The nice lady at A&H told me that it might be possible to bend the burner of the damaged SVEA back in line. The danger, she says, is that it might leak at the entrance to the tank, and if it does, it can’t be fixed.

So I held the tank firmly down on my desk, looped three fingers around the burner, and pulled. Two or three good pulls and the burner was more or less in line. It still looks slightly tilted, but I don’t want to tempt fate by bending it back and forth for perfection.

It boiled a quart of water, then simmered for about ten minutes with no sign of leakage. I held a lighter flame next to the joint between the tank and burner but detected no sign of leakage. So now it looks like I have two SVEAs, a 123R and an original 123, all for $23.50 plus shipping from eBay.

The older stove seems to need a rebuild though. I can see no sign of a wick in it, and I’ve learned that you should never let a SVEA burn dry, as that can scorch the wick. This leads to inefficient burning – I thought it burned out too fast the first time I tried it. I have a wick on order along with the rebuild kit and replacement key from A&H.