My DIY wood burning stove

[couesbitten]

So I've been planning to build this for a while, and since the wife and daughter are gone to the Watershed music festival this weekend, I finally had some "me time" and got around to it. I've been assembling the parts and pieces and planning the build, the only thing that was giving me trouble was the legs, wasn't sure what or how I was going to do them.

My parts are as follows;

Stainless burner covers from Walmart
16" titanium foil from TiGoat
The 3" stack (not pictured) is stainless foil that I purchased from someone on this site along with the rings and TiGoat damper
The cable for the body ring and "tensioners" is 1/16" from Home Depot
Legs are made from 1/8" steel rod from Home Depot

I went with 10" covers, figuring that it would make a minimal difference in weight, but that I should be able to burn more and large wood in a larger stove body. Prior to cutting the opening in the front, I weighed the stove on my kitchen scale and it was 1lb 8.59 oz, so I'm confident that I'm under 3 lbs with the stack assembly. I used a 36 TPI jigsaw blade to cut the hole in the front and cut out the door from one of the 7" burner covers, went very smooth, easier than I expected. I hand bent the legs, and it was by far the most tedious and time consuming part of the process. I omitted a tensioner cable from the bottom of the stove, but have one on each side holding the legs in place, which in turn holds the end plates in position. I still have to cut the hole in the stove body for the stack, and am a little concerned about screwing that up. If I'm not backpacking next weekend, I probably do a test burn with the stack, and will take a few more pictures. I'm also hoping to get the jack sewn into my Nemo Pentalite this week (also kind of scary).

 

[colonel00]

Looks good. How hard is it to get the tensioners on there? I am using just pieces of allthread and they can be tricky and they are rigid. I could just see it being a trick with floppy cables.

Also, fire that baby up as I am guessing you may need additional intake holes.

 

[couesbitten]

If I stand it on end while assembling, it's pretty easy to get the tensioner cables on. I wondered about vent holes also, I originally planned 5, but figured I'd go with 3 and add more if needed. With the door just hanging there, it's not exactly airtight, so we'll see.

 

[colonel00]

On the one that bbrown built for me, I started with a few holes at first too. When I got a good fire going in it, it would be sucking air so bad that the door would start shuddering since it was hinged on the bottom and not latched at the top. I had to open the door up completely to keep it from popping it seemed. Now, this obviously killed any fire control. It will be interesting to see how your's performs with the door just hanging.

 

[couesbitten]

I'll pay attention to that when I light it off. I was originally going to go with 1/2" holes, but decided to make them a little smaller, the smaller holes may force me to add a couple more as well. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, now I just have to sew up a couple of bags, one for the body/stack, and one for the end plates and miscellaneous parts.

 

[colonel00]

Yep, sew up some slick little bags to hold it all together

Oh, one thing that I learned is to leave a little slack in the tensioners when you fire it up. Mine expanded quite a bit and there was too much tension which caused some buckling. Nothing too drastic but I would have preferred to avoid it.

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

Looks good. I really have no reason for a stove yet but after looking at some of the ones you guys made I might have to make on for a "just in case" and then I'll have an excuse for another later hunting trip.

 

[couesbitten]

Thanks for the heads up colonel, I'll do that. Bags like that are exactly what I need.

l2h, that sounds like a good plan to me and as good an excuse as any other I could think of.

 

[Short on cache]

Thats pretty slick! I live in WA wanna help me make one? How much $$$ did you end up with in it?

 

[couesbitten]

Hey Short, I don't know where you're located, but this really wasn't very difficult, if you're even a little bit mechanically inclined, I think you could do this without much trouble. I believe I'm right about $200 with the stack assembly included. I'll do some quick math and give you an idea of what it would cost to build this if you purchased all of the parts at full retail.

 

[couesbitten]

Okay, I just came from the Titanium Goat site, and here's my calculations for costs.

To build a 10" x 16" stove w/7' stack, my dollar figures are $238.75 for titanium foil body and stack, and roughly $110 for stainless body and stack. I say roughly, because TiGoat doesn't sell the stainless foil in anything but 12". My breakdown is;

Stove body - SS/$42(?) Ti/$66
3" Stack - SS/$40.25 Ti/$105
Damper - $25
Rings (5 cable, 2 end) - $12.75
End plates - $10
Misc. Hardware - $20

Stove weight of body and stack - SS/28.4 oz Ti/20.5 oz

 

[JFKinYK]

I cut the damper hole in the Ti shim stock with a dremmel disc (the orange one if that helps). I laid the shim stock flat and traced the damper with a sharpie, and then cut that out. This hole will be too small since the damper will be passing through a curved stove body, and actually need a slight oval shape but it gets you started.

I then assembled the stove. The hole you just cut will be big enough front to back, but too small side to side. Start gently grinding the left and right sides and trying to push the damper through after a few seconds of grinding on each side (again, I used the orange grinding stone). Slow and steady. Eventually you'll get it.

I also used bent washers like you for the ends, but found some really small threaded rod for the tension parts, to run along the stove body. These also help support a cooking pot when they are positioned just right on top, and also support the rod that runs through the damper. You'll likely need some support there, for the damper, since the whole weight of the stove pipe rests on it (assuming you run a straight up roll pipe).

One last tip, I use a hose clamp to secure the pipe to the damper. I've had that part come off before. Not fun.

One last edit. Make sure you don't cut the damper hole too close to the edge of the stove body. You need almost an inch or so to clear the plate on the inside, because the damper wall sticks down inside the stove. I hope that makes sense. I almost effed that part up.

 

[Rizzy]

That stove looks great, good work! That's going to be so nice when the cold weather sets in.

As far as the damper/vent hole, they will need to be bigger. I think you ultimately need at least the same if not more cross section of intake as your pipe (outflow) with these little stoves. I always have to leave the door open on mine otherwise it smothers.

 

[couesbitten]

Thanks guys, I'll keep all of these things in mind when I get ready to cut the hole (probably tomorrow or Friday).