how to build a good alcohol stove

“i want to know how to build an easy alcohol stove and what is the best type of fuel to use.”

“That is a tough one. Let me take the second part first.

Alcohol.”

“I is a stinker.”

“yea but there are different kinds does any burn hotter then another”

“Denatured alcohol in the paint department or HEET in the auto department. Don't get isopropyl alcohol or ISO HEET.”

“thanks any one got any good designs”

“I have not found an alcohol stove that works as well as a gas stove.”

“i have a nice canister stove, small light, boils well, just want to try out an alcohol stove just for the heck of it, might be useful in some cases”

“I got an alcohol stove from the tin can stove man and one from campmor. The one from campmor did not work at all.”

“well i want to make one, not buy one, and all the insturtions i find are long and need tons of tools i just want something easy”

“stovestomper will see this thread soon and overwhelm you with ideas. lol

in the meantime take a look at the "cat stove" 1 cat food can (small) and one larger dog food or tuna fish can. I made one and it works pretty good. The windscreen is the key to getting water to boil though. without the windscreen, it won't make enough heat.

link

the link I think goes to an "inner page" in the guy's site - but those are the plans I used.

Good luck.”

“the tincanman sent me some instructions. check website, or sgt rock's site”

“I built several with a pair of scissors foil tape and an exacto knife.

Do a google search.”

“the link I put up is Sgt Rocks site.”

“i can't help that you type faster tham me”

“i made one out of two pepsi cans. Poke holes with a thumb tack on the bottom of one can, then cut the two cans in half. You have to work at it but they will slide together real tightly. Then poke another hole in the top of the stove to fill it thru. Yopu can put a screw through this to seal it then. I just used denatured alcohol.”

“"i can't help that you type faster tham me"
helinka

silly, I was just clarifying since I used bad html and didn't label the link.”

“Go to http://www.backpacking.net/makegear.html for instructions to make a bunch of different stoves.

To elaborate on fuels:
- denatured alc is best; it is mostly ethanol (drinkable) with just enough methanol (wood alc) to make it poisonous and thus is far cheaper because no alc tax. Be careful, if you stove is made right this stuff burns completely blue-flame and you can't see it in bright sunlight. Buy by the gallon at Home Depot, or by the quart at Wal-Mart.
- Various gas line dryers do contain either mostly ethanol and/or methanol and will work in a pinch (as mentioned above), but don't get anything with isopropyl alc, see below.
- isopropyl alcohol - has between 10% to 30% water, so burns much cooler, you'll see much orange flame and soot. I couldn't get my Pepsi can stove to light with this stuff the one time I tried it at home. Don't use it.”

“Oh, and if you must you can buy and use grain alc at a liquor store (100% ethanol), but since it is drinkable you'll pay way too much. Stick with the denatured stuff from Home Depot.”

“More stove designs than you can shake a trekking pole at.

My site has a few good windscreen designs. Click on my name for the address.”

“That reminds me, I bought a couple bottle of the yellow HEET ($.74/ 12oz bottle!) and I need to give it a try.”

“i made a coke can stove today and brought HEET, i still have to make wind shield and pot holder, but i light it with about two tablespoons full of the HEET stuff and it only burned for 2 or 3 mins, is this cause the stove is not built right or is it the fuel the problem”

“never fooled with a pepsi stove, but:

the windscreen probably acts like a choke to slow down the burn by restricting air flow, that's how my cat can stove works. Try it with the screen in place and see if you get better results.”

“2 tablespoons or 1 fl oz of alcohol or HEAT should burn longer than 2 or 3 minutes.
A pot over the burner will slow it down. The stand should hold the bottom of the pot about 1" above the top of your burner. A good windscreen will also effect the burn time.”

“ok maybe that was it i'll finish those off and try again, it seemed to work could hardly see the flame but could deffinatly feal the heat. So hopefully it will work”

“Well thanks for all the help guys”

“Well, how did it turn out?”

“At school don;t have a drill or tin snips to finish the rest have to wait till i get home at the end of april”

“One ounce burns approximately 9 minutes for me in my pepsi can stove. I can boil 12 to 16 ounces in that time.”

“You don't really need tin snips, although it does make some of the cutting easier. A good, heavy pair of scissors will usually work fine.

You can build the whole thing with the following tools:

Box cutter
Pliers
Scissors (as described above)
Pushpin (nice and sharp)

If you have heavy leather or cloth work gloves, that's a plus, as you may avoid cutting yourself with them on.”

“I guess I should put up a page on my website showing my version of how to do it. Everyone does it a little different.”

“photoguy190...take the advice of Stove Stomper. I used his instructions to build my stoves and they all work great! Thanks Stove Stomper.”

“You are most welcome. That's why I put up the site.
My windscreen/potstands are really the only thing novel I have.
The few other's people gear I have posted have some novel stuff.”

“ok i took any can type thing, it was 100 foot bulk film comes in and out some holes ing the bottom and some triangles at the top, with a pot on top it incresed burn time to about 7 mins but i might have used alittle more fuel. Still don;t have a boil time the pot i used had a small hole in the bottom. So it didn;t hold the water. When i get a wind shield and a good pot. I'll let you know what times i;m getting. Thanks for all the help.”

“Ok that doesn;t make any sense. Ok i took a old can, its what 100 foot bulk rolls of film come in. I poked holes in the bottom and cut triangles in the top. A pot fits nicly on top, not sure a cup would. With a pot on top my burn time is up to 7 mins. I still need to make a wind shield and take a boil time. The pot i use had a hole in it, new item to add to gear list. As soon as i can get a boil time i will post it.”

“Here's mine. It's a bugger to carry campin' tho.

”

“ok guys thanks for all the help i let you know how it all goes, should make the wind screen thursday.”

“Ok guys this is what happened on one ounce of fuel, i got a burn time of 9 to 10 min not bad, well problem is i can;t get the water to really boil, it just sits there and steams and a few bubbles form on the bottom, then my fuel ran out, so i put another ounce in and 10 mins latter a few more bubbles but out of few again. So i guess i;ll be sticking with my canister stove its not much heavier and it got a boil time of like 3 1/2 mins so i like it. It was fun to make and didn't cost more then 5 bucks, maybe some day i;ll get one that will really work, till i;ll keep the canister”

“Did you use a windscreen? How many holes in your stove? Cover on the pot?”

“k, there are 22 holes in my stove and yes i used a wind screen, of course i covered the pot. My be my stove is designed bad or something.”

“how big of a gap from windscreen to pot? - should be .25 inch”

“Can you take pics of the stove and let us see it? Not in action, just a few of the stove itself.”

“I use a 1/4 to 3/8" gap.”

“the gap is is about 1/3 of an inch.
I can try to get some pics”

“You sure you had the top covered fully and tightly? I can get a good boil on my stove with tin foil on top, but no boil at all w/o it. What fuel are you using? If it is rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol that is definitely a problem - you gotta use denatured alcohol.”

“Use denatured alcohol (from the paint dept at Lowes or Wal-Mart) or HEET gas line antifreeze in the yellow bottle from any auto dept.”

“I've been using HEET, the only thing is my pot is about half an inch from the flame maybe this is too close and it dampers down the flame to much, i'll try to make it be a full inch and try again”

“photo - that very well may be your problem. 1/2" is too close and will not allow full flame spread.”

“Yah, my "simmer" stove has the flames about 1/4" from the pot...that one burns forever, but it did eventually boil the water, it just took 15 minutes.”

“ok i'll work on making it higher thanks for all the help i;ll keep you up to date on the progress”