Carrying Coleman Stoves
 

I recently bought a Coleman 533 Sportster (all-in-one stove) to replace my old Apex 1 (remote fuel tank and the main burner unit sat quite comfortably in an old plastic margerine tub for transport). Because I chose the cheapest one I could find, I didn't get a case for it. Now I've used the stove a bit at HUUK'07 I can see that it's a good bit of kit but I can't see an easy way of packing it and ensuring it stays undamaged when on a bike (I went to Ripley by car).

The only Coleman plastic cases I've seen for the stove in the UK are reaching similar prices to the stoves themselves on eBay. Short of constructing my own wooden box for the stove, does anyone have any suggestions for carrying it? I was on the look out for a 6" x 6" x 6.5" plastic 'lunch' box but they don't seem to exist.

The Lock & Lock range of lockable plastic boxes (available in most good kitchen shops) do a 2.6l box (approx 14cm x 14cm x17cm).

Excellent! That's exactly what I was looking for.:clap:

I've found it online as the Lock'n'Lock square bread box, (2.6 litres @ 155x155x173mm). The only trouble is delivery costs the same as the box itself.

If I can't find it in SOTON, can you tell me where to find it in Salisbury?:thumbup1:

good idea but
 

Good idea but if it was something like this instead


or like this
an old army lunch box (or a school lunch box when I was 6yo) you could use it for cooking as well.
It would even be slightly pressurised so it will boil water quicker (= less fuel).

Well the alternative is to locate a suitably sized cooking pot, but all the ones I've got seem to be too shallow, even if they're the right diameter. I suppose a 6" billy might do but I've already got about 3 cook sets combined. When we go camping we take enough cooking equipment to cook for about 8 people simultaneously!

I've also got one of the Swedish Army/Trangia meths stove & billy sets that looks a bit like your 2nd can, but whilst meths/denatured alcohol is fine here in Western Europe, do I really want to start burning Vodka in Russia? Seems a bit of a waste. Plus there's the issue of carrying a 2nd fuel supply...

lockand lock boxes
 

sagarmatha try the cooking shop by the libraryin salisbury ,first try the pound shop in high street

In the words of Julian Clary....

...I thank you.

I bought the smallest blue cooler bag from Woolworths. The Coleman fits in it perfectly standing upright. The cooler bag is nice and light and provides good padding protection. The bag is sligthyl larger than the coleman sot here a little s[pace to put lighters, spare parts etc. It also comes handy when you need to keep a 6 pack cool when camping.

Unless a container doubles as a cooking pot I suggest just sticking it in a cloth bag. Wooden boxes or even plastic boxes which don't serve another use can occupy too much space.

Yip agree, we first put the coleman in a large cooking pot but found that we always just used the smaller pots and never the big one hence the change to the dual purpose 6 pack coller bag.

Now that I have soft panniers I generally stay away from rigid containers as they have pointy corners that will wear through the cloth.

I got my mum to make a padded bag to put it in. I have a little alloy bowl that fits over the burner and the whole lot goes in the bag.

Matt :)

I bought my Lock & Lock box in Dinghams in Salisbury, close to the library (see the reply from Westy). I believe they have a shop in Winchester as well - that might be closer to you.

If you are using Touratech boxes, there is a 2.4L box available (approx 218 x 152 x 108) - It not an actual Lock & Lock box, but a similar make (but there appears to be no name on mine - it might even be one I bought in Tesco). However, if you have three of them they fit perfectly in the bottom of a Touratech 35L box if you invert the middle one. I use them to store the things you need, but may not need everyday e.g. camera bits, tools, food (?) etc. Being waterproof it means I can dump a wet tent on top of them without worrying about it.

There's a DIY shop in Proctor Street, Holborn that sells these Lock&Lock tupperware containers. Very good system with rubber gasket for watertight seal. I have one that fits perfectly into the bottom of my topbox which we use for all our documents etc.

stove storage
 

Some years ago I used a Coleman until the leaded fuel blocked the preheater. I used the Coleman aluminum box for this stove which was quite good but gave up using it for cooking as it always smelt of petrol. I think a padded bag is the way to go.