Kifaru smith stove mod?

[Sadler]

Has anyone ever modified their kifaru smith stove with a chimney damper to help with the burn time? If so, did it help and how’d you do it?

 

[Hunter Sargent]

Not a Smith stove, but I have the Lite Outdoors cylinder stove and it comes with a chimney damper...though I'm not sure it does a whole lot. The entire stove seems to seal up pretty well for a UL stove, so airflow can be controlled very well with the front damper. I usually leave the chimney damper wide open.

 

[dog812]

Agreed, I have same setup l.o.18" , the damper doesn't do a lot as far as I can tell. It's either really hot or not...ha ha.

 

[KurtR]

Having the damper setting right made a big difference with the smoke and seemed once i got it dialed in it helped with the burn control. Took some playing with and a few times being smoked out of the cimaron till i really figured it out. this is with the lo sxl stove

 

[Conrad101st]

Ha, I just saw you mean a pipe damper.

Anyway, this is more complicated but has a better result I think. I made a baffle for my medium stove and was very happy with the results. Bought a sheet of titanium and laid it over the top plate. Cut it about 1 inch wider per side (width) and even with the top (length). Bent the sides UP using a board and hammer to get a nice 90 degree crease. Invert the lid with the titanium sheet and use a felt pen to mark the 4 holes where all thread goes through. Punch the 4 holes out in the sheet. Then on the front of the sheet. I used tin snips to make two parallel cuts about 5 inches apart and 4 inches deep. Remember that the two side tabs should go up, but probably wouldn't matter honestly. Anyway fold the piece you just trimmed with the two cuts all the way back till the new gap is nice and even at 4 inches deep and five inches wide. I made a little skateboard ramp out of the flap so it almost creates a little ramp up and ramp down to the rear. I installed the gap to the front of the stove (ramp facing up) and positioned it dead even with the top of the door. I put 4 wing nuts on the allthread inside the stove body with the wings down. The baffle plate rests on top of those at the desired height. The stove pipe collar sits about 1/4 inch above the baffle plate. Needs some gap. It made a huge difference and you can clearly see that the stove will glow cherry while the pipe has way less glow. Outside there was no sparks and no visible jet coming out the pipe. Much more efficient and way less chance to burn holes in your tipi! PM me and I can text or email photos if you want. By the way, kudos to Ed T for the inspiration to tinker!

Conrad.

 

[AdamW]

TiGoat sells pre-fab dampers for $10 and $12 depending on the size of your stove pipe. Trim to fit if reqd, punch 2 holes in your pipe and you're done.

Pipe parts

 

[Sadler]

Thanks for the info, guys. Conrad, if I ever need to build a stove I will message you for sure but I think I’m going to go the quicker route and just buy a premade one and punch some holes in the pipe. Hopefully it’ll help the burn time

 

[AdamW]

Thanks for the info, guys. Conrad, if I ever need to build a stove I will message you for sure but I think I’m going to go the quicker route and just buy a premade one and punch some holes in the pipe. Hopefully it’ll help the burn time

Just got done burning in my TiGoat medium wifi stove. I never "understood" what damper, draw, etc. meant in stoves until I sat there and watched the mini version happen. A picture is worth a thousand words I guess!

It drastically affects the draw of the stove and slows down the burn time. I was just playing with it to see how it worked so I wasn't timing the burn time, but she rolls at full blast and drops off quick with the pipe damper.