cyccommute 

This article posits some reasons why so few ”strike anywhere” matches are being made. He also has a cautionary tale about shipping them.

Diamond “strike anywhere” red matches have been available in my grocery store at least in recent years (maybe 5 years ago). I have a box of them in my garage. That said, they don’t appear to be my Dad’s matches. They barely “strike anywhere”. They certainly won’t strike on the stubbly face of the nearest cowpoke. I can hardly get them to strike on a brick wall. Given the above, I’d likely not carry them on tour.

indyfabz

And on the picnic table in the dark.

staehpj1

I have some on order and will be satisfied if they strike reliably on sandpaper or a well chosen rock. Otherwise I'll consider them a fail.

djb

Im going to have to try my Chilean ones on a rock to see if they work.

staehpj1

I got a couple of these in the mail yesterday. They were two for $11 with free shipping. They seem to work nicely and appear well made. They are really tiny, smaller than I pictured them. I don't carry keys on tour, but they are key chain friendly. They came with spare flints, a spare wick, spare o-rings, chains, and clips. They are smaller than a mini-bic, but since they are solid brass they are a little heavier (about the same as the Classic Bic).

I'll be testing one of these out around home and if it works out well I'll use one on my next trip with either strike anywhere matches or a mini Bic as a backup.

I will say that 10-15 seconds of flame from this lighter on the bottom of the stove preheats it nicely and gets a puddle in the priming well of the SVEA 123.

staehpj1

Well they arrived and they are crap. The sticks are flimsy and break if great care isn't taken in striking. I tried striking them on various surfaces around the shop with 100% failure rate. I tried striking them on various grit sandpaper grades with better, but still poor success rate. They strike at 100% rate on the striking surface on the box, but that isn't exactly strike anywhere.

These Diamond Greenlight "strike anywhere" matches are a far cry from the old Diamond matches that I remember from decades ago and a waste of money. You might as well buy the much cheaper strike on box ones, paper book matches, or use a lighter.

Don't waste your money.

djb

Thanks stae, I should now try my Chilean ones on some rocks

staehpj1

If they are the ones pictured in your previous post, they look a lot like the old Diamonds that I remember working well. They have what looks like a decent amount of both the red and the white parts of the tip material. The green ones are lacking in both. So hopefully yours are better, They can't be much worse.

staehpj1

More on fuel...

I was curious about using big box or paint store products so I figured that I'd try mineral spirits in my stove. I had only a little "real" Coleman fuel left in a fuel bottle and it was quite a few decades old. It still burns fine by the way. Anyway I had a nice fresh gallon of Klean Strip Mineral Spirits on hand and thought about filling the fuel bottles with that. I was a little skeptical though since the can was pretty ambiguous about what the actual contents were. I tried looking online and was still a little baffled, but it appeared to be either naphtha or Stoddard solvent most likely naphtha.

I figured that my Whisperlite was supposed to be more fuel agnostic so I thought I'd try burning some in it first rather than try the SVEA 123. It burned okay, but the process of getting the stove fired up it smoked profusely and completely sooted up the whole burner. This had never happened with that stove before. It had only had a little discoloration from heat and little soot. I wondered if it was something wrong with the stove, so I cleaned it up and tried it again with some of the decades old Coleman fuel and there was no significant soot. I tried again with the mineral spirits and again major soot. Once going the stove burns fine, but I don't plan on putting up with all that soot in anything other than an emergency when I can't get anything else.

BTW, I have burned gasoline in the Whisperlite before and it burned fine without the soot issues so I really doubt I will try burning mineral spirits again unless I can be sure they will be better than this Klean Strip product.

Is this Klean Strip stuff not naphtha? If not perhaps using a different brand of mineral spirits that is clearly labeled as being naphtha is the answer. I see stuff called "Fast to Dissolve Naphtha" or "VM&P Naphtha" instead of mineral spirits that I hope I can assume would be better.

Also I have to wonder if the Klean Strip mineral spirits will ultimately clog up the stove if it creates all that soot on startup. It probably won't, but I don't see a reason to take the chance unless it is the only fuel available at some point in time.

Crown Brand Camp Fuel seems to be cheap and readily available around home in gallon cans so I am unlikely to experiment with buying anything else unless on the road and in a pinch.

djb

well all of this clears up two things:
1- I havent seen Stae in any of the usual pool halls lately, and
2- this explains the persistent reports of a Florida pyromaniac on the run

and
3- yes, I still think I am funnier than I am....

staehpj1

At least I have blown anything up lately

Tourist in MSN

When I did the Pacific Coast, a friend of mine provided the stove for the trip. We took Amtrak to Portland OR, then a bus to Astoria. The plan was to buy a quart of fuel at the REI in downtown Portland during our layover. They had no fuel in quart cans. My friend previously had used kerosene in his Whisperlight, so he went to a hardware store and bought a quart can of something, perhaps it was mineral spirits. And that is what we used. It smoked and threw soot like priming a stove with kerosene typically would do. But worked fine. Since it was his stove, I never inquired about jets or anything like that, he knew what he was doing.

Hmmm, flashpoint is above 105 degrees (F), I am surprised you got your Svea to light at all. Not sure how you primed it unless your wick still had the old Coleman fuel saturating it.
https://www.kleanstrip.com/uploads/do...irits_MSDS.pdf

If I recall correctly, you have an MSR stove that can be fitted with a kerosene jet, the mineral spirits would probably work better in that, but it will get sooty.

I have used a lot of Crown brand stove fuel, comparable to Coleman fuel. You should have no problem with that. Some of mine has a store price sticker on it for a store that went out of business over a decade and a half ago, that fuel still works as good as new.

Tourist in MSN

Did you forget the word "not"?

staehpj1

Ha ha! yeah,

staehpj1

I didn't. I realized it might be iffy so I did the initial testing in my Whisperlite and after the smoke and soot resolved to avoid putting it in the SVEA.

Tourist in MSN

Oops, I mis-read the discussion of the Svea.