Ultralight Wood Gas Stove. How to Make a Super Light and Compact Backpacking Twig Stove.

[Music] [Music] hi folks and welcome back in this video I'm going to be making a compact ultra light wood gas stove [Music] now I have a couple of would guess those already but both of them are quite bulky but I wanted to have a go at making a really ultra light version from everyday packaging that normally you'd throw away so I'm going to be using a coffee can and this particular coffee is that kind of barista style instant coffee that's got grounds in it as well I'm sure you know this stuff there are various makes about you know can code have some Nescafe I believe do one and then all the main supermarkets have their own brand as well this is a test goes one and this is my favorite one this is this is one out of Aldi and I'm going to need two of these cans for this project I'm also going to be using a sweet corn can this one is also out of Aldi be obviously there's there's other other stores and other brands available this one just happens to work well with the the coffee can I'm going to be using now I'm going to be making this in my workshop because I have access to tools and machines but if you haven't that's no problem you know you could still make this using simple hand tools if you have a hacksaw and a Stanley knife or a craft knife and a drill you know you can make this stove I have got access to these to these tools and things so I'm going to use them simply because it's going to make my life a little bit easier okay the first thing I want to do after I've emptied these containers of their contents is to remove any paper labels and the lid off the coffee can any residue and stuff will then will all burn off on its first use anyway so I've literally just wrapped them in masking tape just to make life a bit easier while I'm marking them out and the first thing I'm going to do is mark out the holes it's a lot easier if you do all your drilling at this stage when the cans are still whole because once you've once you've cut the can it becomes a lot less stable and it bends and things like that so view your door you're drilling at this stage it will make life a bit easier right I thought I better explained what I'd be marking out here I've got three components to this stove we'll start with the sweet corn tin this is going to be my combustion chamber so this is basically the size of the fire I'm gonna be able to have in here it's just going to run on twigs it's just going to be a very compact twigs twigs burning stove and I think this will be okay I think that'll be enough so basically the fire is in here I'm going to have a series of holes drilled around the top eight of them which is what these lines represent that's just and get the spacing even around the top so they'll be eight holes a nest to allow air into the top of the fire so the sticks will be burning down in there air will be drawn up into the top of the fire here where it will help to burn the gas is given off by the primary combustion of the wood and that's how I would guess stove works gases are given off when wood burns but normally they're just lost into the atmosphere and wasted the idea behind the wood gas stove is that they're burnt so you get a secondary burn going on it's a much more complete burn so you have less smoke and yeah much much hotter much more efficient so that's how it'll work so this will have a whole Paula novels around the top I'm going to cut the bottom of the tin out and I'm going to insert a piece of mesh in there just to allow plenty of airflow underneath for that primary burn so that's what's going to go on with this one this tin here is going to be the outer sleeve of the stove this one will go inside here once I've adjusted the top and this is going to have a load of holes drilled around the bottom I'm going to cut it down so it's not going to quite be as tall as this when it's finished and they'll be holes around the bottom where air can go in it will pass up between the two layers and it will go in through these holes in the top of that combustion chamber I showed you a minute ago and that's how it'll work so that'll be cut down holes drilled around the bottom and then finally this one here I'm just going to cut a pot support out of this so just the top half of it will be used I'll drill some holes just to allow good air flow around the top of the fire and underneath the pan so that flames can sort of lick around the pan and and it burns well and there's plenty of oxygen and that will just slot on top of the rim of this one here okay it's a pot stand out the sleeve combustion chamber so I'm going to start with a thin two and a half mil pilot drill but then I'm going to move on to a steps drill like this these are much benefit doing through thin sheet material and aluminium and things like that anything thin because it tends to tear less it's a much less aggressive cutting edge and and I found that you get a much neater finish the holes are much nicer neater if you try and use a normal drill bit especially once you get up to the bigger sizes you know it just tends to tear the thin material rather than drill nearly through it so that's what I'll be using [Applause] [Music] right that's all the holes drilled and I see you can see that step drill bit makes short work of it and it's it's nice because you just you just plunge it down to the depth you want it stepped in increments of two mil that particular one so I knew that I had to step this the second step if you like which will give a six mil hole so that's on the combustion chamber six mil hole at the top of that 10 along the bottom of the the outer sleeve of the of the stove and I put eight mil holes all the way around the top bit which will perform the the pot standard lots of holes around here so there's putting your airflow at the top to allow air in and and not to snuff the fire so yeah all the holes are done so the next thing is to remove this section here which was originally at the bottom of the can and I'm just going to use a can opener for that okay and now on to cutting the cans up I'm going to use a diamond cutting disc the type that you'd normally use in like a dremel or multi-tool type tool but I'm going to use my drill press just because it's here and it makes life a lot easier I can put this in the chuck and I can use the the table of the pillar drill to rest my cans on and then when it's cutting you know the cut will always be a set beautiful height but if you haven't got access to either of those you know you could cut this with a hacksaw just carefully mark out and just cut your line and that do that do the job fine [Music] [Music] before I do anything else I want to clean all these edges up so where I've drilled and where I've cut I've got all these burrs and nasty sharp bits I'm going to use my multi-tool here with a wire brush attachment on the end to get rid of some of the burrs on the inside and I'm just going to use good old wet and dry paper and just rub it all the way around those sharp edges and just try and smooth them and make them a bit safer okay that's everything cleaned up now what I need to do is I need to get this the inner combustion chamber into this part here and at the moment it's just too big I chose this Ken because I knew it would be too big for this rim because I need it to be a good tight fit once it's in there so what I need to do is I need to just stretch this rim here slightly in order to be able to get that through from underneath and popped over on the bottom of this sweetcorn can there's a lip where the metal was folded over the metal of the sidewall of the can and I'm going to use that lip you know there's a little a little recess in there and what I want to happen is that this lip around the top of the coffee can we'll go into that groove okay so that will hold it in place that's the plan but I've got to try and stretch this so what I'm going to do is I'm going to use a bottle here which is just slightly bigger than the opening okay and I'm going to try and force this can down and stretch that lip a little bit just enough to get this on [Music] okay so far so good I was going to put a piece on the bottom the original base of the coffee can but I've decided against it it'll keep weight down and it does mean if I need additional airflow I can position this up off the ground on three rocks or whatever I can get a bit more airflow underneath it so I'm going to leave that off it also it means that the the pop support which just clips on the top like this has some way to live you can invert it you can put it over the bottom and it's got a place where that can store and it doesn't take up any more space than the original size of the stove so that's good the last thing I need to do is to put it in a bit of mesh in here to stop the wood from falling through and to create a base to the stove or kind of fire grate if you like I'm going to use some of this expanded steel mesh the kind that you find on disposable barbecues I'm going to cut out a disc the right size to fit in the bottom of the stove here and that should do the job nicely so there you have it it's definitely compact and if I put my 700 mil plus finder cup next to it you get an idea of scale especially when it's collapsed with the pot support underneath you can see that you know it's quite a lot smaller than the cup itself and this cup nests with a Nalgene bottle just to give you an idea of size this is you know it's about the size of a kind of baked beans if you want to use the stove with a mess burner or an alcohol stove what this mini ball designs one here you can do that all you need to do is just use the pot support and then you can you can see your pots tray on the top like that and it will act as a windbreak come pot stand that's for weight it weighs in at 80 grams so that definitely falls into the ultralight category in my mind and if you wanted to use a lightweight alcohol burner with it well and then it's still under 100 grams 98 grams not too bad okay moment of truth let's go outside and try it out so you can see those jets coming out of the air holes there so it's definitely working you definitely get in that secondary combustion at the top of the combustion chamber it is working so there we have it a success I'm really pleased with it the only downside to it is because of its size you can only preload it with so much wood but done you know when the fuel the resource is free you know it's just tweaks you pick up off the floor or once you know caught up in trees or whatever you know a good handful of twigs will do the job you know that will boil enough water for a meal so yeah I'm really pleased with it you know it's compact it's very lightweight it'll nest inside my cup and I can even store my alcohol stove and tinder inside the stove as well so one you know even that little space and there isn't wasted just one word of advice wherever you choose to use this it will scorch the ground underneath I had this set up on a tree stump and it scorched the tree stump quite badly so just bear that in mind it'll be fine on the earth or on Rock probably but other than that it needs to be on something fireproof well thanks for watching I hope you found it useful you know would guess those are expensive especially the the really small ones Bush buddy and solo stoves you know they're they're 100 pounds to buy one but you can make one and all it will cost you is two cans of coffee and a tin of sweet corn take care and I'll see you soon [Music]

Channel: Simon, a bloke in the woods

Views: 140,731

Rating: 4.951159 out of 5

Keywords: wood stove, wood gas stove, wood gasifying stove, wood gasifier, homemade stove, homemade wood gas stove, diy stove, diy wood gas stove, hobo stove, ultralight stove, backpacking stove, bushcraft, backcountry, wilderness gear, homemade gear, outdoor gear, homemade outdoor gear

Id: iGZbplZogG8

Length: 19min 11sec (1151 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 08 2018