St Rick: Wings Archive is working fine for me still.
Email me and I'll send you a PDF of the pattern for the pan support. It's just the bodies of three 330ml cans opened up, and a tab cut at one end, and a slot somewhere in the middle. You just insert the tabs into the slots, and it all packs away flat, and weighs about 30g.
Forgive me if this is a very stupid question, but what is to stop me using unleaded petrol in one of these stoves? Meths is a little more expensive than petrol at about £4 a ltr, versus the (extremely expensive) £1/ltr for unleaded.
Obviously I don't want to blow myself up!!!
So let me know what i've missed, and why I can't use petrol!
come June time ill have a bit more time on my hands and will be looking for a new project. I think this will be it, as it incorparates all my interests, ie recycling, light weight, functional. with a bit of fire thrown in for fun.
erm, better start drinking some more beer, i need the empty cans ~ honest
David, if you use petrol you are running the risk of creating a lovely fireball.
Why?
Ironically, it is because petrol is *harder* to ignite. drop a match in meths and it will burn merrily away. The same won't happen with petrol. Heat the petrol up, and you can ignite the vapour - but as the whole stove heats up, the petrol will vapourise very quickly, then the vapour ignites with a wooff.
Now,I've used an open petrol 'cooker' made with dry sand and a baking tray - put the sand in the tray, pour in enough petrol to make the sand damp but *NOT* wet. then light it very carefully. The vapour burns nicely just above the sand. The petrol can only burn as fast as the vapour can diffuse through the sand.
The trouble with using this system in general is that you have to let all the petrol burn away at the end - you can't just blow out the flames and let it cool down. A dangerous cloud of petrol vapour will build up above the sand.
Now, it *could* work if the sand bed was small, and the petrol was delivered from a reservoir. Shut off the petrol flow, and let the fire die down. This is pretty much how a standard stove works anyway, the commercial ones use jets instead of a sand bed.
Just seen this discussion,have made quite a few of these stoves ,using fibre glass,perlite and nothing inside ,loads of designs on Wings site .I experienced these in the US on the App Trail,I found the penny stove which has no absorbent materialthe best.If you are into these it is worth experimenting with a wood burning stove using twigs then you have no need to carry fuel,worth knowing about as an emergency measure.Tests have been done comparing alcohol stoves with gas,the longer you are out the more sense gas makes,falls down in the US as gas is not always available ,cooking slow with gas really conserves fuel and lots managed on the AT with gas.
i am interested in building a can alcohol stove. My problem is, how do you put the top and bottom together without any slits, creases, or JB weld? and it still have a tight seal with no leaks? Also which is better...put the top on the outside or inside?
I know you said no creases, etc. but in my experience, the creasing method can create a pretty airtight seal, so much so that I once tried to mate the two halves before drilling holes, only to find that the air pressure made it difficult... It just depends on how deeply you want crease; deeper makes for easier assembly, but poorer seal, shallow makes for a pig of assembly, but a better seal.
I've always used lower outer, and used the ring at the top this can create to help prime the stove.
I'd also venture that you probably don't want to build up THAT much pressure that you get leaks from the sides...
