I follow a lot of blogs and I especially enjoy reading about
a piece of gear someone made, recently I was reading John Roan's blog Mountain UltraLight and noticed a solid fuel stove he built and featured in his post
“Trail Cooking with Minimal Fuel.” I was intrigued by John’s simple one-piece
design based on the Trail Designs Gram Cracker stove. I too use the Gram
Cracker, the only dislike I have with this stove is the fuel residue gets in
the crevices requiring some minor scraping to clean it out. Like I said it’s minor and it’s not
required, nevertheless I don’t like doing it, I want simple and clean.
After exchanging a couple of emails with John about the
stove and where to purchase small amount of Ti foil I was on my way to making
my on one piece Ti solid fuel stove.
I ordered a sheet of Ti 0.005” thick foil from Titanium Goat, I ordered the 22”x6” sheet figuring there will be other projects in the
future.
Using the dimensions from my Gram Cracker I created a
pattern on poster board,
then traced the shape on the Ti
With regular household scissors I cut out the shape,
I have
an old pair of scissors just for stuff like this,
sharp tin snips can also be used
I then trimmed all the corners to eliminate sharpness
To create neat folds I used a metal straight edge and folded
the Ti to 90° angles, neatness counts :-)
And there you have it, a one piece, 1-gram solid fuel stove
ready for my next trip.
I recently made one of these too, but have really bad results and burn times using it. Will be interested to see what results you get. I'm not even able to boil 2 cups of 70-degree water with it and one Esbit tab :(
ReplyDeleteBrian- I wonder if you had a batch of old fuel tabs? I've been using Esbit and Gram Cracker for a little over a year without any problems, water temps vary coming from a spring or creek and I typically use about 1/2 a tab for 2 cups water plus a little more in my mug and windscreen.
ReplyDeleteI don't bring my water to a boil, it's not needed for FBC, I do treat ALL of my water with AquaMira even that for cooking since I don't boil. Take a look at John Roan's post in the link provided Trail Cooking with Minimal fuel and see how he cooks, I believe he was using 1/2 tab and cooking for two people.
I've been playing with mine this afternoon and I'm extremely pleased. it's breezy here and I'm getting 16-16.5 minutes of burn time on a fuel Esbit tab. That's pretty typical of what I get in the field
Very sweet John!!
ReplyDeleteI too use the Gram Cracker and my complaint with it is how flimsy it is - it often tends to bend in, causing the flame to narrow up. Easy enough to solve, just a pain to deal with every time I break out the stove. Does the 0.005 ti have this same problem or is it thick enough to stay true to shape??
Up for using some of the left over material to make another one :-D
Like you, I never actually boil my water. It just needs to get hot enough to speed up a bit of the wait time for FBC or the rare cup of tea.
How many tablets have you burned all the way out? I ask that in regards to how the 0.005 material has been handling the heat.
John B. Abela
RedwoodOutdoors.Com
@ Redwood Outdoors- I don't know the thickness of the Ti used in the Gram Cracker, I can say the .005 that I have is a little thicker that the Ti used in my Gram Cracker. I built the stove over the weekend and I've been test burning this afternoon and used 3 full tabs, I don't see any change in the shape, that doesn't mean there won't be some in the future, but it's easy enough to re-bend if needed.
ReplyDeleteAre you asking me if I'm up for making another or that you have some leftover material for making another??? If it's me please email me, my email link is listed in the label cloud in the right column, click on contact jermm.
John/JJ,
ReplyDeleteI've been using mine for about a year now, and I have had no issues with it at all. I'm pretty sure I have the same Ti foil that JJ has because we purchased it from the same place.
Nice job on this JJ! Too bad it doesn't stay pretty like in your photos.
John
@ John Roan- ahhh...but the beauty of the dark crusty patina means you're out having fun and eating good. :-)
ReplyDeleteMulti-Fuel stoves are are named as those ranges that provide out warm through not so traditional settings. Several decades ago, the only choice for individuals to produce warm from the cooktop was by using wooden as a petrol. But, with the release of LP gas and electrical power, there are other alternatives presented by way of different energy sources for use; one can now use pellets, bio-diesel, hammer toe and other identical items to produce warm for various factors such as food preparation, warming house and water.
ReplyDeletehmmm...alrighty then, now back to our scheduled program
ReplyDelete