Adding an Alcohol Stove to my hiking cooking system was the plan for this New Year. The Trangia Stove was my choice and while in Taupo went to the local camping shop, but it was out of stock. The salesman said, make your own, heaps of Youtube videos out there on the subject, so here we are.
Today was the day, so I gathered materiels I thought I needed-
- 2x empty fizzy drink cans
- cutting tool blade
- 2x sellotape rolls 36mm, 48mm
- nail (making holes and crimping base)
- scissors
Using the 36mm sellotape roll as a guide, cut the bases of each of the cans.
Using the 48mm sellotape as a guide, cut out the middle section of one of the cans. This is then cut and rolled in a tube shape to fit in those ridges of the 2 bases, this creates the second wall for the burner.
You can now staple this or cut 2 slots like I did to hold the shape as the bases are pressed together to form the double walled stove.
Before pressing the bases together, crimping the bottom base using a nail to create dimples makes it so much easier to merge and seal the 2 bases.
Once both bases are pressed together:
- top base, cut out the large centre hole with cutting tool
- using long nose pliers ran along the holes edges to remove any sharp bits
- top base, marked and punched small holes as evenly spaced as I could with a nail
Testing ...
Well I filled the Stove with Meths (about 1/5th from the bottom), lit the stove. It took about 45secs for the small holes to produce a flame, time to boil a pot of water for those noodles.
It took around 18mins to boil 1.5cups of water, and I am really impressed I made this Stove in about 25mins.
Post thoughts, things I would do differently.
- cut/drill/punch all holes before doing anything to the cans
- make the centre hole smaller in diameter
- make the small holes smaller in diameter and more of them.
- find an alternative fuel, methylated spirits burns harsher and produces more of a yellow flame (I'm guessing here).
This was fun to make
- with every post comes experience, as we all strive to do better.
- curate/up vote, let's encourage and inspire each other.
- as always, thank you for viewing my post.