I've got myself a project:
The troop leadership discussed buying a couple new Coleman stoves at the last meeting because the old ones have problems. And they said that we would need to come up with a fundraising idea to help pay for them. I fucking hate fundraising. And I like tinkering with stuff, so I asked if I could try to fix the one broken stove before we go out buying more. There's no real rush. Just in the next couple months.
So I took a look in the troop supply closet. I thought we had 3-4 stoves, and one or two were broken. Well, I fixed two of them last night at the meeting. Someone had mixed up the tanks from two different stoves and neither one fit the other. I figured it out and reunited the tanks with the proper stoves. Two stoves fixed for free in 5 minutes of inventory taking.
And then I found these on a lower shelf. They are now currently sitting in my basement at home.
They all have tags saying they leak at valves or don't hold pressure or some similar problem. I'll inspect each one and confirm if they really have a problem. The tags were written by boys with varying degrees of knowledge, so I wouldn't rule out user error. But if I have to spend $50 on gaskets and valve packing from the online Coleman repair store in order to save $600 worth of camp stoves, that's my kind of fundraising. It's fun too.
Plus, these things are freaking filthy. Boys on camping trips rushing through breakfast cooking and cleanup before packing up to head back home don't take great pains to clean things properly.
Check this one out, it's got lots of mold growing on splattered bacon grease or something. Also has a bent manifold bracket that needs to be straightened.
