Gram Weenie stove

Looks great! Please provide details!

Hey Todd thanks! I made it from the smallest aluminum bottle I could find, and it took a little playing around to getthe jetting right. I made a primer pan and windscreen out of .006 soft aluminum. total weight of stove, pan, windscreen, 1 ounce fuel bottle, and Heiney pot is 2.4 ounces! Here are pics of the whole system:

So smaller is better !
What a relief !
Great design.

PS. I've never made a stove or seen a home made job.
Could you explain to me how the air gets inside?

Ian, yes smaller can be better :-)! Basically this stove has an outer and inner wall incorporated into its design. You pour the fuel into the center and it makes its way into the chamber between the walls through a small set of holes at the bottom.You light the center chamber and as the fuel heats and starts to boil it vaporizes and starts to come out of the side jets. At that point the jets light due to the flame coming from the center hole.You place the cookpot on top of the stove, which causes the expanding gases to slightly pressurize (about 1-2 psi)as they are forced out of the side jets.The heat from the jets continues the vaporizing process until the stove runs out of fuel.There is no excess pressure buildup as the cookpot acts as a safety valve, if you will, allowing excess pressure to release. A great site to get all kinds of info on alky stoves is http://www.zenstoves.net .

George-
Great idea! Can you give us more details on how to make one?

Really slick. Not a lot of support for the pot being so small, but I am betting with a little care this is not much of an issue. What did you use for the inner and outer walls? Any other construction details you would be willing to offer?

Jason, James, et al,

Thanks, yes the stove is the same design as the white box, except downsized.Since I usually buy large quantities of bottles any way I bought a couple dozen of the smallest aluminum bottles available (I think they are 2.7 ounce bottles). First you need to determine the height of the stove (mine is 1 1/4"), mark that height from the bottom and cut it off (I use a band saw, but a dremel will work just fine). Then measure down from the opening in the bottom piece you just cut 1/4" and thats the height of the jet holes. I used a 3/64 bit and spaced the holes about 1/8" apart. You want to drill the jets before assembly because the otherwise you'll drill throug the inner chamber after assembly.Then you take the piece thats left, and on the neck end cut a couple of short (1/16-1/18")notches in the end of the neck to act as weep holes. At that point you place the neck of the bottle into the bottom you cut off and press them together until it bottoms out. Because it's such a small bottle it doesn't need to be riveted.I'll see if I can get pics together in the next couple of days.
Also, if any body would like one but doesn't want to be bothered I have them available for $9.00 including primer pan and windscreen,or $9.75 also including a 1 ounce fuel bottle, plus $3.00 for shipping USA (I will quote shipping outside US. Just PM me or contact me at end2endtrailsupply@verizon.net

All right, here we go. I shot some pics on building the Gram Weenie. Hopefully I can make this make sense. The bottle I start with is an 80ml aluminum bottle. I score a line around the bottle for the height as well as the jet placement.I mark the height at 1 3/8" and the jet height at 1" from the bottom.

Then I drill the burner holes while the bottle is whole so it doesn't flex while I'm drilling. After that, cut the bottle where you scored it. I use a bandsaw, but a dremel tool will work fine.

Then notch the top of the bottle neck….

and press the halves together.

Press until the neck bottoms out in the bottom half of the bottle. After you cut the excess material off the top of the stove, rub the top edge on sandpaper to smooth it out.

Viola!

Definitely elaborated, perfect craftsmanship!

George, beautiful work! I'm intrigued by the size of the stove!

Nice work!

Is that some type of little energy drink bottle?

you may find the gram weenie style bottle over here.. mckernan dot com/store/product.php?productid=2468&cat=25&page=1
you can request a free sample, or go the easy route and give Bill the $9.
I must build things… thanks for the free instructions!

Ryan, I wanted something better than a tealight for my small pots and came across this small sized bottle. I had already built whitebox knock offs and thought, why not? I didn't think it would work, but here it is. BTW, this stove is perfect for the Firelite 500 pot.

Chad, you can get the bottles at sunburstbottle.com. It's the 80ml size.

I posted a short video of the stove on you tube. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKmElg5DVgE

And it's still on the table for anyone who's interested. I will be on vacation next week so I'll get out what I can this week, and the rest after I get back on 8-11.

Hi George,

Thanks for sharing your brilliant Gram Weenie stove design, your workmanship is of a very high quality.

Tony

Wow, I can't believe the response to this stove. Thanks all. I am out of bottles and have enough to fill existing orders. I have some more coming Tuesday and will probably head home to build some mid week, then off again. I will continue to take orders from all who are interested, and ship middle of next week. All orders to date will go out either tomorrow or Friday.I will be checking email every couple of days after Saturday, so if you email me please be patient, and I will respond.

Just got back from vacation and made a few improvements to the jetting of the stove. I went to a staggered jetting like I use on my Thru Hiker stove to improve its ability to stay lit under a keg type pot.Here's the pics for the do it yourselfers:

Seems the pot comes down too far over the stove IF the top is cut too short, causing difficulty in keeping it lit with the original jetting under a cold pot. This fixes the problem, and actually is a much better burn pattern under both keg pots and small cook pots alike.

ALL stoves that have been shipped are of the improved variety. Sometimes it's just small changes that make big differences.

Thanks George,

I am making a Gram Weenie at the moment (my first Alcohol stove) I will put some more holes in it. I cant find a suitable bottle here in Canberra Australia so I am having to make the inside part from a solid.

Tony

Tony,

PM me with your address and I'll sent you a few bottles for the cost of shipping.

George

I just got mine and it is excellent!
Perfect craftsmanship and works like a dream. This thing is so small I’m going to put one in my hunting lunch kit. VERY well done George, this is one to be proud of.

Just gotta say, I got the new version in the mail today, and it's very nice looking! Can't wait to play with it…

George,
Hey I just got back from a trip and when I picked up my mail I had the newer version of your stove. What a great thing. I bought the 1st verson and you sent me a free upgrade, Thanks! The new design sure helps with a curved bottom beer can pot. I was having trouble keeping it lit with the single row of holes of the old design, now works like a champ.

So the stats: 2 cups of 60 degree F. water to 212 degree F. rolling boil in 9.5 min. and continued to boil for 1.5 more minutes for a total of 11 min. burn time on 0.5 oz. of alcohol. All at 750 ft. above sea level. Improved designed stove wt.= 11 gm. on my scale.

This is an amazing little stove!

Thanks again.

-Mark

Mark, that's great! I haven't had much time for testing recently, but that certainly is better than I had witnessed in the initial testing. The stove was designed to boil 12 ounces and burn for a min. of 7 1/2 minutes, but I had gotten times of up to 9:45. The fact that you are able to boil 16 ounces even blows me away. Maybe you need to test all my stoves :)!

I think I may have the older version of this stove as mine does not seem to stay lite under a keg can but it works perfectly with my MSR titan kettle. The flame pattern coats the bottom of the pot perfectly. Just what I was looking for for my up and coming grand canyon trip :)

This thread has my wife all excited. Yes, my wife, not me, the geek. I don't know what's wrong with her. She wants (me) to start building and experimenting with these on our back patio. There's something about gear that involves being outdoors that turns her into a dweeb. You should have seen the rack we ended up with when we were rock climbing. Ugh.