I am all about picking up some free stuff. You know, “One Man’s trash is another Man’s treasure”... I wouldn’t necessarily call this 2-burner propane camping stove a treasure. Well not by the looks of it anyhow. She is a bit rusty and crusty. The funny thing is, just a week prior to getting my dirty little DIY hands on this camp stove, my Wife and I were talking about how we needed to buy one for camping this year. Well, Well, Well... instead of having to pay close to $100 for the Camp Stove, My Dad hooked m up with this one for free! If it’s free it’s me!! I guess they had found it at a yard sale or something and it had been sitting in the garage for a while... how long is a while??? When you are talking to my parents... who knows. LOL. Most likely years. I consider myself young but I wasn’t born yesterday. I will gladly take that camp stove off your hands dear ol’ Dad.
Alright so let’s take a look at a this thing. It ain’t pretty I can tell you that. One thing I failed to mention was, along with the camp stove came a cast iron griddle that weights about 50 pounds and covers both burners. It’s big and the bottom is... rusty!! The sides had a good amount of rust also but the cook top was in great shape!! So to get this thing cleaned up I first took a wire brush and scrubbed the bottom and the sides of the griddle free from all the rust.
Next was to tackle to camp stove itself. It too had a good amount of rust built up on it. The frame along with the bars over the burners we’re heavily coated with rust. It doesn’t seem to be effecting the structure it’s just surface rust from what I can tell.
The whole top needed to wire brushed. All those bars that cross over the burners, along with the frame. The more I look at this thing the worse it seems to be. At first glance I thought it wasn’t too bad... Well, I better get to scrubbin’!!
After getting as much rust off as I could it was time to give this camp stove and griddle a good bath. Using a scrub brush and some soapy water I got these pieces clean from all the rust dust along with any other dirt, debris, and grease.
Thanks to Mr.Sunshine the drying time took only a few minutes. So I ran to Home Depot and picked up some High Temp paint to bring this Camp Stove back to is original glory. I bought 3 of them and at $8 a can I am into this project for under $30. Using some blue painters tape, I taped off the areas that I didn’t want painted, along with covering the burners.
After some minor hand cramping the first coat of paint is on. This isn’t a glossy black paint. It is pretty flat or matte, which I do think looks pretty good. I am not to fond of the shiny stuff. :wink:wink
I sprayed 3-4 coats of paint on it and that should keep this camp stove from rusting again. Plus just taking care of it will help too. The legs were shiny so I gave them a shot of paint also so they match.
Looks like the time has come to put the legs on this thing hook up he propane and fire it up. Dang, I think it turned out really nice, plus it works.
Next I placed the griddle on top and let it run on High for a while. This caused some stuff to flake off the cooking surface. I cleaned that off and turned it to low and gave it a couple nice coats of oil. This cast iron griddle is gonna need to be re-seasoned and I hope we can get some good use out of it this summer. The more you cook on cast iron the better.
Just for fun let’s see what one of these Camp Chef 2-burner stove and Griddle sell for. Let’s check Amazon..
$117 - Camp Chef Explorer Double Burner Stove https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006VORDY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ch-YEb7EHPSD9)
$103 -Camp Chef Professional 14" x 32" Fry Griddle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000AQO12/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_aj-YEb1M67GJB
WOW. I would say I made out pretty good on this deal. $30 and a little elbow grease and I have a nice looking great working 2-burner camp stove and giddle that cost over $200! Now I need to find a way to store it in the camp trailer. Maybe some sort of carrying box or something. Well looks like another project in the making.
Hive On
and
Knock the Rust off
And
Add a Little Paint
