I wish I could take the credit for building it, but I persuaded my beloved that it would be a fun project and a perfect birthday present while stuck at home,
. I was project manager, *tea maker and head **nurse, but that's another story *
The components were stupidly expensive, based on £6 worth of steel paint can, 4 x 400g food cans, some car exhaust sealer and a big bag of vermiculite from the garden centre. It could have been far cheaper, but what the heck. Design was based on one from youtube,...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6ValmUnjz4 but modified square inlet. Hubby figured it was easier to cut rectangular holes than elliptical ones. The top burner was made from a wire basket. Pictures below, and design and measurements on request.
Observations:-
**Those tins were damned sharp. Tried cutting with snips and ended up using a Dremil. Poor hubby got a few nasty scratches. parts joined together with the exhaust repair paste.
The burn chamber used two cans joined together. The top one was of the sort that easily stacks.
Air flow was tricky and there's something wrong with my burner. I suspect it needs restricting a bit with some sort of castle wall arrangement.
Feeding a few sticks down into the flue seemed better to get it burning faster. We used a bit of newspaper and a splash of white spirit to get it going.
We ran out of vermiculite, so mixed in some gravel. The gravel being damp was a bad idea and restricted the burn by causing steam, until we dried it out by removing the lid. The exhaust sealer was a luxury. It cracked and didn't last.
But it boiled a pan of water, which I made a celebration *tea with, reasonably quickly on a chopped up 6 inch piece of wood.
As much as this WAS a fun project, it won't be my go-to stove when the power goes off. For what it cost to build, I could have bought a lot of camping gas, which I'll now buy ASAP.
) will last ages ..
and DIY knowledge always comes in handy
