You cannot put a pot ON a Vortex Burner: it has to rest a bit above the top. Upright burners usually have little folding pot supports, although these are often a bit small and may be unreliable with wide pots. I did not want to engineer something complex for my Vortex Burner Winter Stove, as "complex" usually means "heavy" and expensive (and very often a riveting machine). Several solutions presented themselves for the pot support.
One solution is to stick 3 Ti wire tent stakes into the ground around the stove in a triangle and to sit your pot on them. Variations on this theme include three rocks (an idea several thousand years old, and pre-internet as well) and a (Ti) wire grill over the top of the stove. The rocks are not always available: they may be under several meters of snow while a grill is stable but rather heavy (and may sink into the snow as well). The tops of Ti wire stakes are not always all that reliable as supports (they're rounded), and that idea does not work on a hut table or in the snow anyhow.
The above photo shows two variations on the tent peg idea: both are rigid rods going up from frames, like tent pegs. Yes, the burners look very similar, but I think I have the photo credits correct. Tony's uprights have aluminum rods at the bottom and tapered titanium rods at the top, to take the heat. Tony's version includes a visible heat exchanger loop, but the loop looks a bit too delicate for me. There are other similar designs to be found in the BPL Forums.
Read on for the full story!
Article Outline
- Pot Supports
- Canister Support
- Stove Hold-down
# of Photos 8; Word Count: 2700