View Full Version : Hobo stoves, tin cans and braziers
Some people show endless ingenuity in cobbling up solid fuel stoves from tin cans and the like.
A good variety can be seen here :
http://wings.interfree.it/html/main.html
Anyone have any real experience of these or favourite designs ?
Cheers, Alick :-)
I've built a couple of Photons for amusement - they're a lot more effective than you'd ever expect. Certainly more heat output than my Trangia burner.
I prefer the designs that force vapour out under pressure, rather than the perlite-type ones.
bigjackbrass
12-09-2003, 22:58
Backpacker magazine, a very decent American walking mag, has run various articles and competitions with regard to ultralight stoves, usually alcohol burners, made by the readers. Coke cans figure heavily in the designs. www.backpacker.com probably has some of the details, as they archive a lot of their material.
For a wood-burning stove I tend to carry a folding model I bought from Cabela's, which packs up to the size of a paperback novel but is a bit heavy. It's a clever design, probably too complex for its own good though, but I can't say that it has a clear advantage over using a big coffee can. It does lift the fire off the ground, though, which aids in the ventilation.
Another American stove I'd love to try is the wood-burning Zzip stove, which has the unusual feature of a battery-powered fan to force air into the fire, by all accounts creating a remarkable blaze for cooking. No toasting in the embers, alas, but then again stoves like this are for those times when an open fire is not the best option. Of course, this is a commercial stove, as is the Cabela model, and not a bit of home-brewed ingenuity. The most interesting design of that variety I've heard about was apparently made from an old shell casing, but sadly I have never seen proof of it.
Does anyone know anything about Swiss Army Aluminium Volcano Flasks? I keep seeing them at my local army surplus store...I'm intrigued... :-D
Matt, I think they're also called the "kelly kettle".
http://www.kingsley-hughes.com/outdoors/kit/kelly.htm
Their homepage is http://www.kellykettle.com/ but for some reason I'm getting a DNS error.
Anyway, very good from what I've read, though never used one.
I've just been in contact with ZZStoves about the Sierra - shipping costs are about $17 to the UK. I'm not sure about it (batteries?), but I'd quite like to give one a workout. I've seen mixed comments about them, but they sound like a potentially useful device. I think Survival Aids (as they used to be) sold a battery assisted stove at one point, but I never tried it.
The Kelly kettles are very, very effective - the combination of the chimney shape and the firepot gives a very good draw through the fuel, and the large surface area of the chminey gives very good heat transfer to the water, so you get the best out of your fuel.
Just don't try to pick them up whilst the stuff is still burning vigourously... :shock:
i use something like these
http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/stoves.html
i make mine from large/tall dog food tins, the later models have a grate made from the top of a disposable barbeque. they also have a very large hole in the side at the bottom. you can blow into into the heart of your fire, and light it from the bottom.
performance wise you can get very lazy with firelighting as they'll burn really poor fuel. you need to suspend a billy over top of the stove so you can keep feeding twigs in. the fire burns down to nothing very quickly, and there's hardly any ash. ideal for buscrafters in places where lighting a fire can be a bit dubious.
this is another bit of tin can tech, the stand and the shield are made from a disposable barbeque. the windshield now has a row of holes in the bottom made with the office hole punch.
http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/files/186894-MVC-017F.JPG
these days i use a snowpeak Ti mug, with a simpler potstand and the pepsi can meths burner. turn the burner upside down for use with esbits/hexy blocks. use a paper clip to hold the windshield together in operation, the windshield forcing heat into contact with the cookpot is really is the essence of the trangia. this windshield makes so much difference to any stove's efficiency.
so much lighter and cheaper than a trangia too!
cheers, and.
The volcano flasks are similar to kelly kettles, there's a pic here:
http://www.ishop.co.uk/ishop/800/shopscr1749.html (I would post it but for the sake of copyright...pfft you can still view source without a right click </web rant> :-) )
I've always been a bit dubious of the Kelly kettle, though i'm sure it works well...What's it like in terms of size/weight?
bigjackbrass
17-09-2003, 22:19
A bit late in the day, but here's the link to Backpacker's feature on homemade stoves:
http://www.backpacker.com/gear/article/0,1023,4566,00.html
Kelly kettles and Volcano stoves are ok - I carry one in my landrover as a breakdown brew up stove - but for hiking and most foot based activates their way to big. They weigh nothing but the shape is to awkward.
:cry:
The home made stoves are interesting but I prefer to use a greenheat camping stove when out 'gathering' as its small, light easily packable and smokeless. Ideal for a brew up and the perfect size for a metal mug.
:-D
For a long fixed camp I'll use a fuel stove but check out www.greenheat.co.uk and have a look at their range - interestingly enough their gel lights with a spark too and would make an interesting fire starter - hopefully we can persued them to send some for us to trail. :?: :!:
I used to carry something similar rather than hexy stoves. That led on to some entertaining experiments with gelled alcohol - for example, soap will dissolve in meths to gel it. The downside is that it smells of burning soap in use! There are a couple of other ways of gelling alcohol, but I can't remember them off the top of my head. 1940s chemistry texts...
Interestingly, hotels often use (or used, I'm about 10 years out of date here) gelled alcohol to keep chafing dishes warm... As I'd have seen mentioned on Greenheat had I looked at their site more closely!
I've also seen mention of hand cleaners that are little more than isopropyl alcohol with a gelling agent.
sounds interesting - well dig deep in the chambers of your memory and let me know what comes to light!!
Calcium acetate. I thought it was an acetate, but thought it might have been lead (eww).
And back to the Wings archive, amongst others - http://wings.interfree.it/html/Gelalcohol.html
Calcium acetate is E263, used in canning fruit & veg as a preservative. Also seems to crop up as a calcium supplement (pharmacists), and as an additive for fish-keeping.
It could be made successfully with vinegar and chalk(or eggshells, or lime, or marble...), but you'd need to evaporate quite a lot of water to reach saturated solution levels. Interesting to know, but perhaps not a cost-effective use of time!
bigjackbrass
18-09-2003, 22:10
That Greenheat stove looks to be a variant on the old Sterno cookers. Is it really worthwhile? Although I used to keep Sterno around for hurricane season emergencies I always found the stuff to be pretty inefficient and slow to warm food through.
Here's my Kelly Kettle just coming to the boil.
http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0SwDcAuQViibGM4tQKURQrzsh3NxP* 6KG**q3Awx5ChksA4yxKYqkVLc4vT4 P5gXPyrpKRTV3gcJwuDPDzYwYuCMrK kC0A*UOXc23d8E6nYS*J5VjVd5LGA/DSCI0013.JPG?dc=46754407026725 3593
Lovely cup of coffee down the river after pike.
Interestingly, hotels often use (or used, I'm about 10 years out of date here) gelled alcohol to keep chafing dishes warm... As I'd have seen mentioned on Greenheat had I looked at their site more closely!
You can get chafing dish fuel from Nisbets catering supplies (http://www.nisbets.co.uk/) - search for fuel
That's the people!
My own experiments with making calcium acetate are afoot... Strong vinegar + eggshells. The rate of reaction has slowed down, but I may warm the mix up to encourage it. So long as there is an excess (eggcess?) of shell left in the jar, all the vinegar should have reacted.
Then I'll filter and evaporate until I see crystals forming, which should give me a saturated solution. No idea how much yield there will be yet.
Ah, kitchen chemistry...
£5 at the market, Brought back from Africa 10 years ago, and been sitting in chap's garage.
It's made from an old wheel, with a a molded terracota grate in the middle. Lovely looking thing, hand painted around the outside.
Cooked myself some soup for tea to test it out. It would make an excellent BBQ, so we got a grate for it aswell.
http://members.aol.com/extension01/pictures/stove.jpeg
Dave Farrant
09-10-2003, 21:31
Espy
please keep us updated on your progress re: Calcium Acetate. I am facinated (and worried that if we don't hear from you regularly, we will see it in the news - Man found dead in kitchen - that sort of thing.
Good luck and cook safe.
It is ongoing... I have about 1/2 pt of very faintly vinegar-scented liquid (thankfully no egg smell!) which has been strained through kitchen paper to remove the last fragments of shell; I'm evaporating it on the kitchen windowsill at the moment, and I'm starting to see what looks like flocculates forming - which could well be the calcium acetate precipitating out, not sure yet. I'll have to add a drop or so to some meths to see.
As for "man found dead in kitchen" - I don't recall cooking for you? :-D
Celtic Dragon
16-10-2003, 21:48
MMM, just followed the first link in this thread, and it reminds me of a impromptu cooker I made in scouts may moons ago.
It was a old tabacco tin and put in some corrigated cardboard strips end on into it so the through section of the cardboard is showing then pour in molten wax to just below the level of the cardboard. When you want to use it just put it under a grate and set fire to the cardboard.
Now to have a go at a solid (wood burner)
Simon
Here's a thought:
For anyone living near an IKEA store, for the princely sum of £2 you can by a stainless steel can ready punched with holes - a draining board organiser for cutlery. It makes an excellent and durable mini brazier when filled with charcoal. Lots of ventilation helps it burn brightly once properly lit.
I've added an improvised grate that sits an inch up from the bottom to help air to get in from below when it's placed on the ground. I used a standard sized wire grill meant to protect the fan in a computer. It happened to fit. A piece of grill from a disposible BBQ would be just as good.
4 1/2 ins dia x 5 ins tall, and 550 grams all up when stuffed full of charcoal. It's a lot hotter and more friendly than a gas stove for an overnight stopover where you can't or don't want to set an open fire.
Cheers
talk to your local cafe and see if you could get the catering sized tins. they work well but i'm having a difficult time putting hoes in the sides
tk maxx often have bargain s/steel tins that also make grea billy cans.
cheers, and.
I have 4 billy's made from TK Max s/steel cans, they are great. I am going to put together a DIY article on them.
My local pound shop sells the same thing - real bargin.
Celtic Dragon
03-01-2004, 18:09
I have 4 billy's made from TK Max s/steel cans, they are great. I am going to put together a DIY article on them.
Tony, I'm waiting with baited breath as I have a couple of TK special billy cans!!! I just need to put the handle on.
ATB
Simon
larry the spark
08-01-2004, 14:04
Made a simple woodburning stove from one of the 16cm dia. TK maxx ss tins mentioned above. Dead simple. Just drilled loads of 6mm holes and one large central hole in the bottom and fitted 3 long bolts to the underside that serve as retractable legs. Filed a few grooves in the top to house tent pegs that serve as a pot rest.
14cm dia. Zebra billy fits inside perfect though I hadn't forked out for the zebra as I would have rather had a go at making a billy from a 14cm dia. can from TK maxx.
Stove burns like a B****** and all for about £4
Any chance of a pic of the stove in action larry?
:-)
Ed
larry the spark
08-01-2004, 14:42
Sure. I'll get one sorted soon. Tony has asked me to do a DIY tutorial so might post that too though wouldn't be much more than whats written above! It's that easy!
I have 4 billy's made from TK Max s/steel cans, they are great. I am going to put together a DIY article on them.
Looks like I've got to get my backside to TK Max on Monday. Tony, did you get your tins from the Manchester branch?? :shock:
larry, does your stick stove have a raised grate?
cheers, and.
I have 4 billy's made from TK Max s/steel cans, they are great. I am going to put together a DIY article on them.
Looks like I've got to get my backside to TK Max on Monday. Tony, did you get your tins from the Manchester branch?? :shock:
I've got one from them about 2 years ago. Other than that I have got them from Preston and Southport. I have a couple that I have to work on yet. Whenever we go places with a good pan and SS section I always wander around trying to work out if I can use things in the bush :-D
larry the spark
08-01-2004, 18:51
In response to sargeys question about the raised grate...No it doesn't. I decided to try it without as the retractable legs allow the airflow under and up through the can. It's just a simplified way of making one and seems to work great.
Might try another with the more traditional approaches that can be found on the web. :wink: [/quote]
d'oh! i just re-read your first post. with the holes in the bottom and legs i suppose you have a raised grate already.
do use anything underneath the stove to catch hot ashes?
cheers, and.
larry the spark
08-01-2004, 19:02
Hadn't thought about it :idea: Any suggestions? In fact I'm going to do a wee tutorial but its my first go at making one and any suggestions would be more than welcome
I made a stove this week with a catering size bean tin. Drilled 10mm holes around the bottom rim then cut slots in the top with tin snips. Bent the lugs in and out alternately. It burns fuel well enough until you put a Billy on top then it smokes something rotten. Going to to put a Sargey style grate in it and drill more holes about halfway up.
holes halfway up don't seem to help usually. i think the idea is to make as long a chimney as is possible to get a good draft going. i have always had problems getting/keeping the fire going with a pot on top. then jimbo suggested suspending the pot over the top of the stove and it works a treat. so my experimentation sort of dropped off. the other advantages with a suspended cookpot are stability, tall skinny stove with heavy weight on top very unstable! and the ability to keep adding fuel without worrying about knocking the pot off.
the grate helps if you have holes in the side of the can. if you have holes in the bottom of the can and you stand the can on legs or rocks to lift it up you already have a grate. the only problem with that is that it takes away the "leave no trace" side of using a stick stove, you could still leave blackened rocks and a small circle of scorched earth. it sort of depends where you are. perhaps less disconcerting on a semi urban canal towpath while fishing, than it is after an illicit lunch stop in somebody else's woodland. :shock: not that anyone here would do a thing like that, obviously! :-? :-P
forgot to add, a grate can be made from the cut out tin lid with a load of holes drilled in it, or, cut out a piece of grill from a disposable bbq. you can hold the grate up with three screws, or a couple of bits of wire coat hanger. or make the holes with church key.
see http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_article=46 for a few more ideas.
cheers, and.
larry the spark
08-01-2004, 22:45
Thanks for the info sargey, really sound advise :wink: . A nice stove can be found here
www.trailstove.com
Although I don't think anybody should buy a bit of kit like this as half the fun is in making your own! However, the principles used in this set up look almost ideal to me. Perhaps a little customisation is in order :idea:
larry the spark
09-01-2004, 12:43
A good point about the scorching of ground Sargey
After a bit of thought I think the lid for the ss can could be transported on the bottom of the can then set up as a base for the retractable legs to prevent the ground becoming scorched. :wink:
please keep us updated on your progress re: Calcium Acetate.
Well, I finally used some of it. It took ages to evaporate adequately - cold windowsill - but evaporate it did. I was left with some clumps of white crystalline deposits, that I ground up a bit to powder them. Dissolved 1/2 a film can-full in the same volume of water (or tried to), then added 1 1/2 film cans of meths. A gel formed almost instantly on the top; after a few minutes, the rest of it gelled. The instructions say to add the alcohol slowly - I didn't (OK, I slipped) and it took longer than the instructions suggested.
Other points - the stuff will dissolve far more readily in hot water than cold (naturally); also, I could do with grinding it to a finer powder. This is a thixotrope, so stirring it doesn't help much in maing it - you're persuading it to stay liquid.
But it does work... :twisted:
So it burns well then?
You'll have to give us a more detailed account of what you did! ie how many eggshells, amount of vinegar, etc.
:bu:
How many eggshells did you need to get that much calcium acetate?
please keep us updated on your progress re: Calcium Acetate.
Well, I finally used some of it. It took ages to evaporate adequately - cold windowsill - but evaporate it did. I was left with some clumps of white crystalline deposits, that I ground up a bit to powder them. Dissolved 1/2 a film can-full in the same volume of water (or tried to), then added 1 1/2 film cans of meths. A gel formed almost instantly on the top; after a few minutes, the rest of it gelled. The instructions say to add the alcohol slowly - I didn't (OK, I slipped) and it took longer than the instructions suggested.
Other points - the stuff will dissolve far more readily in hot water than cold (naturally); also, I could do with grinding it to a finer powder. This is a thixotrope, so stirring it doesn't help much in maing it - you're persuading it to stay liquid.
But it does work... :twisted:
I'd estimate I used about 250ml of strong vinegar (the pickling stuff); I kept dropping eggshells in until they didn't dissolve any more. Maybe 6 or 7 eggshells, depends on the size of the eggs. It isn't precision stuff, it is really just using up as much of the acid as possible. Chalk would work, as would marble, but I had eggshells on hand.
One other point - yes, it burns well, and leaves a white deposit in the burning container. Given that calcium acetate decomposes above 160C (to form acetone vapour and calcium carbonate, apparently), I would imagine that this is just calcium carbonate (which could be reacted with vinegar again).
Safety data: http://www.intox.org/databank/documents/chemical/calcacet/cie671.htm
(there are probably others worth readig too)
This reaction works with isopropanol, too.
Roving Rich
20-01-2004, 10:52
Hi Espy,
I am a bit lost with this one could you possibly start a new thread outlining the process :lol: :bu:
Thanks Rich
I might have to try this with glacial acetic acid (the pure stuff!) :f:
Nice if you can get it, but that moves away from my kitchen chemistry approach of subverting household goods :twisted:
Unless glacial acetic is something you keep under the sink? I shouldn't be surprised, after all, I have 98% sulphuric under mine...
I don't keep it at home ... I just have "access" to some! :lol:
if you put abit of foil under the grateof your stove you don't burn the ground.
Les Marshall
21-01-2004, 09:33
Because funds are short, I adapted an old mettle paint kettle by drilling holes round the bottom and fill it with charcoal, over which I sprinkle meths and stike a light with my fire steel, this burns hot and for a long time. I have used it under a lean too bivvy and found that I was snug as a bug. :f:
Keith_Beef
10-11-2005, 04:30
I made one of these at the weekend...
I took two coffee cans, a small awl and my Leatherman SuperTool.
I used the awl to punch a lot of small holes and also a blade to cut out two larger holes in the bottom of one can, then used a can opener on the SuperTool to take out what is a perforated disc.
On the other can, I used the awl again to punch a lot of holes, over a height of about 2" from the bottom.
Then, in three places around the can, I cut out a V shape, and folded this inwards. These serve as brackets to hold up the grate, which will be around 3" above the base of the can, and also allow in more air, and allow me to light the fuel resting on the grate from below (one of the larger holes in the grate lines up with a hole in the side).
I had to crease the grate slightly to fit it into the can, but with the brackets sticking about 1/2" inside, there's no way it can fall right to the bottom. OK, so if I tried, I suppose I could have done that. But even I'm not that clumsy at four in the afternoon. Not usually.
So now that the stove was finished, I threw some paper and tinder in the bottom, then kindling, then slightly thicker stuff (nothing revolutionary there, then).
A match poked in under the grate made the paper catch, then the rest, and in a short while there were nice yellow and blue flames coming out of the top.
But as for cooking on it, no chance!
I was looking forward to making some proper coffee, but my coffee pot must have been trapping too much smoke inside. I just got a tar-like deposit on the bottom of the pot, tepid water inside it, and some charcoal...
OK, so the optimist in me says I have got myself a charcoal kiln. Or maybe even a producer-gas generator, if I tweak it... But really what I want is a hobo stove.
Back to the drawing board, I suppose.
Keith.
Keith_Beef
02-02-2006, 15:58
I've made a new "double-wall" stove; a coffee can inside a beer can.
The idea came from looking at high-efficiency woodburning stoves for use in countries where deforestation (from collecting firewood) is a very severe problem.
Fuel is chemical energy. Burning the fuel converts the chemical energy to thermal energy (heat). There is some loss of energy at this stage, though not too much.
The big problem is transfering the heat to the food to cook it.
Cooking over an open fire, only around 5% of the heat goes to the pan containing the food.
Over a primitive stove, this improves to perhaps 15%, but over an improved stove, this can reach 25% to 30%.
Here are two sites (among the many that I looked at recently) that discuss improved stoves:
http://www.solutions-site.org/kids/stories/KScat2_sol60.htm
http://journeytoforever.org/at_woodfire.html
I decided that I could put a coffee can inside a beer can and fill the space between the two with wood ash as an insulator. The combustion chamber is in the bottom of the coffee can; the heat is trapped in there, hot gases must rise up to the base of the pan and around the sides before escaping into the air.
I realised quite soon that my sheet-metal skills are not quite up to such a complicated construction, so the first attempt doesn't have any insulation between the two cans, other than air. But this should still give a little boot to effifciency.
I tried it this morning, but had problems with the pan smothering the fire. I think I need to cut a flue hole near the top of the combustion chamber, or find a smaller pan.
I also had a problem with the latch for closing the fuel door. The flange of pop-rivet I used is too small, the latch comes off and the stove is too hot to put it back on.
I'll replace it with a small machine screw, like the one on the door.
A list of images (unsorted and without comments, for now) should be here:
http://mysite.verizon.net/keith_beef/Hobo_stove/In_construction/list
I think that I could put a shelf around the outer chamber, to hold the insulating ash, as the design sketch shows.
K.