Mailbox Stove

New to the forum, my first post!

I live in PA so our winters aren't EXTREME but they're cold enough to not be so fun if you don't have much experience in the season. My first winter experience was a few years ago, temp w/ wind chill was 2 degrees... we did not have a good time.

So this year I'm going to try again and decided a stove was a good idea. I've seen the idea on a few sites, its cheap and light so I figured why not. I haven't field tested it yet but home tests feel promising. Total cost was around $25, Tell me what ya think!

http://nate.bstack.net/Stove

Peace
-Nate

Nate, are you using this stove to heat your tent?

It should work well for a smaller tent, assuming you get an appropriate stove boot and pipe into it.

Planning on it. Not sure exactly what tent yet though. In summer I typically hammock camp, but I've heard mixed reviews about doing that in the winter. If my next winter trip goes well I might consider making a hammock tent and putting it in there.

Last week I ordered a military pup tent off ebay which should hopefully be here shortly. My plan for now is to use a tarp setup to make a sort of entrance way / cook area to my pup tent and set the stove in there. That way I should get some heat reflected into the tent, but there's still air movement should anything on the stove not work properly.

We'll see how it goes, I'm ALWAYS up for suggestions!!

I would suggest a flat area on top to heat water in a pot.

Was just considering that myself. On another forum I saw someone with a cylindrical stove put some screws through the top that made a flat surface for his pot, might try that if all works well.

On a side note, should I be worried about toxic fumes? I burned the stove quite a few times in open air to burn off any paint, but is there a problem with burning in whatever type of metal cheap mailboxes are made of?

The flat top would be easy..Just make some feet that would attach to the rounded top and then turn it up-side down...sabre11004

P.S. You are obviously not concerned with the added weight so I think that may work...

Be Carefull burning this in a confined area. Often mailboxes are Galvanized steel. I know dont know what temp it will reach, but when welding or heating galvanized it gives off a acidic gas that is not good for you, I dont remember the name of the gas it was years ago when i did hood and duct instalation.

Thanks for the concern, that's one issue I've been contemplating since I started.

Galvanized metal will oxidize on the first heat up and change color. the gas it throws is toxic. Do that outside and don't breathe it.

After you burn up the galvanized coating it's gonna be fine.

I've done the same the little stove I made for my shangri-la hot tent rig

Glad to hear from someone who's done this before!

I burned it a few times now just for heat test, I think before I take it out for real I'll build up a good fire at home and throw it on, just to make sure I've burned it all off.

Thanks Phat, I kindathought that, but I wasnt sure enough of memory to print it! The Mind is the second thing to go! I forgot what the first thing was!

haha nice jason! i follow your blog! Gear Talk with Jason Klass!

I made a mailbox shaped stove before I discovered vertical and baffle type stoves.I made up 10 of these stoves and I still have them never used them because I had the new idea. You will notice that I use a spark arrestor. To get any cooking done without a baffle, I cut a hole in the top to put my kettle in the fire. I like this stove because I could lay long pieces of fire wood on the ash tray and feed it as it burned. I have to cut my wood into 5" lengths for the vertical stove. The 3" tapered chimney ( 3-18" sections) as shown here is the centerpole for what ever shelter I use. The metal stove jack rests on the flange seen on the spark arrestor picture.

chipmac,

that's a pretty cool looking design. Why the extended bottom to your chimney pipe if you don't mind me asking. I've notice a few people doing this but didn't really understand why you'd prefer that over say sheet metal removable legs. Also, do you have any trouble with smoke, either from the door (you mentioned feeding wood as it burned) or from the flap for your kettle.

Thanks!
-Nate

The chimney has the weight of the tarp on it, so it has to rest on the ground.The tapered sections of the tapered chimney are joined with tapered 4" sleeves that get tight when they are slid over the joint. The chimney is more secure than a loose chimney siting in a stove with a stove jack that can jerk up and down in the wind. When a stove has 4 legs they have to be supported in melting snow. I now use a bottom base for the chimney that has a notch to fit a long piece of fire wood to bridge melted snow or be handles to adjust postion of a hot stove.
The fire has to be watched, if the wood out side is not pushed in it will start to burn at the door way. I cannot remember smoking thru the kettle hole, when the kettle is not there the flap is shut. The chimney has good draw as it is oversized for the stove. Check my other posts to see my tarp shelter.

See also, http://www.zombiehunters.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=53145

Any questions are welcome
Thankyou, Arlen

Added some pictures of my first test run (although its 60 degrees outside so I couldn't get much of a feel for it) I registered about a 10 degree increase, after only about 40 minutes of burning (not much wood either).

You can check out the pictures at:
http://nate.bstack.net/Stove

I did notice some smoke coming through the gap in the door, I attempted to fix this by propping up the chimney end, but no luck. Any suggestions?


Peace
-Nate

I noticed you have your flue exiting the stove at the back of the stove, partway up, through a pipe bend - if you ask me this is probably not what you want. My suspicion is you want that flue to come out right at the top of the stove, otherwise, with hot air rising, you will have a pile of smoky hot air sitting *above* the flue exit, and ready to leak out your door.

My little mini-stove has the exit at the top - and I don't get smoke leakage out the door.

That's an excellent point, I put the flu in the back because I figured it would be easier to fit a pipe to. I put it as close to the top as I could without interfering with the crimping that holds it on; but now that I think about that means the back needs to be an inch or so higher then the front to keep smoke from going out the front. Thanks for the input!