In fact it was larruping down all day, forecast from the BCUK link was Moderate/Heavy/Heavy/Torrential/Moderate! Plan was to go out for a walk or a cycle but I just wasn't in the mood for a soaking, somedays it makes no difference, others, I can't be bothered. Must be getting soft!! Also, I like taking my camera with me but it would have had to stay in the bag.

She who must be obeyed was planning on cooking up a special meal tonight to she didn't mind if I disappeared into the garden for the day. I popped the garage door up, hung a tarp to give me some more dry space and pulled up a chair. I had a couple of bushcraftprojects I wanted to attempt;

• The first one was a lid for my crusader cup from an old biscuit tin.
• The next one was a stirrer for my coffee, I was going to go for a spoon but I don't have anything to scoop out the bowl and didn't want to resort to hatching the surface, excavating it and then sand the heck out of it. The stirrer would be easier to start with and probably save me some blisters.
• Lastly my wife was in IKEA during the week so I got her to pick up one of those kitchen tidy things for conversion to a hobo stove.

All above ideas were shamelessly plagiarized from other more talented individuals on this site. I'm always in awe of the talent that some of the guys have, I only wish I had a tenth of it!  Any way the crusader cup lid. The bits used were;

• Old biccie tin lid, although something a bit thicker would probably be better. I'm thinking something along the lines of a bit of car body! I think someone mentioned an old mess tin too but the thicker the metal the hard it'll be to work into the right shape.
• A bit of 10mm plywood for using as a former
• Tinsnips
• Pliers
• Saw
• Drill
  
• A couple of clamps
• Bit of wood for a baton
• Picture hanger thingy and a nut and bolt
  

First thing to do is draw round the top of the crusader cup and then cut out the shape to use as a former for the metal.

Cut wide by about 1mm round the line to ensure that it won't be too small. Slightly too big is OK but too small is for the scrap heap! I used a jigsaw for this but it'd be easy to hand cut it and sand if necessary.

I then got a couple of clamps and clamped it to the lid of the biccie tin. This is a good time to trim the metal a little using the tin snips, it make it a bit easier to work with but again don't cut too small. Using your baton or a walloping implement of your choice start walloping the edge of the tin over the plywood former.

You may have to try and coax the tin to fold in strategic places as the metal has trouble deforming tight enough to hold it's shape. The folds are ok as they almost disappear when you wallop them flat and they add to the rigidity of the flimsy tin. Keep going until it's fairly flat, I left it a little long so that there would be enough material to form a little lip to lose the sharp edges. The edges are really sharp, the 3 red splodges you can see below is genuine Chainsaw oil aka blood.  At some point you'll have it in good enough shape to remove the clamps.

When you do this keep walloping it flat until you're able to trim off the excess. I used a dremel to cut the tin and leave only about a 1 or 2mm lip.

After removing the plywood former, use the pliers and fold and crimp the 2mm lip back on itself to lose the sharp edges.

Almost done. Drill then deburr a couple of holes on one side of the lid to let steam out this saves you lifting it to check if it's boiling and another in the centre of the lid which we'll use to mount the handle. For the handle I used a wee thing I got from a picture hanging kit, it was a flat plate with a triangular ring in it. Drill a hole through the brass plate and then stick a small nut and bolt through it. Job done!

Next one was a stirrer, nothing exciting just a lot of axe work, clipper work and sanding. It's made out of holly as we have a holly tree in the garden which recently had a haircut and I've a couple of biggish branches drying out in the garage, really nice wood to work with, nice tight grain but maybe a bit hard.

Last on the list was the hobo stove. Get the Dremel out and cut a hole for access change to the grinding wheel to deburr the edges then out with the drill to drill and deburr a couple of holes for the coat hanger cup supports. Truly a 5 minute job but a great result, kudos to the guy who sussed that one. Last thing to do was test it all! I chopped up some leylandi logs feathered some and strip the dry bark off some others, in with a match and away it went. Got some water in the cup and got a brew on. At this point her indoors saw the smoke and looked out the window, a quick shake of her head and away with that 'look' on her face.

Cheers,

Alan