Your trick for heating the propane in warm water is an old trick we used to
install freon in air conditioners before the big fancy new pump systems.
Sometimes the freon would freeze up the same way and if you held the can in
your hand, it would stick just like putting your tongue on something cold as a
kid...
I didn't care for a pan of hot water under the hood unless it was a last resort
but often I would stick the can on one of the manifolds to keep it moving.
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Rossi
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 10:37 PM
Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Re: Propane gas.
Bill,
You get condensation on the tank for the same reason that you get
condensation on the outside of a glass of iced tea during the summer. As
the tank empties it is chilling down because of the vaporization of the
propane from a liquid to a gas. This chills the surface of the tank, then
the warm, moist air that is in contact with the outside of the tank cools
and drops below the dew point and you get condensation.
In summer or winter, if you release the gas fast enough, you can get icing
on the surface of the tank. As long as the surface of the tank gets below
freezing, the condensation will freeze on the surface. In winter, the
surface of the tank may already be pretty cold, so it won't take much to
drop it below freezing.
Along all these lines, I have a couple of different types of stoves for
camping and backpacking. One uses white gas, actually it will burn a
number of fuels but I usually use white gas. Anyway, that one you have to
pump it to keep it pressurized. The fuel flows through a loop of tube
that is actually in the flame, that vaporizes the fuel so that it burns
like a vapor, much hotter than the liquid fuel. You have to prime it by
burning liquid first. I like that stove for winter camping because it
works quite well even in cold temperatures.
I have a canister stove which is simply a burner on top of a sealed
canister of a mixture of isobutane and propane. Damn light and works
great, but sucks in the winter. I actually had the condensation freeze
the canister to the rock I had it sitting on. As the canister, and the
fuel within, gets colder, the flame burns cooler, and it takes forever to
boil your water.
I eventually learned a slick trick. You heat up a bit of water, not to
boiling, but pretty warm, then sit the canister in that warm water, and it
is amazing how the flame takes off.
--
Blue skies.
Dan Rossi
Carnegie Mellon University.
E-Mail: d...@andrew.cmu.edu
Tel: (412) 268-9081
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
