Hi all. I decided to try my hand at making a cone for my MSR Titan kettle. It turned out pretty much OK. Then I played around with some carbon felt to make a pot stand that would precisely fit the cone. I don't think I actually invented this stove design, thinking I'd seen something similiar once. After using it for awhile, marvelling at its efficiency (especially with the cone),and showing it to others, I thought maybe someone would like to acquire the parts needed to have their very own. Here's what it looks like. A ring of carbon felt lines the cat can, and a strip of .004" titanium foil fits inside the felt. The complete setup with can, felt and titanium is 0.55 Oz. (16 g.)
This shows the carbon felt liner in place, without the titanium strip:
The three components, unassembled:
Here's a fuzzy photo of a BPL Firelite 550 pot sitting atop the stove. The flames are dancing due to no windscreen. This stove seems to work better with a wider pot diameter, where the flames pretty much stay at the bottom of the pot, and not try to creep up the sides. I used this smaller pot for the photo, as the Titan kettle would hide the stove from view.
This shows the flame pattern. Without a pot in place, there will be flames coming from alcohol burning in the center. With pot in place, the flames can only come from alcohol burning at the wick, like a super cat stove.
This is how I employ the cat can felt stand: I wet the felt with alcohol all around at the top, leaving maybe 20% to pour into the center of the can. I light the center, put the windscreen in place, and let things heat up for 5 seconds or so before setting the pot on the titanium foil stand. The flames will slowly begin to go out through the top of the felt, gradually increasing in intensity until the felt is fully saturated by wicking the extra alcohol from below. With my cone clone, I get consistant boil times of 6-6.5 minutes, and 7-8 minutes with a simple windscreen, with .75 oz. alcohol. Total burn time is about 10 minutes. These times seem to hold true for ambient air temperatures of 25*F to 50*F. Not too bad, in my opinion.
So here's the deal–I have some extra carbon felt and titanium foil. If anyone wants to buy the two pre-cut liner components, and also a titanium base plate to insulate the can from the cold ground, I will send them for $13, which includes shipping. The cat food can is not included, since it's unlikely it would survive the USPS trip without a few dings and creases. If you really, really want me to include an empty Fancy Feast can, I'll buy one, feed the neighbor's cat a treat, clean it and send it along. But you must agree to accept the condition it arrives in. And you will add $1 to the price ($14 total). By the way, if you don't like the taste of cat food, Libby's Potted Meat Food Product comes in the exact same can, but it might not be as tasty, or as nutritious, as Fancy Feast on toast! By the way, the default height of the titanium foil places the pot exactly 1.0" above the rim of the can. If you want, I'll make it a bit taller for you.
For Canadians, and all other international customers, you might be priced out of this market, since I'll have to ask $5 USD extra for the hideous postage surcharge.
If you want to try this setup, shoot me an e-mail–drzooz (at) aol (dot) com
(Edit– to include the titanium base plate)
