Primus Stove | Do you Remember When

During the Fifties this Primus[1] stove was a fixture in many Turkish kitchens. Many a trip to local market was made to buy a tool with a tiny brittle wire on one end to unclog the fine gas nib that provided the pressurized fuel to the head. Optimus (1889) was another Swedish brand in competition.

Mavi Boncuk | 

[1] The Primus stove, the first pressurized-burner kerosene (paraffin) stove, was developed in 1892 by Frans Wilhelm Lindqvist, a factory mechanic in Stockholm, Sweden. The stove was based on the design of the hand-held blowtorch; Lindqvist’s patent covered the burner, which was turned upward on the stove instead of outward as on the blowtorch.The same year, Lindqvist partnered with Johan Viktor Svenson to establish J.V. Svenson’s Kerosene Stove Factory to manufacture the new stoves, which were sold under the name Primus. The first model was the No.1 stove, which was quickly followed by a number of similarly-designed stoves of different models and sizes. 

Prior to the introduction of the Primus, kerosene stoves were constructed in the same manner as oil lamps, which use a wick to draw fuel from the tank to the burner and which produce a great deal of soot due to incomplete combustion. The Primus stove's design, which uses pressure and heat to vapourize the kerosene before ignition, results in a hotter, more efficient stove that does not soot.

Because it did not use a wick and did not produce soot, the Primus stove was advertised as the first "sootless" and "wickless" stove. Shortly thereafter, B.A. Hjorth & Co. (later Bahco), a tool and engineering firm begun in Stockholm in 1889, acquired the exclusive rights to sell the Primus stove.

The efficient Primus stove quickly earned a reputation as a reliable and durable stove in everyday use, and it performed especially well under adverse conditions: it was the stove of choice for Fridtjof Nansen's North Pole attempt, Roald Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole and Richard Byrd’s to the North Pole.Primus stoves also accompanied Mallory on Mt. Everest[7] as well as Tenzing and Hillary there many decades later.