Ice Shanty Heater/Cooker

[johnjmw]

What is the ice shanty rocket resting on? I keep picturing it on the ice itself and melting through. I'd think the bottom of the rocket gets plenty hot so it will have to be on something safe enough. The legs will help but I still would be leery.
John

[swizzlenutz]

I've seen people build bonfires right on the ice. Once you have 3 or 4 inches its fine. The ice won't melt clean through. They usually lay bark strips down and the wet bark won't burn, if anything it may smolder around the edges. I have the rocket part built. The bucket, the exhaust pipe and the feed tube are all in place. However I'm seeing a slight problem with air leaks around the pipes where I cut the holes. I took my time and cut it as neat as I could but the holes were a little to small so I used a hammer and a lot of little taps to shape it a bit bigger. The pipes are in nice and tight but everywhere I sliced the top with tin snips there's a little hole. Would JB weld be strong enough to plug the holes or is there something else that's made to take the heat a little better. I want to get this as air tight as possible before I fire it up again. The legs are short, fat bolts with nuts. I'm using carriage bolts. I'll cut out little squares in the base for the bolts to fit into before I put in a layer of cement. I'd like to use fire mortar or whatever they call it but I haven't seen it in the stores around here. When I did have it going it was burning good and had a nasty rocket sound to it. Almost sounded like it wanted to take off. Swizzle

[Donkey]

I don't think JB can handle the heat.
The few pocket rockets that I've made, It didn't seem to matter much weather it was tight or not.
They seem to blast through so fast that everything goes where it's supposed to, which is really right out the chimney.. These things develop plenty of suck.. I've seen older pocket rockets that were full of holes and still worked like a champ, no leaking into the room.

What yer gonna need to be careful of is where the chimney goes out of the shanty. When they're jamming, they can shoot flame a foot or so out of a six to eight foot chimney!! That pipe will be plenty hot, so be sure there's good clearance all around it, AND you don't want the chimney to stop under an eve or something..

[swizzlenutz]

The shanties I most commonly see are only maybe 6 foot by 8 foot. Maybe I should consider downsizing the pocket rockets to the size of a coffee can then. One problem I'm finding is that all the coffee cans now have a thin sheet of aluminum on top instead of a solid can. How much could a pocket rocket be downsized though before its to small? I think I would be looking for muffler pipe or another small diameter pipe for the exhaust and just use a bean can for the down feeder. With these shanties being as small as they are its a matter of getting the right sized fuel to keep them going throughout the day. Don't seem like they would need much. I wonder how long a 2x4x8 would burn if it was all cut into 1 foot x 3/4" strips or use 1x6's to get 1"x1"? I'm hoping to get a few built that can still be used to cook as well as heat the shanty and then sell little bundles of precut wood to go with the stove. Just trying to figure out how to get the most bang for my buck. I'd love to make stoves out of the big barrel shaped Heineken keg cans. Swizzle

[dave]

JB weld won't hold up to the heat. I know from a cobbled quick experiment with soup cans.

[grizbach]

swizzle,
As far as downsizing, I made my pocket out of a gallon paint thinner can, a beercan for the feeder tube, and 4 ft of gutter for the stack. I had to replace the aluminum beercan with steel right away, but the rest is holdingup. I use furnace cement for sealer.
It burns 3/4" branches just fine. For it's size, it has quite a bit of heat(that its loosing out the chimney).

[Donkey]

Umm.. Ya know the five gallon metal paint can is the classic size for a pocket rocket..
There's just about the right amount of room for a six inch feed and a four inch chimney.
Smaller isn't really that practical, and the five gallon size pumps out plenty of heat.

[woodman]

Slow the burn time down a bit with this beer keg style stove.

[/img]

[swizzlenutz]

That keg can is awesome. I have an ad on craigslist right now looking for keg cans for a different design. I may have to change my design after seeing that. Where can I find the plans to build that one? That is the coolest little homemade potbelly.

Donkey downsizing a rocket would definitely be a challenge for use inside a small enclosure. Eskimos use a candle or a small oil lamp to heat up their igloo's so the same should apply to a shanty. They should need very little to get it heated up. But cooking a hotdog over a candle could take a long time. I'd like to have a mini system built to warm the shelter as well as be able to cook say 3 or 4 sausages or a hamburger or two. With a typical 5 gallon pocket rocket you'd need to have it set up right in the middle of the shanty to keep it away from flammable surfaces. I think I would need two coffee cans. One for the body and one up higher to use as a heat catch and flat plate for cooking. Most of the fishermen around here fire up their stoves and 2 minutes later they're standing outside because they are too hot. in this case less is more and try to balance that with a cooking surface will be the toughest part.

I'll definitely look for the furnace cement and try to create something with one gallon cans just to see if it'll work. Thanx for the info guys. Hopefully I'll get a decent working mdel soon and then have a prototype to work with and improve on. Swizzle