Refillable 1lb Propane.. Any experiences?

[Bullard4075]

I used to refill these back before the safety valves.
https://vimeo.com/81833387

[Pete44ru]

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IIRC, a pard of mine found some place to exchange the empty for a full one - for some booty, of course.

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[earlmck]

I refilled the little bottles for many years (yeah, those little bottles that they tell you not to refill). In a two week elk-camp we'd go through a fair number of bottles running the propane lanterns and the old tent was not a place where you needed to worry if a little propane leaked out of an overfilled or persnickety bottle.But somehow in the move from Nevada to Oregon about 17 years ago I lost my little refill thingy. I looked at the refill thingy in your link and it is nicer than the one I lost so thought I might just order one. But it looks like they have quit selling them and have a "recall" notice posted. I might try eBay. Or maybe not -- I maybe use one bottle a year now that I've become a wimp and don't spend time in an elk camp tent.

Mine hooked up just like shown in the video but didn't have the nifty squeeze valve. And you used needle-nose pliers to pull the pressure release valve stem until the liquid came out the vent. I remember it was a little tricky learning how not to overfill the "nonrefillable" bottles and even after I got fairly good at it you definitely wouldn't want to have a box of them stored in your basement because any that you'd slightly overfilled would spew a bit when they got warmer than the temp at which they'd been filled. After I got smarter I waited until I got to camp to fill the little bottles.

I'd guess that these bottles shown in the video that are built to be refilled must be designed so you don't overfill them. That might be kinda' nice. And a lot safer, too. So if you do something that requires using quite a lot of the little bottles you could re-coup your investment pretty quickly, as you are paying mostly for the throw-away bottle and not the little pound of propane when you buy the little bottles.

[3leggedturtle]

I made my own adapter to fill them, never could get them more than 1/3 full and I learned to have a stove or lantern at hand to put bottle on right away as quite a few would leak after filling them YMMV Todd3/leg

[Poohgyrr]

Yup. We still have, I think two adapters, although it's been a few years since we went tent camping. They save money and always worked fine for us. I keep all our old gear handy in case we ever get that big earthquake.

Some good memories from using those things.

[Sixgun]

I've been refilling mine for over 20 years. I made an adapter from an old propane light and some plumbing parts. Then Coleman came out with a brass adapter that attaches directly to the one pounder and a 20 lb barbecue propane tank. Don't know if they make it anymore but anyone with half a brain can scrounge up the parts to make their own, usually by taking parts from an old appliance of some sort that used the small propane bottles and an old barbecue grill part.

In order for it to work the pressure in the small bottle needs to be lower than the big tank. You can do this in two ways...one is to put the small bottle in your freezer for about 15 minutes and the other way is to (OUTSIDE) stick a tool of some sort...I use a Allen wrench) .....to push the needle of another small propane bottle and shoot the liquid propane on the tank of the other small tank to make it COLD....then hook that baby up, turn the valve on the big tank.....while the big tank is ABOVE the small tank..upside down......and in about 30-45 seconds you will have a full tank.

My guess is that I've filled up 3-400 bottles this way. Coleman now makes adapters to run small lights or stoves from a 20 pound tank.---6

[retmech]

I do it quite often. Easiest way is to have your big propane bottle warm(in the sun etc) and put your little ones in the freezer for about an hour. With the 20 lb bottle temp of 80-90 deg and a frozen little bottle I get solid 1-1.2 lb fills in the little bottles. Fill adapters are available at Ace Hardware,Central Tractor etc.