Blimey, twigs, are you still using that old finger joint at the ends of the clone? The slot and tab is far better; use the script I sent in January, or ask me for the latest.
BTW, I've been trying to reproduce d3lphi's printing problem, but have been unable to do so. The script doesn't centre the template on the page (except the "draughtsman's view" on page 1); it puts it in the bottom LH corner. I've set GSView to use a US Tabloid media for display, and everything looks fine.
I suspect some misunderstanding with the use of the script, or printer 'being too clever'. d3lphi says his printer couldn't print to the edge, so bits were missing when he forced the position and printed it out; the script forces a margin around the page to deal with this very problem.
I suspect some misunderstanding with the use of the script, or printer 'being too clever'. d3lphi says his printer couldn't print to the edge, so bits were missing when he forced the position and printed it out; the script forces a margin around the page to deal with this very problem.
I measured my taped together two page template and it is right at 17" at the widest so its just not small enought to fit on one US tabloid sized page, due to the forced margins of my printer.
> I measured my taped together two page template and it is right at 17" at the widest so its just not small enought to fit on one US tabloid sized page, due to the forced margins of my printer.
The script will also force a page margin, too, to deal with the problem of printers not printing right to the edge.
Everything is explained now; thanks for the extra info.
The lap-fell joint is good, but prone to spring open. Your finger stops that. I'm not quite sure how the lap-fell of the lower section is made when the finger is in place; looks like you have to over-insert the finger, and then pull the lap-fell halves back together again. Interesting, but I think I'll stick with the slot and tabs.
How well do the upper and lower halves stay together? i.e. if you lift the upper half, does the lower half come with it, or drop off? The advantage of the Flissure fingers is that the conic shape forces them to hold the fingers together, so the two halves don't come apart until the main joint is opened.
I must say that I've become very partial to the Flissure; it's a good solution to the problem of packing (for taller pans, anyway), and it's not that much of an added faff when you get the hang of putting it together.
CP - a follow on to the last post - in your recent picture, I noticed the configuration around the handle section appears to be customized a good bit. I've highlighted it below:
This is what has really given me fits in getting a design that I really like. created a flissure clone that worked pretty well, but to get the top to be stable around the handle section I had to lower the overall height. In doing this I had to use Ti tent stakes inserted into the clone for pot supports.
I'd love to see a close up of this particular clone separated so that I can get a better understanding of the last step. I just picked up a Snow Peak 700 Ti mug and have some time to tinker a bit.
With the thin foil I use, I don't use any joint in the upper section, but rely on the natural curve of the clone after it's been rolled up a few times. The interlocking Flissure joint is enough to hold the upper and lower halves together, and encourage the handle ends to stay in place. And no, the upper part doesn't fit into the tab closure of the bottom part.
I also ensure that the last tab of the Flissure joint is inside the lower section, and there's a short overlapping 'tail' on each of the ends of the upper part. If you look at the picture above, you'll see that, at the pan, there's a wide handle opening, underneath which the opening narrows with a step. To make the tail, I simply step the opening in again, underneath the bottom of the handle. I trim the tails so that they overlap by about 1/2".
It may be that, if you're using the thicker aluminium flashing, it needs more encouragement to form the cone shape, as it's stiffer. Roll the thing up for storage a few times (into a smaller diameter cone), and that should encourage it to take up and hold a curved shape, and prevent it popping out of the lower section. Ideally, when you unpack it, it should relax into just about the perfect cone diameter, and not need to be 'forced' to align the slot and tab joints.
Here's a section of the template, with details removed to highlight the 'tail':
I've trimmed and rounded the square end of the tail.
The pan, once in place, also helps to hold the upper part together.
If you think about it, in a Clone without the Flissure joint, there would be nothing to hold thehandle section 'closed'; there couldn't be, because you couldn't have the handle opening...
The Flissure is no different to this case, except that there's a Flissure joint. Fortunately, a well-made Flissure joint behaves pretty much as a solid Clone because of the way the conic parts of the Flissure joint overlap.
If you're still having trouble, and you have spare room at the top of the pan, you could increase the /fissureDepth parameter to lengthen the Flissure fingers, which should make them even more secure; the depth of the overlap is twice this setting.
Thanks CP! It made a lot more sense after I got a correctly cut out template.
I still need to drill the intake and exhaust holes but here is a good idea of what mine looks like. I also folded up a lid real quick from some scrap... Not sure what I think of the lid yet, like I said I just folded it up with some needle-nosed pliers. I really like the way the flissure joints lets eventhing fit into the mug. Thanks again CP!
Looks good. Glad you know how it's meant to work now. It's a weenie little cup; a Snow Peak something?
A couple of points.
It looks like your upper part still needs a 'good telling', i.e. some more rolling up and unrolling, as you can still see it straining slightly. I guess you haven't done this yet because you'll have to unroll it again to drill the holes...
The tabs on the joints can also be usefully pre-curved to encourage the clone to take a nice circular shape. Take a piece of scrap and fold in in half, and then slide it under the tab. Then carefully and gently bend the tab to put in a gentle curve; if you can find a large can or another larger diameter pan, you can form the bend around that. Then take the scrap out; its purpose is to stop the tab closing up, a bit like a pipe-bending spring.
It looks like you've cut the triangular reinforcement off the outer end of the base; I imagine this is because you've found that it's not necessary in the thicker foil. Ah, looking more closely, I see it's still there in the packed photo, only it appears to be folded inwards; it's meant to be on the outside so the overlap can be flush. Won't matter that much, and could be folded away from the body of the clone as it is.
Finally, I've made lids just like that; oh, like in the snowy picture... I used a smaller lip as it makes bending a little easier (fewer wobbly bits). It works okay, but it's not brilliant.
I've always punched holes; would a centre mark for drilled holes be useful? Would save having to guess where to centre punch. <done>
Glad to see you're working on the kitchen table; that's where all good stove development should take place...
Oh, and here's a picture of a Strata for the LifeVenture 400ml mug in an MSR Titan kettle Flissure:
Stupidly, it's not quite an LV Strata, as I forgot to measure the mug before building a Strata for the estimated MSR titan mug... I wondered why it seemed too small, and then realised it was designed for a 3" notional diameter, rather than the 81mm it actually is...
Centering dots would be most helpful! Right now I just use a wood boring drill bit that is the same size as the hole I'm drilling that helps lining up the center just a bit easier! I use that bit as a punch and just a uni-bit to actually make the hole. I would need a much stonger punch to get through this stuff.
This kind of ali I have is very stiff and doesn't really need the triangular reinforcment, but yes I did mistakenly fold it the wrong way. Which is quite annoying to say the least and its quite difficult to get this stiff stuff to bend in a small and controlled manner.
If you are talking about the tab closure on thebottom section that is exactly what I did. I used a tripled up piece of scrap taped together as a spacer as as something to bend the tab around.
Yep, its on the kitchen counter right next to the electric stove... Luckily I have a very tolerant wife!
Thanks for the offer! The drill works, it just takes a bit longer (no pun intended). I think I have already spend enough on this "cheaper" version of the clone.
> the triangular reinforcment, but yes I did mistakenly fold it the wrong way
This should be recoverable; just make another fold behind the inner edge of the reinforcement triangle, and bend the entire triangle out so that it's flush again.
twiglegs, how deeply can you put stuff into that little punch? Would save a lot of tedious use of core punch and hammer. I might need to add some alignment marks on the template to centre the punch over the hole (again, easily done).
I finished my clone this weekend and gave it a test run. I got a very nice boil time of 3:45 for 1.75 cups (414ml) of water using 1 fl. oz (29.6ml) of denatured alcohol.
One slight problem, I melted/burned part of the upper section. The tabs under the handle cutout that are bent in slightly, must have got just a little too hot and I burned off the corners about 6-8 mm of metal was lost.
Also the feel of the metal is now much less springy and any bend stays put and does not snap back as before. This happened but to a much less degree on my first cone that was all one piec.
Burner certainly very hot, which I think is the fundamental problem here:
> I got a very nice boil time of 3:45 for 1.75 cups (414ml) of water using 1 fl. oz (29.6ml) of denatured alcohol
That speed for nearly 500ml is very fast; I don't get much faster than 7 minutes for 500ml. It may be worth trading speed for efficiency, and go for a burner that will boil 500ml in 7 minutes, but only burn 15ml of fuel.
As for the metal, it's likely that something that can be made springy is a more complex alloy, with a lower eutectic point, so may soften at a lower temperature than purer aluminium, or simple alloys. Yonky may be able to comment on this.
Was it windy when you did the test? I've seen a wind-blown flame melt a section of a SqueezeBox stove.
> This happened but to a much less degree on my first cone that was all one piec.
A one-piece cone will conduct heat away from hot spots that tend to form below and around the pan, just at the Flissure joint, which can be seen by the scorching in Sweeper's photo:
The thermal break in the Flissure means that it can't conduct heat away so well from the very point where it gets hottest, so if there's a lot of waste heat heading to that area, it may well overheat the metal.
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