Wax Stove

[canid]

you could even forgo the making if you where in a real pinch and just use the shoe polish in the can.

[Rick]

I had never thought about that, either. It's petroleum based so no reason it won't work. A lot a smoke, I would think.

[canid]

you never take a lighter to your shoe polish to soften it? if you're not creful, it ignites, and burns with a smelly, but otherwise clean flame [the kiwi stuff i use anyway]. suppose it smokes a tad when you put it out.

[Rick]

Never have. Never thought about doing it.

[canid]

even if the flame dosen't look smokey, i'm sure there's a fair bit of soot. i'll try it later.

[Ridge Wolf]

Didn't think of a shoe polish can.. Do they make those in 3 1/2 inch diameters?

[crashdive123]

Shoe polish burns well, don't know about the soot. Putting polish on a new pair of boots, I have always melted a bit and applied it (fills the grain much faster this way). Just lit a fresh can while sitting at my desk. Very tall flame, a bit of soot, should burn for quite awhile.

[crashdive123]

RW - the only cans I have are 2-1/2 inches. Not sure of the diameter of the larger cans.

[Ridge Wolf]

Shoe polish burns well, don't know about the soot. Putting polish on a new pair of boots, I have always melted a bit and applied it (fills the grain much faster this way). Just lit a fresh can while sitting at my desk. Very tall flame, a bit of soot, should burn for quite awhile.

Used to (warm) the polish a little with the old zippo after putting it on the boot for that added spit shine effect too...

[crashdive123]

Yep - nothing funnier (well maybe there is) than a bunch of guys - 80 or so - sitting around in bootcamp with their shoe polish cans lit. Kind of a candle light kumbya moment.

[Rick]

My cans are 3 inches and that includes the thumb lever to pry to the top off.

[crashdive123]

Hmmmmmm????? Gives me an idea (heads to workshop with shoe polish can). I'll report back.

[Rick]

And another plus is....if you carry the shoe polish you'll have the nicest looking muddy boots in the forest......

[Ridge Wolf]

Yep - nothing funnier (well maybe there is) than a bunch of guys - 80 or so - sitting around in bootcamp with their shoe polish cans lit. Kind of a candle light kumbya moment.

Ahh... the comeradery... best done in white boxers at midnight....

[crashdive123]

Started with small, empty can of shoe polish


Used hole saw to cut small hole in center (almost) of can lid. Cut thin strip of aluminum flashing.



Drilled small holes around the edge of lid. Stapled aluminum flashing to form inner wall. So many projects - so little time.



Assembled stove.



Placed on my hardware cloth base, surrounded by hardware cloth pot holder. Added about 1/2 ounce of alcohol. I need to re-do the inner wall for a better seal in order to get the flame to come out of the "burner holes" rather than center.

[Ridge Wolf]

Now, there is an idea crash.. I have seen that same idea made out of a soda pop can cut down to two bottoms (one over the other) with no hole in the center. As I remember, you lit the alcohol in the open bottom and put the other bottom over the top and closed it (or something like that.... probably just lit the fumes at the small holes around the edge..) Those are in production I think also. I'll try and make one of those instead of using a candle and see what happens. Thanks.

A person could probably do the same thing with an altoids tin. They make those with the hinged lid and one with the press lid also like a shoe polish can.

[crashdive123]

The Pepsi can stoves are pretty popular. I've found a few different designs on the net. I'm going to play around with some different ideas to see what works best for me. One of the designs that I've run across is what I tried to do with the shoe polish can. You can't see it from the pictures, but I've cut two little notches into the inner wall. This allows the alcohol to get outside the wall into the burner area. Once the temp rises enough, it should allow the vaporizing alcohol to "burn" through the small holes. In this one, I cut the inner wall to short - need to make a better seal to allow that to happen.

[Ridge Wolf]

Here ya go crash.. http://www.csun.edu/~mjurey/penny.html

Aahh.. I see, there is more to it than just drilling holes in a can. Well, I'll try it and see what I come up with.

[MCBushbaby]

I can tell you quite a bit about the pop can alcohol stoves since I've make at least two dozen trying to get the fuel efficiency better. The best I can manage (with titanium pot, windscreen/reflector, and testing the distance between stove and pot) is 60ml(1/4cup) Methanol for 900ml (~4cups) cold water in 7min cavitation time, 10 min rolling boil. It's rather disgustingly wasteful. I doubt the penny stove got 900ml+ to a complete boil with 40ml of fuel in less than 10 minutes... But not to be deterred into buying a $100 Superfly, I've begun a lengthy QA testing including these variables:

• Distance from stove top to pot bottom
• Diameter of wind screen/reflector wall
• Draft in reflector (intake/exhaust)
• Stove design (number of jets, size of jets, direction of jets)
• Fuel used (Ethanol, Methanol, Denatured Alcohol)
• etc

So I'll let you know which is the best design and setup in a couple months

[chiggersngrits]

good stuff mitch. i have been looking at getting one of the swiss army mess kits that comes with the brass alcohol stoves. that would also give me an excuse for having a couple gallons of everclear around," just for emergencies". keep us posted on your results.