Aye. It is nice to pop off the lid and give 'er the old eyeball.

Still, the float method comes pretty close, and, God willing, you planned for enough gas + a margin of error prior to your trip anyway.

There are absolutely advantages to white gasoline though:
1. Inexpensive. A canister of gas costs generally around $5.00 for 100g. The equivalent amount of white gasoline? Around $0.30.
2. Environmental. There is no canister to dispose of with white gasoline; one simply refills. And yes you can recycle a gas canister, but the canister must still be transported, melted, re-formed, and re-filled, all of which have their environmental costs.
3. Cold weather. White gasoline will burn well in as low a temperature as any stove can operate.
4. Survival. Pop open that white gas bottle, pour a little on a rain soaked pile of wood, and presto! you've got fire.
5. The semi-imponderable. You get to use really cool old stoves like a Svea 123 if you use white gasoline.

HJ

The way it's going it won't be for long, Coleman fuel has already gone to $20 per gallon, used to be $8-ish a couple years ago.

Bulk naphtha is cheaper from what I hear but most people don't have a source for it (and I've looked).

Coleman fuel is still $8.88 at the Walmart near me. My quote of about $0.30 for the amount of white gasoline equivalent to a 110g gas canister is based on that $8.88/gallon price.

At sporting goods stores, it's more like $11.00/gallon, which is still far cheaper than the cheapest canister gas.

Supposedly, in some parts of the country (Amish country so I'm told) true white gasoline is still available. I remember buying true white gasoline with my dad in rural California in the late 60's/early 70's. By "true" white gasoline I mean gasoline without the additives in Coleman fuel or the additives in automotive or aviation gasoline. I haven't see true white gasoline anywhere in years and years.

Even if it goes to $20.00/gallon, count yourself lucky. Overseas in Europe and Australia, they pay more per liter than we do per gallon. And even at $20/gallon, Coleman fuel would still be vastly cheaper than canister gas. At $20/gallon, the equivalent of a 110g gas canister would cost about $0.75 instead of today's $0.30, and who know how much canister gas will cost by then?

The other big advantage to liquid fueled stoves (not so much white gasoline but "multi-fuel" stoves) is in international travel. Who knows what kind of gas canister you may find in out of the way places? There are still a lot of parts of the world where the old piercable canisters (i.e. canisters that you puncture and cannot remove the stove once punctured) are all that you can find. Elsewhere, only non-threaded Camping Gaz type canisters can be found. Still elsewhere, no canisters of any kind can be had whatsoever. But various types of gasoline and kerosene will be available wherever there is anything even vaguely resembling civilization. If you get a really rugged stove like the XGK, you can burn everything from 2 stroke motorcycle fuel to av gas to jet fuel to nasty farm diesel.

HJ

Paint stores carry naptha, at least in the states. I know I've seen 5-gallon pails of it at Sherman Williams (apparently they also sell it in other container sizes). No idea what they cost though.


You might have to ask for it though. They likely don't keep it on the shelves to deter people from buying it for use in the production of the drug DMT.

Even in the US, canisters can be hard to find. If I had only one stove, it would run on liquids. But the convenience and relatively light weight of canisters stoves have made them part of my kit for years.

For ultimate lightweight and versatility, there is the good old wood fueled cooking fire, as long as the weather cooperates (neither too wet or too dry...)

Nor too windy!

HJ

Jim, I envy you with your cheap coleman fuel price, I think that's cheaper than what I pay for kerosene!

Careful using gasoline in stove though, if it has ethanol in it that stuff eats plastic like no tomorrow, almost killed my Brunton vapor with it.

Naptha is Very High-Octane,very similar to Acetone,of which is Readily explosive.Leave a capful out for a 1/2 hr,& You will notice that it has evaporated!I would NOT recommend using this in any form for a stove or fire situation,Mothballs are made from this, to get an idea of what you would be cooking food with or boiling water for drinking,If you did manage to Not blow-up!

Naptha is actually one of the low-octane components of gasoline. That's why you generally don't want to use naphtha/lighter fluid/coleman stove fuel (which are all naptha based) in your vehicle, as it will lower the octane and potentially cause detonation. IIRC, fuel for camp stoves is around 50 RON (the octane scale), whereas gasoline for automobiles is typical in the 80's+.

With that said, there are other differences between the products, that can effect interchangeability. I'm not a chemist, so I can't tell you which are safe to use. The question that I answered was simply, where would one find a source of naphtha?

IIRC, Blast works as a chemist in the petro-chemical industry. He would probably be able to confirm whether or not one could safely use painter's naphtha in a liquid fuel camp stove.

Jim,

I float the canister in a large measuring cup and use the amount of water displaced (final volume - initial volume) to determine the weight. That tells me (from the intial weight on the bottom of the canister) how much I have used. If you do not have a measuring cup that large you can use your technique, put the canister in a pot, fill with a measured amount of water to the top, subtract that from the capacity of the pot & have your weight. Another way would be to put the canister in the pot and fill it with water, take the canister out then measure the amount of water required to fill the pot again. There are, I'm sure, other methods of using displacement to weigh anything that floats, just remember that the weight of water displaced is equal to the weight of the object.

If you carry a graduated cylinder, it will be much more precise.

Respectfully,

Jerry