactured around 1970. It fell into my hands around 1995. I’ve never used it.
Esbit fuel has an energy density of 13,300 Btu/lb, which is a respectable figure between the 11,570 Btu/lb of ethanol and the 18,200 Btu/lb of white gas. This particular item is stamped “J.W.Speaker Corp. Pat. Milwaukee USA” on the bottom and with the Boy Scouts insignia on both side pieces. Interestingly, J.W. Speaker Corp. is still operating, in Milwaukee, although they now make only lighting systems for cars, motorcycles, and boats. There are a plethora of versions of this stove, both commercial and DIY.
Coleman Apex II backpack stove
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With the Apex II, in 1992, Coleman finally got around to making a typical late-20th-early-21st-century remote-tank liquid-fueled backpack stove. It was designed to run on white gas and gasoline. I bought this one in 2003 or 2004 because it was marked down to $55 and I thought Joey (my son) might make use of it. He tried taking it on his 3-month jaunt on Kauai in 2015, but it wasn’t allowed in his luggage.
Joey handed it back off to us at the airport. No one, neither I or Joey, has used this stove yet.
I’ve skimmed the online reviews, which I’ll summarize as follows. Likes: good simmering, consequent good fuel economy, good stability afforded by the “lunar lander” legs (one of which has a screw adjustment for uneven ground). Dislikes: eventual leaks at the hose ends (can be fixed using automobile fuel line and traditional hose clamps) and a flimsy connection and sheet metal.
Summary table
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Most of these boil times were determined by me under more-or-less standard conditions, generally: 70 °F ambient temperature, 70 °F starting water temperature, no wind, 5-in.-diam aluminum pot, covered, bottom blackened. I don’t really think the times are accurate to 0.1 min, or 6 sec. I’d estimate that only differences of at least 0.3 min are meaningful. One reason is that in a few of the stove tests, I used a different pot and/or boiled a liter rather than a quart of water.
Four stoves I once owned but no longer
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American Camper 1080 camp stove
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Evidently, a label glued onto this stove indicating what it was fell off at some time. A little online research revealed that it is an American Camper 1080, specifically, the early, pre-1995 version. I suspect that it dates to about 1980. Fuel is propane. By detaching and inverting the grill and placing it underneath, folding in the legs, and detaching the fuel tube, its size shrinks by maybe a third for stowage.
It fell into my hands in 2006. I recall using it once, at a rest stop on Interstate 80 in the Sierra Nevada in about 2007; it performed fine. I gave it away in 2017: I’m just not a fan of propane. Compared to white gas,
- Propane is way more expensive, roughly 8 times the cost.
- Its heat output is poor in cold weather.
- Propane is less versatile: I can’t use propane in any of my other stoves or in my white-gas lanterns or use it to light a campfire.
- Propane containers present logistical problems. How full is a particular canister? How many canisters do I need to buy and bring along on a particular trip? How do I dispose (legally) of the empties?
I’d rather pour white gas and know exactly how much I have and pump a stove (minor inconvenience) and enjoy a roaring flame to brew my coffee on a freezing cold morning. One can even substitute some gasoline for white gas in a stove or lantern in dire circumstances.
Coleman Peak I backpack stove
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This stove ― a lighter alternative to the 502 (see above) ― brought Coleman into the backpacking world, sort of, in 1976. This first Peak was heavy (1.7 lb), due to its steel tank. Its introduction 3 years after the first remote-aluminum-tank stove (by MSR) and being the sole stove that Coleman was marketing to backpackers through the 1980s are prime examples of Coleman’s one-time stodginess and slowness in keeping pace with trends toward truly lightweight, specialized backpacking equipment. One collector said this about the Peak:
Coleman failed to look at what MSR was making or the demand of the changing market. The 502 [see above] was still being made at this time. Coleman was happy with what they they offered for family camping/car camping. Somewhere along the line they lost it.
In the mid- to late-1970s, my Peak I served us on high-elevation fishing trips. It was powerful, especially in cold ambient temperatures, as are all white-gas stoves, and it simmered beautifully. I then recall using it later, on two occasions in 2006: once on a winter climb of Mt. Shasta, where it performed somewhat sporadically, and again with a group of four on a wilderness fishing expedition, where it performed so-so. I finally tore it down to learn what its problem was: a rusted, and thus broken, needle in the generator. I couldn’t think of a way to perform such a delicate repair. I was a bit sad to toss away this otherwise worthy machine.
Bleuet backpack stove
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The only butane stove I ever owned was a Bleuet backpack stove, made in France and dating to around 1970. A proprietary butane cartridge was installed by pressing it up onto the burner, where a needle sat waiting to pierce the top, and then swinging the bars underneath to clamp in the cartridge. A rubber O-ring around the needle provides a seal … until the O-ring degrades (hardens) with age, leaving you with butane hissing into the atmosphere. That, the fact that you can’t remove a cartridge until it’s empty, the scarcity of cartridges, and the poor stability may be the main reasons this stove design was never generally considered a good one.
I suppose I might have been able to install a fresh O-ring, but I don’t think it occurred to me. Also, one of the legs had melted. I don’t recall ever using this stove on any of my wilderness fishing trips, and I didn’t feel bad tossing it away.
Sears 476.72304 camp stove
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Coleman produced camp stoves for Sears in the 1960s and 70s. A Coleman model would receive minor structural modifications and a special paint scheme, and Sears would slap their label on it. This particular stove is a Sears 476.72304; it may date to the 1970s. Its grill differs from those of Coleman-badged stoves (angle of most bars), and it has flanges extending from all four edges on both sides, as can maybe be discerned in the photo.
I acquired this stove as a discard, minus its (propane?) fuel tank, from a neighbor in 2018. I provided it with a tank that I salvaged from a burned-down house a few blocks away. In 2021, I tore apart and cannibalized this stove. Its tank and primary burner went into making the DIY Baby bullet stove (described above). The remainder went into the recycle bin.