PDA

View Full Version : Stupid Stove Experiments



TedB
08-24-2004, 23:51
Lots of us like to make home made stoves. I suspect a few of us have had some not so great stove experiments. Let hear about them. I'll start with one. Folks, don't try this at home.


I don't remember the name of the book anymore, but it was about living in an RV full time or something like that. Anyway, they described a "buddy burner". It consists of a metal can, with an open top. Take a long, narrow strip of cardboard and roll up, to make a short cylinder. Place inside can. This is the wick. The fuel is candle wax or paraffin wax (are they the same thing?). I might have gotten the details wrong, as there were about 4 years between reading the book and making the stove. Anyway, I lit the thing on my back deck, and it started off ok. Then it got hotter and hotter. The molten wax started to boil, with little balls of flaming wax splattering onto the deck. It reminded me of a volcano I once saw on a nature show. I live in California where it is very dry.

Hmmmm...

Suddenly I'm very nervous. I look around and realize I left the fire extinguisher inside. Oops. That sucker was really going. I ran in and grabbed the fire extinguisher, and came back out. It eventually settled down and burned out on its own. The bottom of the can left a burn mark on the deck. Fortunately, my apartment was still standing. After that I decided that renter's insurance might not be a bad idea.


Fire! Fire! Fire! -Beavis

SGT Rock
08-25-2004, 09:07
About the dumbest thing I ever did was actually with a fuel bottle. I was testing stoves and had been doing so for a few days on one of the long marathon weekends of stove testing. I had a 20 ounce coke bottle I had been using for fuel that had just been emptied on a test (that is a lot of testing y'all) and as I watched the stove burned, I contemplated the residue of alcohol and fumes in the bottle. :confused:

Being a nut anyway, I decided to see just how flammable the fumes would be, so I opened the bottle and held it in my hand as I held a lighter to the opening of the bottle. There was a loud woosh as the bottle rocketed out of my hand and singed all the hair off my left arm while extinguishing the lighter from the expelled air pressure. :eek: the flame only lasted a fraction of a second, but the bottle was immediately rendered a deformed caricature of a coke bottle.

My wife in the other room asked "What was that?"

"NOTHING HONEY!" :datz

WalkinHome
08-25-2004, 19:11
Hi Top,

You must have heard the one about using a small bit of C-4. Little smoke, great heat - just don't try to put it out with your foot! BANG!

Former Top

SGT Rock
08-25-2004, 19:15
Yes I have even seen someone cook with a little bit of that.

magic_game03
08-25-2004, 21:45
I am rolling on the floor as I try to get this typed, those first two stories remind me how uninhibited we become after we learn that you can stick your finger in burning alcohol and wave it around like an olympic torch.

last year at goddard shelter on a bitterly cold day I was cooking but more interested in taking my mind off my weary body and listening to a couple of Long Trail hikers talk about another hiker who had attempted to burn down a shelter with his stove. I was not realling paying complete attention to them but one was looking right at me and telling me my sleeping pad was on fire, of course I was in my sleeping bag on my sleeping pad at the time. I was so out of it he came over and started to put it out for me, thank goodness for his quick response. needless to say I was kind of shocked to be attacked in the shelter only to find out I was being saved from turning into a human marshmello.

Nightwalker
08-27-2004, 14:45
"NOTHING HONEY!" :datz
BUT DON'T COME IN HERE!!

titanium_hiker
11-06-2004, 10:06
the best one of those I heard was
CRASH! CLATTER! BANG!!
us: "What was that? are you alright?"
them: yeah.
us: "Want us to come in?"
them: "it's ok, we can fix it!"

Baldy
11-06-2004, 11:40
you can stick your finger in burning alcohol and wave it around like an olympic torch.

Really, You can do that? Cool. :-?

orangebug
11-06-2004, 14:16
Let him demonstrate it. I have some burn scars to suggest that burning alcohol ain't "cool."

My stupid stove trick was an attempt to refill and "extinguished" can.

Youngblood
11-07-2004, 09:18
Orangebug,

You haven't learned how to properly execute the alcohol stove salute... you know, where you wave your hand above it high enough to not get burnt but close enough to feel the heat if it is still lit? You got to remember to show your respect and salute them things.

Youngblood

orangebug
11-07-2004, 12:59
I know to salute, and do it well. I salute by using a Snowpeak most of the time. Once burned, twice shy. :clap

Now, I have used alcohol stoves in warm weather trips and weekends, but I've gotten very used to the convenience of the canister.

grandview
11-07-2004, 16:22
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

copythat
11-12-2004, 01:22
a friend of mine says a manchild (age unimportant) will hold a rock above his sister's head and let go, just to test whether gravity works ALL the time.

the sister, he says, will anticipate the trajectory of the rock and move -- just enough to not get hit. (oh yeah, and she'll NEVER forget what her brother did!)

so ... apply this to setting our fingers on fire and trying to blow off all our hair with explosive fumes ... for what purpose???

is this a guy thing???

The Gnome
12-08-2004, 22:02
Not exactly a stove story, but an example of the superior male intelect:

Try lighting a mainline steam locomotive boiler with a 5 gallon can of Kerosene and a match.

I still have difficulty moving the thumb on my right hand, 15 years later.

The Hammocker
03-04-2005, 23:15
Not exactly a stove story, but an example of the superior male intelect:

Try lighting a mainline steam locomotive boiler with a 5 gallon can of Kerosene and a match.

I still have difficulty moving the thumb on my right hand, 15 years later.Nicely done smart one(LOL):rolleyes:

Footslogger
03-05-2005, 00:15
You must have heard the one about using a small bit of C-4. Former Top==========================================
That was bout the only way to heat C-rats when I was in (US Army 1969 - 1971). The original Esbit stove !!

'Slogger
AT 2003

blytz
03-05-2005, 08:56
I was testing a stove on my back deck once, and I apparently had left a trail of fuel from the stove, across the table, and directly up the side of my big fuel bottle (the metal canister that Denatured Alcohol comes in). I got it started, and about 45 seconds later, the canister was burning, the table, everything. I went inside to get the extinguisher and by the time I came back out, it had all burn off, except the canister. I just blew into the top to put it out...

kinda scary at first, especially since I could here my wife starting to head my direction!

SGT Rock
03-05-2005, 09:37
==========================================
That was bout the only way to heat C-rats when I was in (US Army 1969 - 1971). The original Esbit stove !!

'Slogger
AT 2003

See, now if I could find a way to re-supply with that stuff, I would give up on alcohol stoves all together. :cool:

Something else to contemplate, Esbit is hexamine. When I was searching for raw hexamine to try to make my own fuel at one point, I found a lot of those anarchist cookbook type things in my google search because apparently you can use Esbit/hexamine to cook your own plastic explosives. So the analogy is apparently even more true than you thought :eek:

hikerjohnd
03-05-2005, 10:18
My first foray into my own stove was less than successful to say the least. I saw pictures of coke can designs and thought "I can do this!" Well, I'm not sure where my brain was, but I decided the crimped bottom wasn't working well enough to put the top and bottom together. So, I cut a few slits. I also remembered reading that you can make a stove without JB Weld - so I just taped the bottom together. Well, filled with alcohol and lit, the alcohol seeped through the tape (I assume through the slits that were cut in the bottom) and lo and behold - a flaming pool of alcohol was born! I decided to fire it up at night to better see the flames (I had read that they can be difficult to see in the daytime...) My wife was sitting on the couch, phone in hand, ready to call 911 if she smelled burning siding! Luckily, no harm done - just wasted time!:jump

hikerjohnd
03-05-2005, 10:19
See, now if I could find a way to re-supply with that stuff, I would give up on alcohol stoves all together. :cool:
Can esbit tabs be shipped in the mail? :confused:

superman
03-05-2005, 10:38
Every meal I cook on a hike is a stupid stove experiment. The heat source doesn't matter...it's what I do with it. I quickly learned when I was in the 1st ID in 66-68 that I was NOT a gormet GI. I never got any better at trail cooking. I cook at home but Pat from Maine forbid me to try cooking when we hike together. My son and I still laugh about our losey cooking when he hiked from Spinger to Gatlinburg with me. An C-4 explosion would be an act of mercy to some of my trail meals. :datz

SGT Rock
03-05-2005, 10:46
Yes, any flammable can be shipped in the mail (well almost any) as long as it follows the Federal shipping rules for packaging and marking and Postal service regs for type of transportation.

oldfivetango
03-05-2005, 10:57
Here's my story(and i'm sticking to it)

Took my mountain climber's brass stove camping.Filled it
to the full 4 oz Coleman capacity.I bought the primer kit so
i would not have to put raw fuel on top of said stove to get
it all pressurized.
Anyway,I guess i'm just a compulsive overachiever or maybe just used
to "pumping up" Coleman products for all those years.So,when i turn
the key and hold the gooseneck lighter(thank goodness) what i got was
a torch with about 3-4 feet of flame shooting out and fire running all
over the pretty brass stove and onto the ground around it.I was real surprised as this had never happened before and i had used it with great success without the primer pump kit.
I know that one gallon of gasoline has the explosive power of 7 sticks of
dynamite.I was trying to do a mental calculation for 4 ounces total "dyno-
power" but owing to the highly excited and agitated state in which i found
myself i just advised everybody to run.It burned out without further incident.
Later i read somewhere that there is a pop-off plug on the stove but
if there is one i dont recognize it.After that i converted over to alcohol
as i decided it was best from the weight perspective and for solo operation.
I later learned how to properly operate my petroleum stove by:
a. giving it about 4 or 5 pumps (instead of 30-40)
b.or by using an eyedropper to prime it with
c.judiciously turning the key on and/or off until you get a proper
flame acquired.It will run almost 1.4 hours or so and i would definitely
carry it for truck camping or if i had a partner to help with the "common
items" load.
d.And i learned to do what my dear old dad always told me: "When all
else fails-read the instructions"
Cheers to all,
Oldfivetango:clap

Tim Rich
03-05-2005, 11:11
See, now if I could find a way to re-supply with that stuff, I would give up on alcohol stoves all together. :cool:

Something else to contemplate, Esbit is hexamine. When I was searching for raw hexamine to try to make my own fuel at one point, I found a lot of those anarchist cookbook type things in my google search because apparently you can use Esbit/hexamine to cook your own plastic explosives. So the analogy is apparently even more true than you thought :eek:

And you'd be able to clear blowdowns along the way as well... :D

Nightwalker
03-05-2005, 13:56
Mine was lighting a photon stove after forgetting to put the screw back in. They tend to POP and destroy the stove. No problem, I had a spare. Next day: POP again!

I changed to a different homemade stove that was a little more tired-hiker resistant.

foodbag
03-05-2005, 15:38
I was testing a Trangia alcohol stove in my kitchen sink, to see how fast it would boil two cups of water. There was a little bit of fuel in the bottom of the stove so I decided to add more alcohol.

I reached for a can of Crown fuel which I had just bought. (Reader beware that Crown white gas and Crown denatured alcohol come in cans that are very similar. Apparently, white gas is also heavier than denatured alcohol and will sink to the lower level when the two are mixed).

Anyway, I lit the stove, put the pot on to boil and went online, figuring I would come back to the stove in 5 minutes to check on its progress. After about a minute and a half I heard a loud "whoosh" and turned to see flames leaping 5 feet into the air! I ran to the sink, turned the water on full force and watched as blazing fuel ran down the drain, still burning, burning, burning. After an eternity of 30 seconds I finally managed to extinguish the flames.

The moral: It pays to read the label on the fuel can first! And, test the stove outside, where it belongs.

Kerosene
03-05-2005, 17:02
I ran to the sink, turned the water on full force and watched as blazing fuel ran down the drain, still burning, burning, burning. After an eternity of 30 seconds I finally managed to extinguish the flames.I can't stop laughing!!!