ultralight “roll-up” alcohol stove

[Janos Locsei]

Hi everyone, I've been reading on these forums for a while, and thought I'd make my first post to share a stove that I made a little while back.

It's actually a combined wind-screen and pot-support that works in conjunction with the commercial Trangia meths burner and pots. I know that there are lighter stoves out there (e.g. Caldera Cone), but I like the Trangia burner because I can simmer and I don't need to measure fuel – the Trangia burner has a screw-on lid so that left-over fuel can be saved inside the burner itself).

I was going to buy a Clikstand (www.clikstand.com), which looks very nice, but then thought it would be fun to see if I could do better myself. This is the result:

The combined stand and windscreen weighs 50g, versus 131g for the clikstand. The Trangia burner adds another 111g. Fuel efficiency is slightly better than the original Trangia 27 series (which I own), in both calm and wind. Depending on conditions, 500mL of cold water can be brought to a rolling boil with around 14g of meths.

More details at my website:

http://stephandtobs.smugmug.com/gallery/5634089_TSUi5#346308396_Jgn8W

Inspiration for the design included Colin Ibbotson's estbit stove (http://www.andyhowell.info/Files/Colin-stove.pdf) and the Firelight stove (www.firelightstove.com/FLSdirections.html)

Happy camping all!

Tobias

[Greg Mihalik]

Tobias,
Very impressive design and outstanding craftsmanship. The folded edges and rivet reinforcements are a nice touch.

I'm really curious on how did you formed the dovetails.

Nice work.

[Huzefa @ Blue Bolt Gear]

Nice! I really like the large foil lid which covers the stove too and not just the pot.

You can make this windscreen/potstand even lighter by using 0.005"Ti foil available at tigoat.com

[Janos Locsei]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Greg, I put up a couple of extra photos on my web-page with details of the dove-tail joint. It took me a little bit of experimenting to get a join that was flat but easy to use. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The join has enough friction for the stove to be sturdy, but slides easily enough for the stove to be assembled without much force. Maybe traildesigns could use a similar join on future versions of the caldera cone, allowing the cone to be rolled up smaller.

Huzefa, good idea about the titanium foil. It's probably more durable than the baking-tray foil I'm using at the moment. It's a little pricey though! Have you worked with it before? How does it compare to baking-tray aluminium?

[Roger Caffin]

Working Ti shim: depends in part on the alloy. The common 6Al-4V will probably crack before it folds. CP (commercially pure) would handle better. Ti can be VERY hard to work however, as many here will attest!

[Huzefa @ Blue Bolt Gear]

I havent worked with Ti foil but this 0.005" foil seems easy to work it it because it is so thin!

See here for more info:
http://www.titaniumgoat.com/windscreens.html

[Vick Hines]

iamnot,
Even the ti foil will crack if repeatedly bent – like two or 3 times. It developes stress fractures if you look at it too hard. However, it bends nicely while heated red hot. As long as it is incandescent, it will take any shape you can work into it. Of course, working with glowing metal is tricky and the foil will not hold heat very long, so it really takes two people working together — one to work the metal and the other to keep it hot with a blow torch. Tricky, but doable. Be careful.

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