Taylor Kerosene Stove

[ORION1]

Just purchased "ROSA" a William Atkins Cutter. She has onboard a Taylor Kerosene two burner with oven. I have found that this is quite an expensive item. Know nothing about them but would like to locate a source for parts and an owners manual. Anyone have experience with these cookers?

[presuming ed]

Made by Blakes Lavac Taylors. Website is: http://www.blakes-lavac-taylors.co.uk/

Never used one myself; for any advice you could ask on one of the ybw forums - PBO or Classic boat forums probably worth a go. http://www.ybw.com

[ORION1]

Thank you Ed, that is a very interesting site, hope to have time later in the day to read all the articles listed.

Earl

[joe_evans]

The Taylors cooker is a lovely thing in some respects, but with a few quirks. I love having the fuel stored in jerrycans with no worries about gas explosions etc, and the fuel must be the most compact in terms of calories/litre storage space. But lighting the thing 5 minutes in advance is a pain, and you need to carry lots of meths as well as the paraffin. I don't know what model you have, but on the one with the 'warming oven' the actual oven is unheated and doesn't do a lot- it's supposed to heat up from the heat of the burners above.
Keep a fire blanket nearby, and get hold of one of their burner prickers- it's just a little metal sprig you poke the holes clean with, but it does need to be done from time to time. They also sell a priming container- a plastic container with a long nozzle- and that's very helpful. I always found that it was worth sloshing on more meths than you'd think- better too much than too little (within reason).
My boat has two fuel tanks, with a valve to switch from one to the other, so you can re-fuel without turning off the heat, which is useful on occasion, and means that lots of your fuel is stored in good metal tanks.

[ORION1]

Thank you Joe, I will feel better when I can read from the manual and see what to do. I like the idea of the Kero fuel. This one has an oven burner,.not a warmer.

[panthablue]

yes I have used a Taylors cooker on board. Very fiddly to use. You need to heat up the burners with meths, then turn the burner on full to make the automatic pricker work, then finally you can cook. Very efficient though, and as you say, no worries about gas explosions. We used to use a Tilly lamp meths clip to heat up the burner, a lot safer than using the little bowls they provided, although I think the later ones had a a kind of tube which you filled with meths. One summer we lived on board, and used it all the time.

What changed my mind was that I went sailing with someone on board who had no experience of these. I was giving instructions from the cockpit, but somehow we had a spillage and ended up with burning parrafin all over the place.

The fire extinguisher sorted it out, but it put me off, and I am now quite happy with my gas cooker which we've had installed for about 10 years

[safewalrus]

Taylors Parrafin Cookers - the best things this side of the Atlantic, unfortunately the stuff you've got your side is slightly better.

Parrafin or Kerosene is great fuel that lasts for age's and is fairly safe. The big problem is the pre warming either using meths (whoops sh** dodgy0 or possibly a small blowlamp which they now reccommend, either way once you've got it started it'll go on for ages, either as a heater or a cooker.

From experience lived three years afloat and that was the only source of cooking or heating! (steel boat, UK winters - chilly). Not only that used kero in the cabin lamps which really pushed up the heat - but the same fuel which made life nice and easy, and as the man said all the fuel was in gerry cans so in a panic it could be shifted or dumped!

Yeah go for it!