Gear

CP, as regards a supply of thin aluminium sheet, printing plates are made from Aluminium, in 0.14, 0.235, 0.278, 0.335 & 0.380 mm thicknesses (may vary slightly between manufacturers). Generally one side (the printing side) will be a matt finish that has a tough anodised layer, the other side will be shiny, with a much thinner anodising. Used plates will probably have a curve to them where they've been fitted on the press, unused plates should be flat.

If you know a friendly printer then you should be able to get a couple of used plates out of their scrap bin, or perhaps an unused one that was made with a mistake on it.

Don't see any reason why you can't design a Caldera Clone to suit a remote canister stove; just add as many holes as you see fit, and a cutout at the bottom for the gas line, and perhaps cutouts to allow the feet to stick out, if necessary.  You'd need to set the parameters so that the pan sat at the right place (i.e. touching at the cone rim, whilst sitting on the pan support).  A bit of accurate measurement would be required, that's all.

Shuttleworth, ta for the printer's litho plate tip; I'd been reminded of them a while back on one of the other threads.  I used to do the film society's publicity at Uni, so I should have remembered them.  Admittedly, they switched to paper plates as they're fine for low volume runs, and much cheaper.

captain paranoia wrote (see)

 Now, if only I could find some of this mythical 'oven liner' that the Yanks seem to find at every corner shop and supermarket...

Disposable barbecues?

Finally got hold of some foil to make a couple of Clones.

One for the AGG 700ml pan, weighing 24g (vs 25g prediction):

and one for the AGG 2 quart pan, weighing 37g (vs 38g prediction):

As you can see, I changed the joint design between making the two, in the light of experience of how soft the foil was.  This made the original mitre joint a bit unstable mechanically; it would open up and change the effective diameter of the opening.  The tab method is one I've been using on drink can burner inner walls for about ten years, only these tabs are a bit bigger...

I opted for holes, rather than slots for two reasons:

i) I think holes provide better wind resistance than slots
ii) I think holes provide a design less prone to damage than slots.

Not necessarily...

To make a slot, you'd punch two end holes, and then cut between them.  Cutting is less of a faff than punching, so a smaller number of slots could be easier to make than lots of holes...

Now, if you wanted to make nice, radial slots, you'd have a bit more trouble cutting between the holes...

On the off chance that anyone is interested, I've taken the opportunity of a quiet period to revamp the generator code.

It now offers three joint options (fingers, mitre & tabs), allows up to two rows of holes (to check gas flow allowances), and calculates the area of the holes, and the finished weight.

Send a message with your email address if you'd like the code.

I decided to have a bodge at making one of these and thought it might be interesting / amusing for you all.

I bought a cheap trangia copy burner (£3.50 world of camping, thanks for the tip Trevor ) with a view to making a simple & light brew kit as an alternative to a hexi stove.

Kevin (CP) kindly helped with the plans , I have no engineering / DIY skills to speak of and that program looked complicated, for me.

It was made in the kitchen with only kitchen tools and some pliers - as it's not quite right (and private!) it's been designated MkI

Orginally the plan was to make one for an Timug but MkI was actually made for the MSR kettle

I found some serving trays  from Sainsbury@ 2 for £2.49, which are mid weight alu sheet. Possibly a bit light for long-term but easy to work, will support the weight of a full kettle and I was there anyway  

They're possibly a wee bit too small (by about 1cm in length) to fit the plan on and allow for Kevin's fancy tabbing arrangement - this may account for the 'offset' shape of mine

I think that flattening the tray properly and opening out the folded edges would make the sheet just big enough, I have one spare for MkII.

For the holes I used a hole punch (office one for the rim ones) and a screwdriver for the others - all tidied up and edged with thin nosed plyers. MkII I'll do it properly.

It's not that pretty, and not as conical as I'd like but it works!

This one is giving me a boil time of about 9 mins (indoors but still air) for a full MSR kettle on a splash of meths but it'll do for testing the concept / working out how to store it without crushing it.

When I've got time I'll time / consumption test it against my trangia. It's certainly light but I'll have to include some form or protective storage

The cost is about £6 so far (inc MkII).

Based on 2 non-scientific boil tests it certainly seems the answer for the quick cuppa and maybe for a weekend.

HTH

> It's certainly light but I'll have to include some form or protective storage

The meths bottle caddy:

Either like that, or using two bottom halves.  Cut the two halves off to the same height* in one of the indentations.  Then cut two slots down into one of the 'segments', so that they cut into the indent, slots separated by 1/3 the circumference.

You can then slot the other half onto the other, with the 2/3 section inside, and the 1/3 section outside.  This holds the two halves together remarkably securely.

* oddly, the meths bottle segments all seem to be different sizes, and we need two that mate perfectly.

Here is Mk2 so you can all have a giggle.

The increased height suggested by CP gives a much better flame and the boil-time seems a bit quicker.

It's still made from a sainsbury foil tray (just not quite big enough but fine if you ignore the tiny gap behind the tabs) the foil is quite thin and may not stand up to rough treatment. 

Still it's a very cheap and light way to test the concept and so far it seems it will be fine for a light brew kit.

Plan by CP, bodging by me and holes made witha scrounged 10mm copper pipe connector, sharpened on one end and hit with hammer.

Unit cost less than £1.50 plus burner @£3.50

Planning to road test it in Wales this w/e

> The increased height suggested by CP gives a much better flame and the boil-time seems a bit quicker

Rog originally used a design intended for a 32mm red bull burner, so his 45mm Trangia clone gave too small a gap between burner and pan.

This needed just a two-character change to the PostScript file to set the 'correct' height.

Nice work, Rog; hope it proves successful.

I'd be tempted to put more holes in the top, and fewer in the bottom, though; you need to get the exhaust gases out.  One might argue that exhaust ports need to be bigger than inlet ports, due to the expanding gases.

> MAGIC OVEN LINER

No; that's a PTFE thing, I think, so won't be stiff enough.

The Americans seem to be more profligate in their use of resources, and so their 'oven liner' is disposable foil.  We don't seem to get it in the UK, sadly.

But it's worth looking out for big, disposable or re-useable foil cookware; Bacofoil, for instance, do a range of such cookware.