Trangia multifuel

[Jenna]

I have opted to ditch all our Colman gear after being so pi$$ed of with them after the fiasco we had last year and being left high and dry by them.

As I think I said in another post we have been looking at alternative sleeping bags, and we have now bought Khyam Igloo tents, so that means I need to find a replacement for the 442 stoves I had planned on using...

So after a hunt about and a lot of reading it seems the only thing everybody agrees on with stoves is that Trangia is bombproof, idiot proof and an all round bit great bit of kit so thats going to be the base of what I am looking at.

Due to varied use I don***8217;t think the spirit burner is going to cope under ALL conditions and I wanted an 'option' to burn multifuel (petrol/diesel mainly) so I looked at a trangia and multifuel burner kit. Specs are good but after the heart attack at seeing the £165 price tag that was a no go. Bit more research turned up this

Ultima Naltio

I really like the idea, it***8217;s simple reliable and has the bonus that spares are easy to find....

Upshot is though the Hiker 111 series stoves are getting hard to find, so much so they fetch a premium and that***8217;s more than buying a modern off the shelf burner, so the next step is look at a new burner.

I picked up a new trangia 27 for the princely sum of just £19 yesterday and I have my eye on a used burner on ebay so progress is underway. Using secondhand from ebay it looks like you could build 2 or 3 for the same cost the full kit from trangia!

I will post up a bit more as things move on.

[Boris]

I will post up a bit more as things move on.

Really great post Jenna. I'd be really interested to hear how you get on.

On the Coleman stuff. what have you got to sell? Possibly some folk could be interested in it here.

[Jenna]

Well I had another read through all the different burners out there and I changed my mind...again (joy ov beein blond)

there seems to be a lot of argy bargy over what***8217;s the best mulitfuel out there, some seem to have really good performance but they have some 'issues' with both reliability and robustness, others seem to be so robust and basic the output is only marginally more than the trangias***8217; burner so a lot of work and expense with little return... as the yanks say 'not much bang for your buck'!

Trangia's multifuel kit is based around the nova and nova+ which I have always liked, it***8217;s a robust straightforward little burner with no frills, no hype, so I started to edge towards a nova but arggh... the nova is the little brother of the very well liked Primus Himalaya Omnifuel. It***8217;s been around for donkies, it***8217;s rated as one of the most reliable burners about, it can burn nearly anything in liquid or gas form too.

Bit of a hunt around and I secured a demo omnifuel burner, pump and some primus fuel bottles too for an acceptable £65...

At the minute all that***8217;s left to find is the trangia/nova adaptor cup, the omnifuel and nova share a similar foot mounting plate on the bottom so adapting the nova one should be an easy job.

Hunting round the net it looks like Trangia or optimus have at some time switched the design, the older design was cup that dropped into the 'hole' normally taken up by the meth***8217;s burner but the new design is just a crappy bit of bent tin that looks very cheap and nasty!

So far a search has turned no stock of the old type 'cup' which a bit annoying, if worst comes to worst then I will get the new bracket as its £7 or make up my own.

[Austin]

Hi Jenna, I have got a trangia multiple fuel burner. I got it about 2 years ago for £80 IIRC. Blacktoe.co.uk I think. It is a optimus nova and still has the optimus branding on it. It fits in the cup where the meths burner normally goes and has a spring clip to hold it in place. I think you know all this. I have only used with Coleman fuel and unleaded - which causes the jet to block ocassionally.

As with all things it's got good and bad points with good way in excess of the bad.

What I like..... it is seems very well made; It's very hot - kettle boils in 2-3 mins; it's easy and quick to light; adjustable output ; switching it off is easy and a cool trick - flip the fuel bottle over. It's noisy.

What I don't like - it's can only be used with the trangia; it doesn't work well with frying pan on top of the trangia; it doesn't fit inside the 27 size trangia unless you leave the kettle behind; it's noisy. IIt's a Bit fiddly to fit the fuel line into the trangia but once you get the knack it's ok.

I haven't got any but I could Take and send pics.

Overall I would strongly recommend it at £80 or £90 but not £160.

[Austin]

Just looked at blacktoe web site and it's on offer at £112

[davsato]

have a look at amazon, i got a 27 trangia with gas burner for £68, bargain considering the gas burner on its own would be £50.

the spirit burners on trannies work fine, but as has been mentioned the bigger 25 series puts the frying pan too high to get really hot. my smaller 27 series seems to work much better and the gas burner works a treat if your into gas (again, i think its primus/optimus parts).

i think £100+ for the multifuel is a bit steep, especially when you still have to buy the rest of the trangia set up aswell and a coleman exponent is £50. what trouble are you having witth coleman? i had a 442 running unleaded for years and thought it was great

[Jenna]

Had hoped to do an update by now but I’m still waiting on the omnifuel to turn up

I do really like the nova and the updated version the nova+ that would have been the stove I bought but the onmifuel was cheaper and its supposed to be a better stove (time will tell!). The trangia multifuel is as you say based on the nova.

The trangia kit by optimus is the stove body, pump, pipe and bottle... yep they swap the feet/stand for the trangia cup so your tied in to ONLY being able to use it in trangia which is what put me off going that route (oh and that stupid price tag!).

There have been a few people that have adapted a standard nova to fit the trangia with aid of a simple ring that grips the burner in the folded in feed and the hole on the trangia which I do like, I have seen another version of this done with the old Sigg Firejet burner as that too is like a round drum with the feet folded in... I will see if I can find the pics again.

I was going to go with the trangia gas burner but this is for adventure/expedition work abroad and I need to be sure I could find fuel anytime anywhere, AFIK you can’t take the gas cans on planes or ferries anymore?

[Jenna]

Have to say Coleman quality is not patch on what it was, I have until last year used a lot of their gear including… Ram-x canoes, cooking sets, stoves, tents, sleeping bags etc etc but they seem to have switched from targeting the high end adventure/expedition users to take on the more 'mass market' leisure camping arena with a cheaper product.

My beef with Coleman is over stock we bought from a major Coleman UK dealer, they supplied the wrong tents (I bought Phacts and they supplied us the cheaper Phads), they said no problem we will change them but as Coleman had screwed up the manufacturing chain there were no Phacts available.

After 2 months of phone calls, emails and letters nothing had happened so I spoke with the boss of Coleman UK. ..”No problem we will supply you direct on behalf of the dealer”, another 2 months go by and more emails and phone calls to both Coleman UK and the dealer and SFA had happened. So I got ****ty and got onto Coleman Europe, the season was nearly over and we had had to get other tents in to cover the cock up. Coleman Europe must have kicked butt as I get phone call from the boss of Coleman UK, ..”sorry still no stock but go ahead and use the two phads and we will replace them with new phacts when they come up”… as I had been promised that these tents were just ‘a week away’ for 4 months I didn’t hold my breath!

Meantime BHP trading as tentastic go bust un be known to me (but Coleman knew!) few months more go by and I get back on hounding Coleman UK and they won’t even take my phone calls, that gets me mad and after kicking up another fuss they say ..”sorry we don’t deal with BHP/tentastic anymore”.. so in effect go screw yourself! with BHP/tentastic going bust over 30 days ago (and dissolved/wound up and sold in Manchester court!) I could do nothing to get back the money I paid them, there was no chance of the correct tents being supplied and thanks to Coleman they would have been secondhand too (#ankers).. thankfully I was so disgusted by their whole treatment I just wrapped them back up and put them in the store!

With all the time and money I wasted with this and hassle it caused with having to source other stock, buying another load of tents again and being left with two tents I don’t want or need I made the decision never to deal with Coleman or their products again.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Hi guys, I recently bought a trangia multifuel and found this video helpful when I was looking into it, thought it would add to the discussion.