Brass Paraffin Stove Restoration

If like me you are a bit long in the tooth, you may have had one of these as a youngster; sadly I was not able to keep hold of mine as my dad sold it on a car boot after I moved out many moons back. However, I managed to pick up a nice RM (British equivalent to the Primus) brass stove off eBay for not a bad price, probably as it was a non-runner. I was sure I would be able to get it up and running again. After it arrived and I had a chance to look at it I found it was not in too bad a condition. It certainly wouldn’t run as the priming pump had no resistance so it wasn’t building up pressure.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve never worked on one of these before and it’s not as if I had any idea what I was letting myself in for, but after a bit of research and speaking to the lovely folk on the Vintage Camping Stoves and Lanterns Facebook page I was well armed.

I started to strip down the stove to remove all the old perished seals and washers. Most of these literally broke apart on removal. Much of the strip was quite easy and straightforward, I just made notes of which bits came from where and what sort of washer or seal seemed to be fitted to each joint. The one problem I had that I thought was going to be a real sticking point was the removal of the non-return valve which is located at the bottom of the tube that the pressure pump plunger lives in. It has a strange flat head nut on it and its about 3” down a very narrow tube. Again after some research I found I needed a special tool to remove this. The tool was available to purchase but it was about £60 which I just couldn’t justify and I wasn’t able to borrow one, so what to do next.

After some head scratching I started to work out a way to reach the nut, using a small ¼” socket set I had. I was able to put a socket over the nut but due to its unusual shape none of the standard sockets I had would fit. A bit more head scratching. In the ¼” socket set there were some allen key bits, now I thought if I could get an impression of the nut head I could cut one of these to fit. So using some Plasticine pushed into a normal socket I pushed this down the tube and onto the nut to get an impression. Of course when I tried to pull it back up the socket stuck to the nut head. After much wiggling and faffing I got the socket off, but the impression in the Plasticine was ruined. Start again, but to stop the socket sticking to the head of the nut I put Vaseline all over the Plasticine. Second try, yes success. I pulled the socket back off and had a perfect impression of the nut head.

Using this as a guide to take measurements from I cut the required slot into one of the allen key head adaptor and with a little bit of fettling I got it to fit really well on the nut head. With it being down such a tight tube I had to grind off some of the outer wall of the socket head to allow it to fit over the nut head and between it and the tube walls. Once the non-return valve was removed I was able to refine the fit of the socket for future use.

So with this removed I was ready to start the clean-up. I left all the components soaking in a bath of Cola overnight to try and breakdown the years of crud build up. The following day was a day of extreme elbow grease. Using Brasso I cleaned and polished all the components to bring them back to a glorious lustre. The actual body of the stove was a nightmare to get clean, using some nail varnish remover to cut through the ruined lacquer and stickers helped but it still required a massive amount of elbow grease to get it shining.

Once this was all done it was time to rebuild the stove with a brand new set of seals and washers. These were easily purchased from an online company I found via the above mentioned Facebook group, the company is called Fettlebox and they specialise in repair kits for many of these old stoves and lamps, check them out if you are after any bits for your old stoves. The kit was very reasonably priced and it covered all the seals and washers I needed for the whole job.

So rebuilding went very well making sure I put the correct new washers and seals in the right place, each seal got a little wipe with some Vaseline before fitting just to make sure it would sit nicely without snagging or sticking. All in all it went pretty well without any snags.

Once built I tested the pressure pump and it appeared to be building pressure in the chamber. I tested this by putting my finger over the outlet whilst pumping the primer pump, when I removed my finger there was a definite “puff” of air. So continuing to refit all the parts until it was all back together.

The moment of truth was to test it with fuel in. I took it outside into the garden, filled the fuel tank and closed the fill port and closed off the outlet as well thus giving the pressure nowhere to go, a few pumps just to build some pressure and check for leaks, all was ok. So I released the pressure relief valve with a satisfying “hiss”. I then fitted the burner unit and primed the primer cup with mentholated spirits, pumped the pressure pump until a little dribble of paraffin came out of the jet. I then lit the meths and let it warm up the pre-burner tubes. Pumped the primer some more and very quickly it roared into life. Awesome, so I stuck my small Primus kettle on full of cold water. In less than 3 mins it was boiling away. Happy days! With the stove all sorted I even gave the tin box it came in a rub down with wet & dry paper and then gave it a spray coat of red paint to bring this back to its former glory too.

The following weekend I was in the woods doing a day course but I went down the night before to get set up and I took the stove to cook my food on and boil my water. Yes it is a bit more faff than using a gas stove that I normally use but I’ll tell you what, it is just so much more satisfying to have that stove hissing away knowing I restored it and brought it back to life to do what it was made to do in the environment it was supposed to be doing it. I absolutely love this little stove and I’m really happy I have gone back to using one, yes it takes me back to my days in the cubs & scouts where most of my cooking was done on my old Primus so there is definitely some nostalgia there, but hey, it does the job and it’s a great little stove, I also think it is more adjustable heat wise than my gas stove. I really enjoyed the process of restoring this stove and I think it may have found me a new hobby for over the winter months where I can buy old non-working ones and bring them back to life to use or sell on. But now I suppose I’ve just shot myself in the foot as you guys are now going to be outbidding me, as you know I won’t pay very much.