Replies: 16

MataHariHiker Posts: 4,185 Registered: 11/22/02 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 30, 2005 12:45 PM   Reply Really nice directions, description and pictures..it looks like you put alot of thought and time into it...also, I REALLY like your stove..tried burning "Heet" in the yellow bottle yet? and, I may have missed it but I didn't catch what food had been in the can you made the stove out of..it looked too short to be a soup can...single serving baked beans, maybe? Vienna sausages? One can never have too many stoves..I love my Brasslite, and many have picked them up for under $20 but yours is inexpensive (to say the least) and one can't replace the satisfaction of making useful gear yourself.. Abandon the search for truth; settle for a good fantasy...NW Wisconsin on Minnesota border.

Mattie Posts: 200 Registered: 1/12/05 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 30, 2005 7:34 PM   Reply I actually downloaded the instructions read through the manual thought it made sense and sounced reasonable and the price was certainly right but then on my third go-round I read that it required a "three ounce cat" and we have no cats so I'm just gonna be a sissy girl and stick with white gas I guess.

loon Posts: 40 Registered: 9/11/04 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 30, 2005 1:12 PM   Reply Thanks for sharing your hard work. The stove looks simple and elegant, can't wait to try it.

bstwo Posts: 15 Registered: 1/30/05 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 30, 2005 7:17 PM   Reply Hi Jim, Your stove looked very familiar, so I dug out the old box of stoves an there they were. Some of my old fruit cup and cat stoves. The design worked good, but I was looking for a stove that if tipped over the alcohol would not spill. Something that the Boy Scouts could use and build. I added insulation and found the same as you, it just slowed down the boil time. Then was for gotten till now. I had an inquiry about a side burner that would work on small cups, and remembered the design, but thought they were long gone. Then your picture got me looking and there they were at the bottom of the old box. I use a end off a can of sterno for a preheater. Just add a few drops of alcohol to the pan and light, this will preheat the stove and light it. Saves time waiting for the stove to preheat on is's own. You can cut the steel bottom off the fruit cup and save a little weight by using the aluminum pull top for the bottom.....might want to remove the pull tab, just incase some one can't resist pulling it. Mini Cat and Fruit Cup picture. http://webpages.charter.net/fam-strick/MiniCat-Fruit-Stove.jpg BS

bstwo Posts: 15 Registered: 1/30/05 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 30, 2005 7:47 PM   Reply Forgot to mention how important the size of the wind screen is, especially on a smaller diameter pot. I can cook a 14oz tin can of water on a 1/2oz of fuel. I use the larger cat can,[your snuffer] with the other end cut out and 8 holes opened in the side with a can opener. This combination pushes the flames up the side of the cooking can. Works super! I would make the windscreen 1/2" bigger in diameter than the pot and about the height of the stove. You will need venting holes around the bottom, or will need to space it up with sticks or stones. Also try a little bigger diameter and taller, just remember to keep the flames blue! This stove hates wind. So spend some time and experiment on the windscreen! BS

Jim_Wood Posts: 16 Registered: 1/30/05 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 31, 2005 12:34 PM   Reply Thanks for your comments and pictures. You obviously took the time to drill the holes, rather than punch them, to create a neater appearance.

jasonklass Posts: 384 Registered: 1/21/04 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 30, 2005 10:52 PM   Reply I made one tonight: http://community.webshots.com/user/jasonklass At room temp. I got 2 cups of water to come to a rolling boil in 4:40 using a Snow Peak Titanium pot like yours. It was primed for exactly 30 sec. before placing the pot on top. I'm at 5,300 ft. elevation. It weighed in at a mere 0.2 oz. At first I thought this stove would be similar to the Atlanta Stove. The Atlanta stove boiled faster for me but I like the fact that there's no separate priming pan and no melting insulation smell. I think you have an excellent design and I'm going to experiment with it. "So it must have been another country. It must have been another land. That couldn't happen in the U.S.A. We'd never treat a man that way." -Phil Ochs "The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true." -Oscar Wilde

Jim_Wood Posts: 16 Registered: 1/30/05 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 31, 2005 2:53 PM   Reply > I made one tonight: > http://community.webshots.com/user/jasonklass > At room temp. I got 2 cups of water to come to a > rolling boil in 4:40 using a Snow Peak Titanium pot > like yours. It was primed for exactly 30 sec. before > placing the pot on top. I'm at 5,300 ft. elevation. > It weighed in at a mere 0.2 oz. > jasonklass - I did most of my water boil tests at around sea level (350'). Because of your altitude I would expect, on one hand, for your boiling times to be even lower than 4 minutes, but on the other hand, your stove (if constructed exactly as described in the paper) may not be getting quite enough oxygen. BTW, I'll assume you're burning denatured alcohol. If the flame is solid blue with no trace of yellow, or is "pumping" or otherwise struggling, then that's probably the case. If you're inclined to continue experimenting, you might want to either add a couple of small holes or enlarge the existing ones a little. Thanks also for your pictures - your stove looks great. Message was edited by: Jim_Wood Message was edited by: Jim_Wood

bstwo Posts: 15 Registered: 1/30/05 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 31, 2005 8:14 PM   Reply For you guys who like to punch holes, I use a Whitney Punch, No.5jr. It has interchangeable punch and die sets, from 1/16 to 9/32s. Great little tool for making all the holes in wind screens. http://roperwhitney.com/punching/2-45.cfm They cost about $70 new, but you can find them used for much less.....E-bay has them sometimes. I also have foreign copy of one, the punch and die were not aligned.....you get what you pay for! BS

jasonklass Posts: 384 Registered: 1/21/04 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Jan 31, 2005 9:02 PM   Reply Jim- I'm sorry. I forgot to subtract the priming time from the over boil time. So, the water came to a rolling boil in 4:10; however, the water was at boiling temp. in less than 4 min. I just repeated the experiment to find out the exact time and the water was visibly boiling at 3:55 and rolling at 4:10 again. This was with the same pot. I then let the stove cool and tried the same experiment with my Evernew 1.3 L pot which is wider than the Snowpeak. Visible boil was at 2:52 and rolling boil was at 3:26! This leads me to believe that your stove, like the Atlanta Stove, is better suited to wider pots than narrower ones. The flames hit more of the bottom and don't run up the sides as much. And yes, I was using hardware store denatured alcohol. Maybe Heet would give an even better performance. I haven't tried any other fuels yet but as promised, will keep experimenting. I made the holes exactly according to your measurements. I really think you're on to something here. This stove is so simple, yet functional and easy to make. I think of all the elaborate stoves I've made that don't perform as well as this one and it just makes me think. One question though: have you tried this out in the field? I'm a little concerned about stability. It seems like the pot could tip over easily unless you have perfectly flat and solid terrain. P.S. I also would have also expected the boil times to be lower due to the altitude--can't quite figure that one out. I think the stove is getting enough O2 based on the flame color, so I'm not sure why this is the case. If there are any other alcohol stove mad scientists out there who have a theory I'd love to hear it! Message was edited by: jasonklass "So it must have been another country. It must have been another land. That couldn't happen in the U.S.A. We'd never treat a man that way." -Phil Ochs "The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true." -Oscar Wilde

jasonklass Posts: 384 Registered: 1/21/04 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Feb 1, 2005 12:02 AM   Reply UPDATE: I have no life. I just did the same experiment once more w/ my Antigravitygear pot and it tested at 3:10 for a rolling boil. Again, it's a bit wider and worked well w/ this stove. Confirms my earlier suspicions about the pot's influence. "So it must have been another country. It must have been another land. That couldn't happen in the U.S.A. We'd never treat a man that way." -Phil Ochs "The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true." -Oscar Wilde

Jim_Wood Posts: 16 Registered: 1/30/05 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Feb 1, 2005 11:34 AM   Reply jasonklass - bstwo posted a very interesting idea above: "...Forgot to mention how important the size of the wind screen is, especially on a smaller diameter pot. I can cook a 14oz tin can of water on a 1/2oz of fuel. I use the larger cat can, [your snuffer] with the other end cut out and 8 holes opened in the side with a can opener. This combination pushes the flames up the side of the cooking can. Works super!..." A small windscreen / flame retaining ring like the one bstwo made (from a 5.5oz pet food can) might make pot diameter less important, since it apparently restricts the spread of the flames and better keeps them under the pot bottom. I haven't tried the idea yet myself, but hope to get to it tonight. In fact, if you left the bottom on the second can (rather than cutting it out), then joined the two cans in the bottom center somehow (maybe with a pop rivet?) you'd end up with a wider base that should make the stove more stable, while offering some degree of wind protection. You'd just need for the height of can #2 to be slightly lower than the stove, so you'd still be able to pressurize the smaller can with your cook pot. You might even try using can #2 as a priming pan (like on the Atlanta stove). And if you wanted really to get crazy and provide complete wind protection, you could add a third can about 1/2" larger in diameter than your cook pot to create a true, integrated windscreen (can #3 would probably also need a few ventilation holes). Again, you could leave the bottom on can #3, then join all three cans at their centers (creating three concentric rings). I know we're getting more complicated here, but a windscreen is something that you've got to deal with in any case. And of course, the stove would now be massively stable. Just an idea...

BadgerHiker Posts: 68 Registered: 3/5/04 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Feb 1, 2005 1:56 PM   Reply Just a quick observation... assuming that both the inner can and outer can are the same height and you want to ensure that the pot makes contact with the inner can, leave the bottom on the outer can... this will slightly lower the height of the bottom can (in respect to the height of the rim of the inner can) by the thickness of the bottom of the outer can...

jasonklass Posts: 384 Registered: 1/21/04 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Feb 1, 2005 9:09 PM   Reply Jim- Interesting idea. I just hate adding more and more things to the stove making it heavier and more complex. But I'll definitely play around with some ideas. If you make some modifications could you please post a picture or add it to your website? That would be great. "So it must have been another country. It must have been another land. That couldn't happen in the U.S.A. We'd never treat a man that way." -Phil Ochs "The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true." -Oscar Wilde

Jim_Wood Posts: 16 Registered: 1/30/05 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Feb 7, 2005 12:20 PM   Reply Since recently making the Super Cat stove design public on this and other backpacking forums, I've received a lot of comments, which I've now consolidated on the Timberwolf web site. For those interested, alternative construction techniques, designs modifications and misc observations can now be found at: http://timberwolf.us/SuperCat. Jim Wood.

bstwo Posts: 15 Registered: 1/30/05 Re: New Alcohol Stove Posted: Feb 13, 2005 3:28 PM   Reply Stove update...... Make a preheat ring out of aluminum flashing that sets on top of the old lid. 2 7/16s outside diameter with a 1 " hole in the center. This reduces the time of preheat.......I think it will work on all the open top stoves. When you make the top hole, just make it 1", it may look a little funky, but should help speed up preheat!