Another Wax Stove

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

After Russell made his stove, I had the bug to make one as well.  After a few attempts, I came up with this.

It boiled 2 cups of water in 12 minutes and would have been faster if I had used a windscreen.  You can see a video here.

https://youtu.be/7fzCvXgGbNI

 

[DAN-Y]

Russell would be proud :-)

[Jerry Adams]

did it make the bottom of your pot black with waxy soot?

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

After reaching a boil, the mug had a thin film of a waxy substance on the bottom of the mug.  No soot like you would expect from burning wax.  See the pictures below.

 

Before the boil

After the boil

[Jerry Adams]

I guess you just need to have a bag to store it in that will contain the soot

[DAN-Y]

Jon, how do you like the smell of the burning wax and also the smell once it’s snuffed out. tell us about the residue that comes off the “snuffed” burner.

Once the burner is snuffed, heavy vapors continue to be generated in large amounts and boy oh boy, you should see the white clouds of smoke/vapor if and when the “snuffer” is removed. The snuffer has to be left on for a long time while the body of the burner cools…..a long time.

Ask Jon, he’ll tell you……………..the more we burn, the more we learn, right Yon?

[brent driggers]

Pretty Cool. Windscreen would definitely speed you up. I have infrequently used wax tinders  in wet winters in my woodstoves in a similar configuration (without the potstand) and gotten similar boil results, I like your wax “crucible” better than my paint can lid base however. The flame seems a little more concentrated.

 

The amount of soot pales in comparison to that of a wood stove. I keep pot and the stove in a fitted stuffsack for that reason and to keep everything packed tightly together. It always makes a great place to keep all of your beeswax tinder, alcohol, windscreen, etc so typically I wouldnt say that using one is a negative aspect.

What I find interesting is the flame quality improvement when the amount of oxygen is restricted when you place the pot on. I have had very similar results when using  beeswax cotton balls in a firemug. I wonder if increased temperature has anything to do with the blue flame. Just for fun, stick a piece of esbit or an alcohol stove in there and watch what it does. :-)

[Richard Cullip]

Very interesting. I’m curious about why wax? Seems like a bit of effort needed to get it going and then putting it out when you are done cooking. Is there an advantage to wax over esbit or alcohol?

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

Richard,

Good questions.  The simple answer is that this is just exploring a new space.  Wax has the advantage of being a safe fuel that you can fly with, is readily available and has probably no health concerns WRT handling (skin contact).  People have been trying to make a viable (blue flame/ minimal soot) wax stove for a while.  Alcohol and Esbit are readily available in the US, travelling around the world, this is not the case.  In particular, finding solid fuels internationally can be a real pain: I myself struck out of find Esbit is Hawaii, Iceland, French Polynesia and Indonesia to name a few.

Gatt (I believe) made the first commercial wax stove for backpackers.  It cost a few $ and performance was OK.  Russell made a compact DIY version and there are probably others that have made some as well.

As more people try to make wax stoves, the knowledge base grows and we learn more about the pros and cons of using wax as a fuel.  Additionally, as we understand more about burning wax, we understand more about burning fuels with longer molecular chains.  This opens up a lot of potential fuel source.  What I posted above was only the second prototype that I made.  With more iterations, the  performance will get better.  Just this morning, I tweaked the system and achieve a 2 cup boil time of ~9 minutes.

Russell got me thinking about wax stoves and I made this prototype.  Hopefully others may find it interesting and also tinker with the idea (yes, the more you burn, the more you learn).  A wax stove may may be a viable option in the future.  Who knows?

That’s my 2 cents.

[Jerry Adams]

wax, propane, butane, white gas all have a higher energy density – requires maybe 1/4 ounce to boil 2 cups of water

alcohol and esbit require twice the weight of fuel to boil the same amount of water

alcohol stoves are lightweight, but if you’re going long enough, the weight of fuel will cancel out the reduced weight of the stove

a wax stove could be as light weight as an alcohol stove without that disadvantage

I like to put wax in an egg carton section.  You can make it weigh 1/4 ounce.  Enough to boil 2 cups of water, then go out.  You’d have to adjust the stove and the amount of wax in the egg carton section to make it the right amount.

[DAN-Y]

I’ve done my share of wax stoves and it always comes down to ” I myself would not use it”  because of smell, hard to keep drafts from blowing out the flames(as you saw in Yon’s video), difficult to light especially when wax is totally hardened on wick. You need a snuffer of large size to snuff out flames. If you take the snuffer off before stove cools there will be massive amounts of white smoke.

Yon, if you would please, do a video of the snuffer being taken off within seconds of snuffing it out to show the smoke.

 

[brent driggers]

I am pretty sure that I will never make a wax stove but It is nice to know that it works when wood is too wet to burn.

Thanks for posting Jon

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

With some more tweaking, I was able to get a cleaner, faster wax burn.  This stove boiled 2 cups in 9 minutes.

The flame is steady and blue in color.  The wax left a residual on the pot, bu the cleanup was quite fast, I would say that this design left less residuals on the pot than when burning Esbit.

Buffed

Post Boil

Wipe Test

Quick Scrub

 

Full video describing the changes in detail

https://youtu.be/aLVpeNa7eLI

the more you burn, the more you learn

[Jonathon Self]

Pretty clever idea with the wire mesh. They used it for close to the same purpose on old mining lanterns (so flames couldn’t spread/ignite ambient, explosive gases).

I’d actually be fairly interested in an efficient wax stove. The residue wouldn’t bother me too much, and it’d be absurdly cheap to operate. You can buy hundreds of tea candles for practically nothing. I’m a graduate student with limited resources, so anything that cheapens going outdoors is appreciated. I admit, I’ve considered going from no cook to carrying a baking kit for the same reason. Per calorie, baking mixes are amazingly cheap.

[Kevin Beeden]

Interesting experiments, Jon.

I take it the wick is some form of carbon felt, and you’d pre-impregnated it (or left it impregnated from the previous run)?

Where are the air inlet ports relative to the burner? Are they 8 off, maybe 1/4″?

Thinking about the wax, has anyone tried a petroleum jelly (Vaseline) stove…?

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

Kevin,

There are ten, 3/16″ holes punched around the perimeter of the housing and the height is set to align with the wick.  The wick material is carbon felt and it does need to be “wetted” before use.  I did this by loading the virgin stove with wax and putting it in my toaster oven for about 15 minutes to melt the wax.  After the initial “wetting” nothing else needs to be done.

I made a simmer ring for the stove by adding a concentric cylinder with matching holes.  This allowed me to adjust the flame level.

 

 

I was actually able to bake a loaf of bread in the lower setting

The simmer ring also has the advantage when you are done.  Turn the stove down to low and let the stove burn for a while (~1 minute).  You can then blow out he flame and there will be a minimal amount of smoke generated.

 

The more you burn, the more you learn

[Mario Caceres]

Thanks again Jon for sharing your experiments, your saying of “the more you burn, the more you learn” really becomes for many of us “the more YOU burn, the more WE learn”.

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

I am going on a 3 week vacation and I thought that I would give an update before I leave.  Wax stove development is progressing nicely as the design is getting simpler and the performance is getting better.  With this design, I am getting 2 cup boil times of about 7 minute.  Below is a picture of the wonderful blue flame from the gassified wax.

As I stated earlier, the design has become more streamlined.

Rotating the outer body allows you to throttle back on the gassification rate.  When the holes on the burner are blocked off, the flame level is low and you can blow out the stove with minimal effort/smoke.  I’ll pick this project up when I return in August.

The more you burn, the more you learn…

P.S.

Here is a picture of the pot bottom after about a 10 minute burn.  The reduction in the amount of soot indicates that the burn is getting a lot cleaner.  This is a lot less “soot” than with Esbit.  More to follow in August.

[DAN-Y]

as you stated earlier, it’s hard to light. After doing your modifications, is it still hard to light?

What length of time does it take from time of lighting to the point of being able to place pot onto stove?

What is combined weight of the three sections without wax contents?

The more you tell, the more we learn :-)

[brent driggers]

sweet

[Paiolo Montanel]

Nice work Jon!

I once tried and immediately discarded wax stove becouse the were too slow and sooty, but you make me change my ideas…

I particularly like the effort not only to improve but also to streamline the design…

I hope that one of the final versions of this stove could be built just from some commodity aluminium food can  (something like the wax version of the supercat stove ;-) )!

[David Thomas]

“I’m a gradual student with limited resources, so anything that cheapens going outdoors is appreciated.”

Even cheaper per pound than bulk tea-candles are large candles at thrift shops.  A one-pound candle is often 75 cents, sometimes as little as 25 cents.  Of course it is always flavored “Christmas-berry” or some such.

If you do a lot of work with bulk wax, a crockpot makes a cheap wax-melter – $3-5 at the thrift store.

“I myself struck out of find Esbit is Hawaii, Iceland, French Polynesia and Indonesia to name a few.”

Nothing is cheap in Iceland except lava, grass, electricity, hot water, and wind.  I’ve seen butane canisters priced at ISK3000 = USD$24.40.  For ONE canister!

[Paiolo Montanel]

One question: the center line of holes seems to be “taped”: are they closed (perhaps what remains from a failed test) or does they have some function?

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

Paiolo,

That is where all of the magic occurs! More experiments and results when I return home in August.

[Russell Lawson]

amazing designs!  This is more than just another wax stove, it looks and performs far better than any of mine, and I am proud that one of my obsessions has sparked other to trial designs.

The big question is always going to be how does wax compare to other fuels, which already have tried and tested sul stove designs to match.  The niche I believe wax is going to excel in is the winter.  I have tested it below freezing with very consistant results.

 

 

For my next attempt I am going to work towards making a chimney vented, wax tent heater.  A design that can cut the weight and bulk of a typical wood stove for in tent comfort.

 

Keep them coming

 

 

 

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