How to Make a Rocket Stove from a Coffee Can

so in this video I'm going to try to make a rocket stove out of a coffee can and some soup cans so basically what a rocket stove is it's kind of a portable camp / emergency stove made out of just readily available materials there's other types of rocket stoves there's ones that are much bigger and I think they're like reburning stoves but anyways in this case this is like a little mini emergency stove kind of cool just want to tempt it and the nice thing about these stoves is they just burn twigs or wood so stuff laying rest you don't need propane or a nap-nap of fuel or anything like that okay so let's get started so what do I have here I have a coffee can to medium sized cans that were used for I think like I'll forget ears SpaghettiOs stuff like that it's a little bit larger than a soup can and then I have a soup can alright let's get started and do some cutting so the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to trace out the bottom here and have that's the opening specifically for the soup can I'm just doing this roughly and she do so now I'm going to drill out all the way around and then or use just a dremel to cut this out it makes this project I think would be a lot easier with a dremel but you probably get away with pair of tin snips because we got to do some cutting up around there later but I'm just going to drill all the way around so that way it makes it easy to cut up with dremel so I'm just going to do that real quick so I got the holes drilled so using a dremel is gonna make this a whole lot easier but if you had to you could just drill a little closer maybe if you could score it a little bit and so the drill bit doesn't slide around and then you could just cut it out with something like a pair of pliers like this or I should say cutters kind of like that but using a dremel is just so much more well easy so I'm gonna use one but if you don't have one you don't have to have it all right I'm just gonna take a couple minutes and clean that up alright got this hole nice and cleaned up careful nice sharp edges soup can fit so nicely so I'm gonna cut out the bottom of the soup can going to now in one of the other in the other can and the larger can I'm gonna put this guy in kind of like that so the way it's gonna sit inside this bigger bigger tin can it'll be like that so we'll sit like so this will be on the inside so they look like that on the outside and the inside it'll look like that just everybody kind of like this next is gonna trace out it's not the best but I'll I'll work with it yeah that should work all right so I'm gonna drill or Dremel this out so you're going to cut this OD well okay I got this cleaned up the bottom cut out of the soup can so the soup can goes into the larger can not so what will end up happening this goes inside like that like that into small like that that's angled down a little bit I gotta just clean that up a bit but that's kind of kind of how it works and then this outer can will go on top of here so I'm gonna have to cut around so it's a little bit below and I'm gonna insulate the inside of it okay so I took this can I cut this the other one for the center part one of the midsize can cut it in half or up to the point where it's going to be slightly below this because this is going to get filled with some type of insulating material and then I'm going to take the dremel and I'm gonna dremel out or you can use tin snips and cut out a couple tabs and bend them down using this lid cut a hole out in here in the center for the exhaust for the chimney and it's gonna fit down in like that to hold the insulation material down so it doesn't spill out and then just fold east and that'll hold this lid down nice and simple and what that will do is it'll provide a bit of a lip here what it will provide here is this will be raised relative to the exhaust and I'll put a grate or something or you could put your pot directly over this if your pot is wide enough or your pan if not if you're using something smaller I'm gonna you know you can use some type of mash or something to to put across like that and then put your pot on it so all right so next I'm just gonna cut these out get that ready and then I'm gonna mix up some material for insulation and that should pretty much do it all right so a tab lid cut litter cap I should say like that cans like stoves like that try to Center it that'll just fit right on top like that and then this will just line up once I get this all filled so next I'm going to tape this up with some metal tape this isn't really fireproof but what it'll do is it hold it in place while I pour the refractory or I should be insulation I'm using a mixture of sand plaster of Paris and perlite just keep the weight down that's just a experiment you can use any type of insulating material you like I've seen people use ash seen some people use sand pebbles rocks so whatever you want whatever you have available it's pretty rudimentary but I'm just gonna use that because I think it'll insulate well and I have some leftover from forge I made so I'm gonna give that a try and the perlite should keep the weight down on this so that's the the middle part the inside what we would call the chimney there we go now I'm going to put it in so again the way this goes this can goes in like that and then goes on the other side so it sits in right like that that's what the inside of it looks like pretty simple okay I'm gonna get the the insulating material ready and then we'll pour it let it set and we'll test fire it and we'll also cut out a great for the top and then a little little thing for inside the fire chamber here the combustion chamber just so that it's the fuel is raised off of the bottom a little bit so air can get underneath okay let's do that next all right so now I have some plaster of Paris some stained perlite even this big bag takes up all kinds of room okay I decided to go find a bucket and mix it in here because it just was too hard to mix into containers now I can get it proper mix so now I'm gonna add the water and I'm gonna pour it in to the container so I just taped up the front here just so nothing would come out there's a little gap here now I'm going to pour it in would have fun I rent just a little short all right so to mix it up another batch this stuff hasn't quite set yet but it's that's pretty quick so you gotta work quick my lid it's in beautifully let's set we should be good so I'm still just waiting for this to set up but what I'm gonna do is just bend down these tabs that I cut earlier just to hold this in place and now what I'll be able to do is put a grate over that so this is expanded mesh expand steels and this will be the top cooking grate all right cut the size basically that sits on top there so that way if you have a pot so that way now we have the your on caucus if you have a pot that will fit and rest on this that's great but if it doesn't you need something like this so you can just use some mesh of some sort some steel rods whatever your imagination can think up so so like say this pot can be like that so it's the over container but I mentioned that it is a pot all right I'm gonna let this set a bit more and then we'll fire it up I also need something in here to raise the fuel up just above so that some air can get underneath all right I found something just a piece of metal ideally you could just use another tin can just kind of cut it out flatten it and then that can be where your fuel can sit so now we have a spot where the fuel can sit with the great for the pot so now basically what will happen is your fuel goes in like that and then you put some fuel down there and then when you start the fire and it starts burning it creates a draft and then cold air comes in the hot air is coming out of here and it's supposed to pretty much self-feed you don't need a fan or anything so okay let's go give it a try I'm gonna cut up some wood here some little kindling some sticks and feed it and light it up so I got some wood here I'll cut up I'm gonna use some paper in there to get it going first when it loose oxygen is just as important as fuel where that gets going quick it's caught that stuff that I put down the chimney on so the pot of water and see yeah I got a cup of water in this let's see and I can get this to boil that's burning real nice now not my water starting to boil that was pretty quick here's the look down the combustion chamber burning away nice probably need to add a little more fuel now all right we got a rolling boil going get a nice draw going nice flame action it's not too smoky boiling away very nicely there we go successful works very well that boil took a round from the time I put it on the water was reading temperature maybe three to four minutes four minutes yeah so it works pretty simple there you go thanks for watching

Channel: Andrew W

Views: 4,927,375

Rating: 4.5536289 out of 5

Keywords: Stove (Product Category), Rocket stove, Rocket Stove (Product Category), coffee can stove, hobo stove, camp stove, emergency stove, coffee can camp stove

Id: mi8zAslcSxc

Length: 22min 43sec (1363 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 22 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

You want an inch of plaster (I used concrete) under the inside can. Pour the plaster in the bottom of the big can, an inch thick. Once it sets, then cut your fuel hole, set the inner can, and pour the filler for the sides.

This prevents the bottom from rusting/burning out after a couple years use, and you can set it on wood without charring it. Also, it helps to spray the thing with Rustoleum grill paint/ high temp paint. With a coat of paint and a bottom layer of plaster under the inner can, this thing will last years.

I burn my junk mail in it to melt candle wax, but with a weeks worth of adverts you could cook a soup I guess.