I'm not sure. I knew I could get a 3 inch pipe, not necessarily a 2, and I know 6 inches by 1 foot is about the smallest practical "micro sized" tent stove I've seen, such as the rollup titanium foil version sold by titanium goat. So - I wasn't about to try for something smaller than that. I'll let you know once it gets colder. based on my experience with stoves in larger hot tents (like an 8 x 10 foot wall jobby) I'd say what I have now throws out a nice enough amount of heat through the stove and pipe to keep me very comfortable down into some pretty nasty temperatures as long as I am feeding it fuel. The goal for winter camping is to have a place to warm up and get dry, and potentially melt a pile of snow for water without listening to the spectacular 45 minute nightly performance of the Grand Symphonic Suite For an Awful Lot of Sveas and Whisperlites. The goal is not to have a tent with central heating that will leave you in your shirtsleeves all night. So this doesn't replace having proper clothing and sleeping arrangements or anything like that. 30 to 45 minutes after I stop feeding it, I expect to have not a heck of a lot of heat coming off it.
Phat, I almost forgot. When are you planning to make mods so we can use it in a hammock. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> TGIF
Less silly than you think actually, I have used a traditional GSW wood stove underneath a big blue tarp at a camp. it's definately not as toasty as an enclosed tent, but it does work and lets you have the fire right under the tarp if you take the pipe out at an angle and make a tripod to prop it up on safely. So in theory you could do the same kind of thing for a warmer hammock camp - but realisticly this little stove would be a bit underpowered for that and probably not worth the bother, considering once you're in the hammock it's gonna be kind of hard to feed the stove (unless you're juggling it in your lap <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
I get down to -5 to -10C with my deconstructed underquilt and a good bag in a hammock. beyond that I give up. Maybe someday if I'm wealthy enough to by a big old overstuffed speer pea pod I might go out colder with a hammock. but not for now. (plus I think you'd have a hard time getting me to give up this rig with a BA insulated aircore mat and blue foamies in it <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
yeah, he basically made a hot tent to hang inside. I'm not so keen on that - you can't feed the stove easy from inside the hammock, and realisticly unless you're packing a full size airtight stove you're not going to get all-night heat out of it. So you're still hammocking in whatever below - I can do that without the stove and tent, or be comfortable on the ground (because at those temps I carry 3 pads) in the tent. don't get me wrong, I'm a card carrying hammock mafia member when it's not below -5 to -10. It's just below that to me, it becomes a matter of proving a point rather than actually being comfortable <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Sounds like your creating the portable home away from home. Thought. If you frequent the same camping spot more than once, you could stash gear. Like cookware, furniture etc. I have done this before to create a fishing camp/stash. An iron skillit is great to cook fish in and will last years buried somewhere. If done right(pile on rocks) no one will ever see it. NOt the best LNT thinking but I have been to a trout stream and anglers were lined up almost elbow to elbow. But they never discovered my stash. I wait till they disperse and I get to stay the night and be first in the stream the next day.
Nope, I'm trying to create something I can carry, not stash. If I was going to stash or bring it in for a long time I'd use the 12x12 or 14x16 wall tent I already have <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Here's my tribute to phat. Still need to get my Shangri-La 6 sewn to take it, but this is an eight inch stove based on his. 5.78 lbs. with six feet of ductwork stove pipe. Would be a lot lighter with a Kifaru/Ti pipe. If you happen to use ductwork for pipe, Lowe's is much lighter than Home Depot (about half a pound per 24" section).
The door end of the stove comes right off and the legs and grill fit inside and it all fits in a sleeping bag sack. The stove pipe fits in a sack for a Thermarest base camp type pad.
Nice job on the door CCH! That 8 incher should probably throw enough heat to make your shangri-la 6 into quite the winter palace.
I like the square hole cutout - considered it for mine but with the 6 inch pipe I thought the hole would be too small - you can pull it off nicely with the bigger 8 inch stove.
I've heard of of galvanized steel being used for stoves for many years. The material is readily available, easy to work and cheap. I've not used it myself, but that is probably because I've not a made a stove like yours.
Here is a link to a post that describes a galvanized stove that failed. I bring it to your attention for safety reasons - you guys can be the judge. Read down to tonycc's post.
The only winter camping that I've ever done was in BS. The winter camping site has inspired me to construct a stove. Now wheather I use it to acctually camp will remain to be seen. But a neet project non the less. Now for my question. How will sill nylon hold up with the heat of the stove? I'm considering sewing something similar to a hex type tent. No floor.
You have to be really careful <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
I cut the stove boot hole in the shangri-la with a soldering iron, as you can see in my pics. My stove boot and location of he hole seem to work ok. but I tested that slowly and carefully. silnylon is flammable, so you'll need a good stove boot and you won't want the stove near a wall.
Silnylon is flammable. Pretty much everyone I know with a stove and silnylon shelter has a few small holes (generally pin size) from cinders coming out from the stove pipe. If they're big enough to leak, they are easily repaired with a drop of silicon. I don't know anyone who has set theirs on fire. As phat said, a good stove jack is key. Burning good wood helps. No pinecones! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> You can get stove jack material from Kifaru or Ti-goat -- it's a heavy, inflammable cloth.
I couldn't get through that link to read about stove durability but did speak with some very experienced stove builders and users while building mine, one of whom used to make commercial stoves of this sort. Although it certainly won't last as long as a good stainless steel one, the consensus was that ductwork is quite suitable for stove building -- just be sure to burn off the galvanized finish before using it in a tent as that stuff is toxic. I had to use a propane torch for spots that didn't heat up enough from burning the stove itself. The main cylinder is the part most likely to wear out. It cost me $9 for a piece big enough to build at least three stoves. I'd imagine that the rest of the pieces will be reusable for quite some time as the ends don't seem to get nearly as hot as the body.
Registered: 10/30/03
Posts: 4963
Loc: Marina del Rey,CA
Hey Rick, I never saw that site before. Thanks for the link. I just spent quite a while looking at the site, reading the forums and also looking at some of the gear mentioned in the posts. Lots of great info on winter camping. Probably the best site around as far as deep cold camping is concerned from what I can tell. Not exactly UL by any means, but at those temps, easy to see why not.
What surprises me is how much of the old school clothing people were recommending-cotton anoraks and all that sort of thing, plus those cotton tents with the stoves in them, like the one you made.
So, how's the weather up your way? I was listening to something on NPR (our version of the CBC) about a woman who had been doing research up in the NWT before it was Nunavit. She said the way the radio announced the temperature in winter was "in seconds until frostbite."
Edited by TomD (11/30/0811:08 PM)
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Don't get me started, you know how I get.
Rick, thanks for fixing the link. Interesting discussion.
By the way, this stove building is addictive. My wife thought I was crazier than usual while at Wal-mart last night. I held up a stainless steel bathroom waste basket mated to a stainless burner cover and asked her what it looked like. Apparently it looked like a waste basket and a burner cover to her while I looked like an idiot, but to me it looked like the start of a stove. Didn't like the flare type taper of the wastebasket but promising none the less. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
indeed - although I suspect the "brittleness" is less a factor of the galvanizing than of just the thin steel - in my experience with cheap sheet metal stoves (like the gsw airtights you can buy in canada) and using galvanized and nongalvanized pipe for them is that it's good for a couple of seasons and that's it. it'll burn out. I fully expect to simply build another of these stoves after a season, maybe 2, depending on how much I use it. If I could find a good souce of stainless that might be another matter. But at that point I'll just give up and buy the titanium goat rollup titanium jobby <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Well even starting from scratch and replacing all parts, I can build six stoves for the price of one Kifaru (which I do plan on getting eventually). Don't get out as much as I'd like to so I think this will last me a bit.
Thin stainless steel is pretty available on the net. My next one might use galvanized end caps and rolled up stainless stock.
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