There is a certain allure to making your own gear and using it to survive in the wilderness. Alcohol stoves are a first homemade gear project for many lightweight hikers because they are cheap to make, very light, not terribly difficult to construct (depending on design), and allow us the opportunity to play with fire and flammable substances. The best part about building your own alcohol stove is that you'll probably like it more than stoves, like white gas and canister, that you can buy. Alcohol stoves are quiet, light, cheap, reliable, and the preference of many lightweight backpackers and through-hikers. In this Make Your Own Gear project, I'll walk you through the steps to building an open jet alcohol stove. The open jet style is a favorite of our reviewers, and this version of that style results in a reliable, efficient stove.
ARTICLE OUTLINE
- Cost: $10
- Weight: 0.4 oz
- Time to Construct: 2-3 hours
- Skill (scale 1-10): 4
- Tools (scale 1-10): 4
- Recommended Equipment
- Substitute Equipment
WORD COUNT: 3,300
# PHOTOS: 36
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Discussion
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The purpose of this forum thread is to complement the following Make Your Own Gear Project at BackpackingLight.com:
Make Your Own Gear: Open Jet Alcohol Stove
by BPL MYOG Editor Jay Ham.
This looks like a great article, but the biggest photos are small and I can barely see what’s going on, sometimes it doesn’t matter, but in many of them I would like to see the details of what is happening. The small photos there is no way I can see what’s happening in them. The images don’t seem to be live links to a larger photo. Do you have larger photos available? I’m including a screenshot here so you can see what I mean.
You could try my instructions:
I can’t see the BPL instructions, as I’m a cheapskate…
The pictures you’ve shown seem to show cuts with very ragged edges; not quite sure what they used to cut the cans; score and fold leaves a very clean, straight edge.
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