dave
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Post by dave on Dec 3, 2009 15:11:22 GMT -8
This was my first creation after the soup can experiment convinced me that it would work. It is made from stuff I had laying around. 5" steel tubing for large truck exhaust systems, two ammo cans, and the rectangular burn tunnel is two pieces of angle iron with a 1" piece welded in to get the dimensions I wanted of 5" wide by a little less than 4" high. The 5 gallon cans were a real beotch to weld. I filled the sections with perlite as I went. It seemed to be a bit tempermental with feeding and airflow for awhile at first. It wanted the front cleanout door to be partially open, at least until it had been running good for 1/2 hour or so, then it didn't matter. I am guessing that was due to the time to build up heat in the heavier gauge steel tunnel and pipe. It was still cool to boil a 1/2 filled teakettle on it with just some twigs though! It had a faint rocket sound the whole time. At times it would smoke if things weren't right, other times it was little to no smoke, at least the best I could tell being dark out.
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dave
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Posts: 23
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Post by dave on Dec 3, 2009 15:13:35 GMT -8
Another while running with stick in cleanout door.
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dave
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Posts: 23
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Post by dave on Dec 3, 2009 15:16:59 GMT -8
I have since trimmed down the plate steel at the top and added 3 vertical fins to hold a pot about 1.5" above the exhaust. Don't have a pic of that.
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dave
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Posts: 23
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Post by dave on Dec 3, 2009 15:19:19 GMT -8
A pic of the fire. The outside skin never got over about 110 F, probably mostly from heat transfer.
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dave
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Post by dave on Dec 3, 2009 15:25:38 GMT -8
A pic down the barrel. The flame is just peeking out of the burn tunnel at this point.
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dave
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Post by dave on Dec 3, 2009 15:27:54 GMT -8
Another pic down the barrel about 15 minutes later. No flame visible. I can't put my face over it or anywhere near. I just quickly held the camera above and snapped a pic. Lots of ash everywhere.
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Post by Donkey on Dec 3, 2009 17:10:08 GMT -8
Neat!
I think you'll find that it starts and works best with the clean-out door closed tightly.
You can get better efficiency for cooking if you make the 3 pot-stand legs smaller so that a cylinder of metal can sit down and around (at least the bottom of) your teapot. The cylinder should sit flat on top of the metal plate.
This will force the heat up against the walls of the pot, using more of it where you want it.
You could make various cylinders (sheet metal or whatnot) sized for different sizes of pot.
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Post by derwood on Jan 6, 2010 10:25:01 GMT -8
If you will put a lid on the feed tube and fill it with shorter sticks and open the clean out door it will do much better. I have built a similar stove and it made a big difference. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY8Rky42S88 |
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johnf
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Post by johnf on Feb 14, 2010 23:29:40 GMT -8
Very nice. Neat and sturdy for moving, and indestructible.
It makes sense that it needs time to heat up the innards, & easy to believe that after running for a while, the output was ferociously hot.
Now you're on to the point of use. Pot skirts, maybe set a heat exchanger atop in place of the pot & skirt?
If you really cram fuel into it now, does it put out a fire running up the inside of the vertical?
Also interesting that for a portable unit, you used the horizontal tunnel and vertical feed (the "J"model). Usually you'll see the short horizontal, leading right to the bottom of the vertical burn tube (the "L").
I'm interested in seeing how short the horizontal can be -getting closer to the "L" while still using the convenience of the self-feeding vertical inlet tube of the"J".
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