Making a wood burning stove

[Bluefrog]

I'm wanting to make a wood burning stove similar to the one in the picture below although cutting an old pressured cylinder is dangerous. Has anyone on here made one before? or has anyone got any idea of what to use for the cylinder?




Thanks for any help,
Ste

[Pholland]

Hi, yes I have made one. Not quite to the lovely finish as the one in your picture but it burns wood. Not finished it yet though.
I used an old calor gas can 13kg. Drilled a couple of holes in it and went to work. Since I have spoken to someone who took the valve off his(left hand thread) and then cut into it which created a blow torch scenario. So my advice to you is to take the valve off, and fill it up with water, then cut into it.
I will try and load a picture of mine now and when I finish it. It's an excellent bit of kit though.
Peter

[Bluefrog]

Hi, yes I have made one. Not quite to the lovely finish as the one in your picture but it burns wood. Not finished it yet though.
I used an old calor gas can 13kg. Drilled a couple of holes in it and went to work. Since I have spoken to someone who took the valve off his(left hand thread) and then cut into it which created a blow torch scenario. So my advice to you is to take the valve off, and fill it up with water, then cut into it.
I will try and load a picture of mine now and when I finish it. It's an excellent bit of kit though.
Peter

Thanks peter that will be much appreciated

[jackcbr]

best advice i got was

1 remove valve (left hand thread)
2 leave a day to vent
3 fill with water till it overflows and leave over night
4 empty and leave over night
should now be good to work on

[awarner]

This is tempting, not thought about that before and would be a great feature on scout camps.
I have a couple of very old butane bottles that need to be emptied so would a perfect donors, one as a stove the other as an alter fire or possibly an oven.
Thinking of a kit form for transport, just wish I was still working in a factory would have all the toys to play with to built this quickly.

[Hugo]

You could use an old brake air tank from a lorry, some of them are a good size, short and dumpy, and not too heavy.
A trip to a scrap yard will show what is available.

[Bluefrog]

Just managed to get a calor gas can, I've just let all of the remaining gas out of it, I've left it depressed for the last couple of hours and i'm about to unscrew it. Apparently there tight to get off and some are left hand thread as jackcbr said.

Ste

[shaggystu]

Just managed to get a calor gas can, I've just let all of the remaining gas out of it, I've left it depressed for the last couple of hours and i'm about to unscrew it. Apparently there tight to get off and some are left hand thread as jackcbr said.

Ste

stop. you haven't got all the gas out. it might have stopped coming out of the valve but it'll probably start coming out again when you get the valve off, then again when you move it, then again whilst you fill it up with water (to be safe), it's amazing how long the gas continues to come out of these things. the valves on calor gas bottles (in my experiance) tend to have a "normal", right hand thread

[shaggystu]

oh yeah, forgetting the power tools means there's almost zero possibility of a spark, a big bang, and bright lights at the end of the tunnel. as people will tell you, it's pretty hard work sawing through a gas bottle with a hacksaw, but it is doable, i've done one this weekend, it took me just over four hours (including tea breaks) to get the valve out, rinse the thing out, and then saw it in half with a a hacksaw. one half's to make a little forge, the other's to make charcoal to burn in the forge

[JohnC]

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38683

I had a go at this some time back, there are a few other threads on the forum IIRC

[awarner]

Nice, I prefer the idea of it laying down to give a larger cooking surface but may skim the surface a bit so the hotplate is not as proud in the first image of this topic.
Nice hinges and latch on your stove JohnC does the handle get hot or did you add a wooden handle for insulation?

[JohnC]

We had a wood "sleeve" that worked fine, but it was easier in the end with a leather glove..

[Bluefrog]

Managed to get the valve off quite easily, it was a good job i had a good look at the thread as it was right handed like Stu said. I've filled it with water and wont be touching it until the weekend as i want to leave it a couple of days and i'm working wed-fri. I'm lead to believe that its safe to use power tools providing you purge it for a couple of days.

Ste

[Hushwing]

Really interested to see how this develops - thanks. Once found 3 dumped caravan gas bottles (the really tall orange ones) and vented them but where i was storing them dumped them thinking they had been abandoned!!! had, had the idea of making architectural chimanea for the garden - a bit more robust with extreme winter frosts!

[shaggystu]

M.....I'm lead to believe that its safe to use power tools providing you purge it for a couple of days....

it should be safe enough mate, water going in should force all the remaining gas out and saturate the inside of the bottle so that any residue left sticking to the bottle shouldn't burn. if i were you i'd light a bit of a fire in there pretty much as soon as you get into it, that's the easiest way to clean off any residual butane/propane gunk from the inside of the bottle.

photos!

[JohnC]

When I cut up the bottles, I dug a hole to fit them into and blocked them with bricks to keep them from rolling, helped a lot..

[ged]

... i've done one this weekend, it took me just over four hours (including tea breaks) to get the valve out, rinse the thing out, and then saw it in half with a a hacksaw. ...

Heck, Stu, let me cut it up for you next time! That bottle we used for an oven in Ambergate took me all of fifteen minutes total with a cutting disc, including getting the valve out. Of course I did leave it to stand upside down for a few days after taking the valve out but before I cut it in two. And you can make sparks with a hacksaw, so you're not even totally safe from explosions doing it that way.

[shaggystu]

Heck, Stu, let me cut it up for you next time! That bottle we used for an oven in Ambergate took me all of fifteen minutes total with a cutting disc, including getting the valve out. Of course I did leave it to stand upside down for a few days after taking the valve out but before I cut it in two. And you can make sparks with a hacksaw, so you're not even totally safe from explosions doing it that way.

i'll be perfectly honest ged, about an hour in and you very nearly got a phone call! my own fault for buying a cheap angle grinder i suppose, i think the bushes were made of cheese
all good fun though, and much cheaper than going to the gym

you're perfectly right of course about the possibility of throwing sparks with a hacksaw, there is a chance you could ignite something with a hacksaw spark, however, there's pretty much a certainty that you will light anything with an angle grinder. there's safe and then there's safe, ste's young enough to get away with just safe i reckon

[Bluefrog]

ste's young enough to get away with just safe i reckon

Haha, epic.

[Bluefrog]

When I cut up the bottles, I dug a hole to fit them into and blocked them with bricks to keep them from rolling, helped a lot..

Thanks so much for the great tip

[Bluefrog]

Really interested to see how this develops - thanks. Once found 3 dumped caravan gas bottles (the really tall orange ones) and vented them but where i was storing them dumped them thinking they had been abandoned!!! had, had the idea of making architectural chimanea for the garden - a bit more robust with extreme winter frosts!

I'll get some photos up when i get stuck in with the cutting, it might be a while though quite a bit of work on at the moment

[Tengu]

Does anyone want a bottle?

[Adze]

Take the valve out, fill with water, put valve back in hand tight, turn bottle upside down and drill a 2mm pilot hole where you're going to mount a leg or summat. Now remove the valve again and the water comes out a lot more smoothly than it does just tipping it out of the valve hole.

I made one a few years back - still does sterling service as a patio heater. Going to make another for my garage later this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9FPzRgLo5U Hinges

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnFWh6oeQaQ Getting the powder coat off

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScXKOeyTKQ8 Almost there

[awarner]

Does anyone want a bottle?

If you have a larger size ie the 20+ Kg then yes please.
Looking at the size of the butane bottles I have at home, for my project it looks like I really need the longer bottle.
I could make two with what I have, but now I'm in two minds between a stove and an alter fire.

One question though, what is the chimney stack made of?

[Expat]

About the "filling with water" bit - I was told some time ago to pour a little liquid soap/washing up liquid in first,
then fill with water.... supposedly resolves the need to leave for an extended time before cutting.
Any opinions on this..?
(I haven't tried it - - yet..)

[awarner]

Had another thought (night shifts are dangerous for this) how about using a beer keg or would the metal be too soft/thin would be easier to carry around as a portable type.

[Colin.W]

Had another thought (night shifts are dangerous for this) how about using a beer keg or would the metal be too soft/thin would be easier to carry around as a portable type.

The trouble with beer kegs is all the ones I've come across are aluminium which has a fairly low melting temp

[awarner]

There are some steel type, guess they are not as common and harder to get off the brewery.

[Bodge]

see keg watch before you seek out a keg.

[awarner]

That would explain it then, I vaguely remember about kegs going missing for scrap a few years ago, did not know about keg watch though.