I am thinking about making alcohol stoves with my nephews today. They have lots of soda cans to use. I think I will pick up some V-8 cans this morning. I have lots of cat food cans and can empty a few smaller ones today.

I haven't decided on a design yet, but I am gathering materials to make a few different versions.

Where do I get fiberglass insulation thin enough to use in one of these stoves?


We will most likely make one of the little soda can stoves. That we can JB weld together so it can be carried easily. We can't afford to buy them fancy back packing stoves so this will be a fun project!

Good to know about the insulation. I will start without it.

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That was the purpose of this thread.

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I spent a few minutes on youtube, hoping to find the instructions that I used, but no luck. There are a ton there though, just search "Soda Can stove". It's surprising how many variations there are.

I've spent hours on that sight already. I hate that they don't put templates with construction instructions and pictures on the same page. Its going to take us an hour or more just to put together all the instructions together with the dimensions.

Unbelievable! I will post an after action report coming soon.

I made one out of a little fire extinguisher I had lying around that went out of date. Talk about irony....

I just finished up loading my pictures. I will start by saying that this is the first time I have ever attempted anything like this. They are damn ugly, but they seem to work great.


The first stove we built was called the Zen mini chimney stove. I apologize for not taking closer pictures of this stove. The Zen website sucks ass so they don't give any instructions on how to properly build one of these stoves, so I winged it somewhat, and then fixed it when it didn't work well.


This stove is constructed from two V8 cans. One is trimmed to the height you see. The second is just the bottom of an additional can that is pressed right side up into the second can. I had put the holes around the top of the can too high so we had to put more holes around it to get enough air flow for a smooth burn. When we tried the stove, we could not set the pot directly on the stove or it would put it out immediately. It was nice of Zen not to put any instructions on how best to use this stove, but they showed it with a pot holder every time its running.

We decided to make a pot holder out of another can. We used a small fruit can for the pot holder. You can see from the picture that we tried to open up plenty of air flow and holes near the top to let the flame out. The results was awesome! It brought 2 cups of water to boil in 5.5 mins. It holds 6 teaspoons of alcohol. You can see the flame coming through the top holes in the pot holder. The lifting affect of the heat really sped up the heating process.


This is a little better picture of the stove and pot holder.




The 2nd stove we built was a copy of Badfish25's stove.
This is his stove. I never took pictures of mine, but it was pretty darn close to identical.


When I set the pot down on this design, it still ran, but it was heating the water really, really slow. I might have screwed something up, but our hole spacing and height was pretty close. No idea why it sucked. We decided to make a pot holder for it to allow more air flow. A chef boyarde can worked perfectly.

This was the ugly result.


The results were incredible. It boiled 2 cups of water in 3.5 mins. It holds 10 teaspoons of fuel and used up all of it about 1 min. after the water came to a rolling boil. You can see how it might work better for a pan than a small pot. It kicked this stove in the ass big time!





The 3rd stove we constructed is a pressurized side jet burner. It is curing right now. I JB welded the bottoms of two pop cans together, copying a stove on Zen's website that they gave great instructions for. I will see the results tomorrow after I clean it up. This design is supposed to not need a pot holder so I can't wait to see how it runs. No pictures of it yet.


We had a blast! My nephew has lurked here for a while but never posted. We were giggling like a couple little kids when we saw how well these things worked.

The little stove is definitely better for back packing. It is small enough to set a canteen cup on it and heat it up quick.

The larger stove will kick maximum butt on a good sized frying pan cooking up yummy bacon or pancakes, or bacon pancakes. I will have to make a simmer ring for the big one to calm it down for slower cooking.


Please feel free to comment on our ugly little creations and offer suggestions on further research and development.

I decided to make a nicer pot holder for my nephews stove. Then I realized I could just make a smaller version of the larger stove, but with the copy of Badfish25's stove made from a V8 can.

The stove is just like the other small stove. 1.5" tall, cut from the bottom of the V8 can. It has 1/4" holes staggered across the top edge.

You can see the holes staggered sloppily on the pot holder.

This thing boiled water in 3.5 minutes!

Yea. Its not small. Its not pretty, but damn does it work. It took about a full minute to get it warmed up enough for the flame to pop out of the little holes around the top, and then for it too work its way around those holes, but once it did the water started bubbling immediately. It burned damn hot.

That is the 3rd stove we made. The pressurized side burner. Two bottoms pushed together? Holes around the outside? Its super lite. I hope it works!

Honestly, even the big one weighs almost nothing. I carry a jet boil. These things come way to close to its performance for comfort!

ETA: it would be super helpful to this thread if you posted some pictures of what you built.

Can you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE post instructions OR a link to instructions as that is one the THE NICEST little backpacking stoves I have seen in a LONG time

Here's one from Backwoods Home Magazine.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/brannan124.html

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