User Review: White Box Stove

I have the stove with the Cope Roll and not rivets.

I've only used the stove once. Or rather tried it on the back stairs. The conditions were probably worse than they would be under normal circumstances for me. 4-5 degrees C (40F) and a steady wind with gusts of up to 8-10 m/s. The stove is made to take about 3 oz of fuel, but I put in about 1.8 oz, which made it spill a bit through the side holes. According to Whitebox it should take about 3oz. I might have done something wrong in my calculations from oz to mL though...

Lit it without the windscreen or heat reflector underneath. It took 3 minutes for the stove to get going, but I suppose it would take less time if I had used the screen and reflector. Put the pot on, a 1l lightweight pot from Trangia, with .75liters (25 oz) of 7C water.

After a minute or so I figured the screen would be a good idea, but because I had placed the stove on the edge of a step I could only fit half of it. I hadn't put a lid on the pot either (I didn't have one) so a fashioned one out of aluminium foil that didn't quite fit. 8 minutes after placing the pot on the stove the water started boiling, and after 9.5 minutes it got to a rolling boil.

Removed the pot, and replaced it with a Optimus Terra HE Weekend .9l pot with a heat exchanger. Added .35l (12 oz) of water and 4 minutes later had a rolling boil. Put the stove out, with 5mm (3/16") fuel left at the bottom, about 21 minutes after lighting it. Not sure how much longer it would have kept going. According to Whitebox the burn time is about 25 minutes, which seem right.

Pros: lightweight and obviously fuel efficient. I stood on top of it to see if it could take it, and it carried my 200 pounds without problems, so it is sturdy as well :)

Cons: a tad shakier and slower than the canister stoves I'm used to. It also left some residue on my pots, but I guess that is common for all alcohol stoves.

Tried the Optimus pot first, but it put the stove out. But after it got really going it had no problem staying lit. The Primus EtaExpress pot has a slightly larger diameter exchanger, it is also lighter than the Optimus, and might work better. Not sure if a pot with a heat exchanger is really faster than a wider diameter pot. Need to do a bit more experimentation first.