Burner Unit, Portable Cooker Mk1, 1943

[Jordan Baker]

I thought you would find this an interesting piece of Canadian WW2 kit. I picked it up last week and got it working the other day.

Its the Burner Unit for the Portable Cooker. This unit was made by CLC in 1943. It has a 2 gallon pressurized fuel tank in it and a large cast burner plate. Once fuelled up pressure is added to the tank. The manual states to start off at 20psi until the burner plate is heated then bring the pressure up to 40psi. It runs on regular gasoline and burns about 4-5 pints per hour. The food trays were normally hooked up in a row of 5 units and would be used to cook and keep the food warm.

Years ago at a Caldwell Convoy BBQ, I was given one of the frying pans and food trays. Up until last week I figured I wouldn't see the burner unit.

If anyone has any of the trays and insulated containers Id be interested to hear from you.

This video is of the unit in operation while the burner plate is warming up. The flames are from raw gasoline being ignited as it exits the valve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq1gWS6XRfw

In this video the unit is now fully heated and vaporizes the fuel before ignition. Picture a very large Coleman lantern.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbsgmepasPg

Pictures L-R.
Manufactures stamping on the unit, complete setup that I have, boiling water, GSW stamp on tray, GSW stamp on frying pan

[Jordan Baker]

L-R
Parts layout from the manual (the British made ones seems to have had a separate transport case)
Complete setup from the manual
warming up 1, warming up 2 (reminds me of the Adam West Batmobile)

The last picture is from a thermal imagining camera. I couldn't believe it got that hot. 1113 deg ferinheight.

[Jordan Baker]

Lastly these are some wartime pictures where I found the same style of cooker in use.

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Jordan Baker

If anyone has any of the trays and insulated containers Id be interested to hear from you.

There are a number of the insulated containers made by CSW and with wartime dates out at my favorite scrapyard. If summer ever comes to here, I'll get out there and snap a photo of some. Here is it mid May and we have weather warnings for snow this weekend.

[Jordan Baker]

Thanks Rob


I'm always amazed at what is still around. I found this burner unit sitting in a corner of a army surplus store in Toronto.

[Marc van Aalderen]

Wow, that's an impressive cooker unit. Never seen one of these before. Good you saved it and got it working too. I only use the small No2. cookers when doing events. Thanks for posting this.

Cheers,

[motto]

Here in Australia about 20 years ago there was a large quantity of WW2 40 man detached unit petrol stoves released. They still turn up today, often still crated. Most of them were manufactured by Chrysler Airtemp and dated 1945.
These are an excellent outfit that can just be handled by one man but much easier with two. Everything you need is packed inside them, chimney sections, jerry can adaptor, skillet, cooking vessels, comprehensive tool roll with carving set,ladle,can opener etc and instruction booklet.
I'm no kind of a cook but had to buy one of these units simply because they were such a magnificent WW2 artefact.
Some owners of these outfits have set them up at events and demonstrated their uses and they always attract a lot of attention.

David

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Here's one of these units set up to cook in Normandy, June 2014:



It is owned by friends of mine who regularly fire it up to cook for large groups

H.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Lovely find Jordan. I think I have seen one of these in action at the Longues-sur-Mer camp in Normandy 2014, but I can't seem to find a picture of it.

I think the Dutch army reproduced these sets post-war as well.

regards,

Alex

Edit: Ah....managed to find a picture...it's in Hanno's posting

[r.morrison]

I've got one of those units too! Never had a look at it till the other week while moving "stuff" around. And no idea how it worked or what ever. Thanks Jordan for the enlightenment. Got it originally from the late Lorne Ertl. Don't think I'll ever use it though. It seems to hold pressure quite well. Rob/Jordan ....let me know if you find the containers that attach to the stove itself. I must take time to visit this "phantom" dump that you talk about so much Rob, next time I'm cruising through Shilo.
Have a great week all.....Robert

[chris vickery]

Flamethrower in a box, gotta love it.
Personally, I have an Outfit, 20 man, cooking that I need to try out one of these days still new in the box.

[Jordan Baker]

The only thing I did to get the burner unit working properly was to cut a new washer/gasket for the main fuel cap to tank. The old one had gone hard and no longer provided a seal.

[chris vickery]

You, my friend, have big kajones playing with a 70+ year old pressurized gasoline burner unit. I have always thought this of guys who like to play with the DD Class stuff like flamethrowers down in the USA...

[Robin Grainger]

Originally Posted by Jordan Baker

Lastly these are some wartime pictures where I found the same style of cooker in use.

Hi Just made 4 repro cooker bases with the oval hole for a friend who is building up a Brit ww2 cooking display. He's pretty good, he cooked a 4 course meal for 42 people at the War & Peace Revival in 2015. A full on brit Mess dinner including port!!!
Regards
Rob

[Jordan Baker]

Found a few other threads via google on these items. Figured they would be of some interest here.

http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread...quipment/page3

http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/equipm...1938-a-663538/


Lastly Im almost done the restoration of one of my 6 gallon Insulated Containers. I replaced the inner liner with some stainless steel as I wish to use this as a cooler for living history events. It will look a lot better then a modern red plastic one.

[Ed Storey]

It certainly looks good! Nice work.

[Robert Bergeron]

Awesome work Jordan . As with all your projects.

[derk derin]

Hi Jordan,
I was wondering if at some point when you have time, could you take some pictures of the cooking pot stands that go in front of the Hydra cooker for me with some dimensions so I can reproduce a couple for displaying the cooking pots with the unit. The tank does pressurize but I don’t think I have the brass eggs to ever try and fire it up! I was also happy to finally find a couple of the 6 gallon cooking pots that fit inside the insulated containers. They will display nice with the Hydra cooker when I make the stands. Thanks for any help you can give me.
Regards,Derk

[Jordan Baker]

I’ll try and dig out the stand tomorrow and take some pictures and dimensions. It’s quite heavy duty.

The burner is pretty much the same as your Coleman 500 stove except much larger. But it works on the same principle of using the heat from the raw fuelflame to heat the burner that then vaporizes the fuel going into the burner. I’d suggest let it squirt out then shut off the raw fuel, light it and let it burn off. Then keep repeating the process until the burner it’s vaporizing the fuel in the supply line. Once it’s heated up the flame is quite tame. Until that point you are injecting raw gasoline into a flame. So it’s quite intense. Saying this, use at your own risk and definitely make sure you are well into the open and away from other things like buildings.

[rob love]

A trick I used in the military to start the coleman stove was to preheat the generator tube using a trigger type propane torch. You ran the flame onto the tube for about 10 or 15 seconds, and then turned on the fuel. You immediately had the clean blue flame rather than playing with raw fuel.

The only place this would not work was in the arctic, as the propane would not work below 30°C.

[Robert Bergeron]

That's a neat trick Rob thanks. I remember seeing grown men cry trying to start those stoves in minus 25 . One time my platoon Warrant threw our tent's stove out of frustration. It did not light any better after that....I used fondue burner alcohol to preheat the burner. Worked magic.

[Jordan Baker]

The angle iron is 1-1/2” wide by 1/8” thick.

[Jordan Baker]

Let me know if you need more

[Bob Carriere]

.... you are in the dog house now.......

Anymore pics of the baby????

Cheers

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Robert Bergeron

I used fondue burner alcohol to preheat the burner.

Sounds like something only officers would have.

[m606paz]

Found this pic.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/i...ject/205206057

[derk derin]

Thank you Jordan for taking the time to measure the stand for me. At some point I’ll have to make some up to display the containers.
I found a couple containers with lids last week and they were made of Stainless steel. The manufacturers were Staybrite, GSW and Fisher & Ludlow.
On Saturday I found another one but this one was a lot thicker body and made of Aluminum, manufactured by GSW which was different. Gotta love variants!
Regards,Derk

[derk derin]

The 2 different containers. One stainless steel and the other aluminum.