Can-Top Alcohol Stove with Stand

[JW]

I found an aluminum can-top from an air freshener aerosol can (like a can of spray paint) and thought how it might make a good alternative to soda can designs for an alcohol stove. The results are surprising – still beta though. Here’s a picture of the beta stove:

Here’s some details:

Weight: the stove weighs 24.1 grams/.845 oz. and the stand weight is 26.5 grams/.935 oz. The metal on the can-top is much thicker and stronger than soda cans and feels like the Trangia but is almost four times lighter (my Trangia weighs 87.5g).

Burn: I did three types of burn tests, each in my house on the range top with no breeze and no windscreen. First, I used just the can-top without any modification, just as an open cup. I filled it with one capful (I used a plastic tea candle case, a little smaller than the aluminum ones they normally come in) of alcohol and did the same with my Trangia:

— Trangia burned 5m 10s, Can-top burned 8.30. Much longer, though not as intense of course.

Second, I built an inner wall type insert with the burner attached (tin-foil inner wall and .012″ aluminum sheet burner with needle holes punched in it every 1/8″) and set that on top of the can-top, filled each with the same capful of fuel:

— Trangia burned 5m 15s, Can-top burned 10m 45s! Wow, double. Interesting to note, while the can-top design took 1m 30s to prime it burned evenly at full power the WHOLE time. The Trangia had a definite bell curve, with a climax mid-burn and then fizzled down to a mild burn after that. Now I just hacked together this version and did not seal the rim, make even halfway decent holes and I used tin foil for the inner chamber haphazardly. With some care and design the results could be amazing. Note: I liked the way the flame came out of the burner much better when I punched the holes from the bottom up, it created a kind of lift which made the flame appear stronger in those holes. This of course only matters when you are punching and not drilling. Here’s two picks of the stove pieces:

Lastly, I did the boil test with 8oz. of cool tap water. I did one stove at a time using the same pot (Snow Peak Trek 700, 26oz capacity, no lid, no windscreen) and stand. I filled each stove with the same capful of fuel. Here’s the results:

— Trangia got tiny bubbles at +2m 30s, rolling boil at +3m 40s, and kept it there for 1m 40s, for a total burn time of 5m 20s. A little UNDER 1/2oz. water evaporated. Can-top got tiny bubbles at 2m 45s, rolling boil at 5m 40s, and kept it there for 4m 30s! Three times longer than the Trangia on the same fuel. A little OVER 1/2oz. of water evaporated.

My interest is piqued, anyone else? Or are we on overload with “yet-another-stove-hackjob”:}

Here’s some more pics. Another cool thing about this design is that you can remove the burner assembly and use it for Esbit tabs, open cup burner if you damage the burner, and maybe even a downdraft gasifier wood stove with some creative design. While not the lightest of the lightest stoves, it is only 3 grams heavier than the pepsi can stove I also tested against, but did not report those results here because they were so poor compared to the Trangia and Can-top. Here’s those pics, Can-top next to soda can stove (Can-top is fairly smaller, but holds more fuel):

Trangia flame rear, Can-top front (very similar shapes mid-burn):

Can-top flame under mug during boil:

Oh yeah, the Trangia fits in the stand too!:

Sorry, if this post crashes your browser cause of too many pics…also I didn’t put this in the MYOG section because I really just wanted to put the idea out there to see if it is worth adding there later.

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