A burning wisdom / feasability question

[Dale W]

Our boat has a genuine Taylor pressure Kerosene stove/oven. What to do? I got one burner working, and one not working and no manual and substantially less than profound knowledge of what I was doing . . . My survey of fellow sailors to date has only revealed the following opinions.

- They are quite heavy and serve admirably as anchors.

- They actually work pretty well but smell a bit.

- Toss it out and get a Force 10 propane setup.

- The Defender catalog sells them and parts and rebuild kits.


I was basically preparing for the propane setup when I saw a boat with a Taylor stove converted to propane burners. It was workman like and worked well. The owner's advice was to stick with the kerosene unless going full time cruising, that the minor inconvenience of preheating and modest odor was OK for a month or two.

My next encounter was with a presumably experienced old salt who also advised keeping the kerosene configuration, BUT - to burn mineral spirits (or even odorless mineral spirits) instead of kerosene.

So, are Mineral Spirits a suitable substitute for kerosene in a stove? ? ? What are the applicable chemical characteristics for determining whether mineral spirits will work and how safe it would be? ?

Thanks, Dale
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majortest@earthlink.net

[Tom]

Mineral spirits (i.e. paint thinner) is basically a high grade of kerosene. It works just fine in primus burners which I believe the Taylor has. Also works well in "kerosene" lamps. If you switch to propane burners, of course, you have to switch to propane. Propane requires a locker with an overboard drain so is it's own challenge if you don't already have a propane locker. You can preheat the burners with a propane torch and eliminate a lot of the smoke and smell of pre-heating but you'll probably have a little smell of kerosene. Some people find that a delightful tradtional boaty smell, others find it unpleasant. It sounds like you've had some good advice. In my view propane is better, but it is expensive and some work to install correctly. Only you can decide if you're going to use it enough to make it worth the trouble and expense.

Our boat has a genuine Taylor pressure Kerosene stove/oven. What to do? I got one burner working, and one not working and no manual and substantially less than profound knowledge of what I was doing . . . My survey of fellow sailors to date has only revealed the following opinions.

- They are quite heavy and serve admirably as anchors.

- They actually work pretty well but smell a bit.

- Toss it out and get a Force 10 propane setup.

- The Defender catalog sells them and parts and rebuild kits.


I was basically preparing for the propane setup when I saw a boat with a Taylor stove converted to propane burners. It was workman like and worked well. The owner's advice was to stick with the kerosene unless going full time cruising, that the minor inconvenience of preheating and modest odor was OK for a month or two.

My next encounter was with a presumably experienced old salt who also advised keeping the kerosene configuration, BUT - to burn mineral spirits (or even odorless mineral spirits) instead of kerosene.

So, are Mineral Spirits a suitable substitute for kerosene in a stove? ? ? What are the applicable chemical characteristics for determining whether mineral spirits will work and how safe it would be? ?

Thanks, Dale
-

TomCambria@mindspring.com