On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 04:31:29 -0500, Roger
wrote:

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 19:31:08 -0500, Matt Whiting
wrote:

G.R. Patterson III wrote:


Matt Whiting wrote:

What did you call the real white gas that Coleman and others sell for
lanterns and stoves?


As far as I know, they didn't sell that in the 50s. I never saw "Coleman Fuel"
until the mid-70s.

We used "White Gas" in our "Camp Stove" when I was a kid in the 40s.
It's been around for a longggg time.

The camp stove, had one of those pressurized (you pump it up) fuel
tanks. You poured in the white gas, pumped it up, primed the burners,
lit the fire to preheat the vaporizers and hoped it was hot enough to
run when you turned on the fuel.

"White gas" was used more for outboard motors which could not tolerate the
tetraethyl lead additives. It would wrok on stoves, but was bad for the
hand-pump-pressurized mantle-type lanterns, as it did not burn cleanly
enough to avoid contaminating the mantles. Naptha (naphtha) was what we
always used in "Coleman" lamps. Slightly more highly refined than white gas
(higher boiling point fraction) which vaporized better and burned
cleaner/hotter.


I can still remember crawling out of the tent and smelling breakfast.
Damn near froze in August camping near Thunder bay Ontario.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


I'm pretty sure it was availabe in the late 60s, but my memory doesn't
go back any farther than that! I've been searching around trying to
find the history of Coleman fuel, aka "white gas", but no luck yet.




Matt