First Alky stove!

G

gadgetgeek

Joined
May 19, 2007
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I built a kinda hybrid side burner stove, took about 30 min, boiled just under a liter of water in about 12 minutes, not too spectacular, but given that I tossed it together and it seems I need to work on the flame dispersion, I'm happy with it. I'm going to try the same design again, but with better precision and fewer jets, and see how that goes. the biggest problem was flames coming up around the sides of the pot, so I'll have to figure that out. anyone build their own? I used no sealants or glues, and it seems to be fine, is that important, or am I just not building enough pressure for it to matter? on a full fill I seem to get 12 min of burn (yeah, just to boiling.)

Method: Bottom inch and a bit of two pop cans, one stretched out a bit, mashed together, the center cut out of one, and holes punched around the side about 3/8 inch from the top. inside can has some small buckles and it seems to wick fuel up between the cans, but I think that just heats it up faster.

fun new project anyway
 
I built one of the Pepsi-G ones over a year ago, and it is still going strong. Boils 2 cups of water in 3-4 minutes, which is about as good as my Jetboil.
 
from Alcohol Zen? I'm hoping for around 1L in 5-7 min, which will be slower than my whisperlite but this is for more of a dayhike, look at this thing I built, kinda idea. I'm thinking that if I can make a system to build them easily, it would make a good urban survival skill, everything you need to build it at 7/11.
 
gadgetgeek said:
from Alcohol Zen? I'm hoping for around 1L in 5-7 min, which will be slower than my whisperlite but this is for more of a dayhike, look at this thing I built, kinda idea. I'm thinking that if I can make a system to build them easily, it would make a good urban survival skill, everything you need to build it at 7/11.
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1L in 5-7 min should be doable, but the limitation is whether or not the methanol will burn that long since the stoves do not have a ton of capacity.
 
yeah, well, I figure that once I have the "burner" built the bottom end can scale up pretty easily, my only limit is what will fit in the kettle, so that gives me a lot of room to work with. more testing and a couple more builds tonight once I can actually see the flames.
 
gadgetgeek said:
yeah, well, I figure that once I have the "burner" built the bottom end can scale up pretty easily, my only limit is what will fit in the kettle, so that gives me a lot of room to work with. more testing and a couple more builds tonight once I can actually see the flames.
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That's the other problem, they don't scale well.

They work by vaporizing the methanol in the double wall area, which ignites and comes out of the side or top holes. I will tell you from experience that this does not work well, especially in cold temps, if you make it much taller than most of the designs. :(
 
it is fun! super simple (kinda) and a new challenge.

Mine have all been single wall designs, I think that the double wall design is flawed, not in that it doesn't work, but I think that it just creates more thermal mass in the stove. any pressure that builds up in the "wall" would only push fuel out, insulating it from the fire, but I could be totally wrong. hmm, unless it is a very small amount of pressure..... I'l figure out a way to test my theories. I going to need more cans!
 
Try the big Fosters[Australian for beer, mate] cans. More capacity for a longer burn time. You can also use what i call a priming cup. Just a small shallow cup cut from a slightly larger can that you can set your stove in. Put a little alcohol in it and light it at the same time as your stove. Heats your stove and quickens the vaporization process--KV
 
Are Guinness cans the same size? I couldn't buy fosters here in canada even if I wanted to. it would offend my GF too much, it's not the same as real aussi fosters.
 
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