Inexpensive, Portable Woodstove

[Kelly Alwood]

Ok. As promised, I will show you the small, light, cheep, portable wood stove.
I keep mine in a five gallon bucket, with fuel, lighter, and tinder in with it. The stove is so small, that I can keep hours worth of ready fuel (wood) in the bucket with it.
Alright, the ingredients are as follows: 1 empty #10 can, 1 empty large soup can, and 1 normal size Campbell soup can. A small piece of metal (or a folded piece of tin foil), a can of expanding foam insulation (this works the best, however you can use plain wall insulation as well).
Very simple to make. Place your small soup can horizontally about 3 inches from the bottom of the largest can and trace the can with a majic marker. Cut out the circle. Do the same with the medium can. Trace and cut the circle in the medium can. Now, cut the bottom off of the small can. Place the medium can inside the large can, and insirt the small can through both holes. Now your stove is assembled.
To finish, spray a liberal amount of foam insulation in the bottom of the large can up to the hole line. Now drop in the medium can, and insurt the small can through both holes. Now finish filling in with insulation between the large and medium can, all the way to the top. Cut out some rectangle pieces at the top of the stove as seen in picture. This will allow the stove to breath and work while placing a pot on top.
The last step is to cut a small piece of metal, or fold tin foil and insurt it in the small soup can horizontally to divide the can into two compartments. The bottom compartment is where you put your fuel. As you can see, the space is small. And that is one of the best parts of this stove. The amount of fuel it burns is very little. You achieve great heat, with a tiny amount of fuel. No more cutting and stacking piles of wood.
It will only take about three or four small pieces of wood at a time. The top chamber is for air. This design works very well. By placing the air hole pointing into the wind, this thing really burns hot.
This little stove with a few tiny pieces of wood will easily boil water, or heat a small shelter. It will cook food as well as any outdoor stove.

[AZ Prepper]

Very cool! Thanks! Looks like I'm going to have to build me one of these this week!

[Phil801]

Awesome. I'm going to try building one of these following your instructions. I'll shoot a video of building it and post it here.

[Angela]

Amazing. I want one. What do you cut the cans with?

[Kelly Alwood]

I used tin snips to cut the cans.

[AZ Prepper]

Thanks for taking the time to show us this Kelly!

[Phil801]

This thing is awesome! I just made my first one - took me about 10 minutes. SUPER easy! I'll be making my second one shortly and doing a video of it.

Thanks Kelly!

[sspadp]

Great video! Definitely going to make one of these and give it a try! I especially like that it doesn't take a lot of wood to get the heat going.

[jpeaceokc]

This is a really interesting and useful tool. However, AFAIK, all sprayed foams are flammable and off-gas some fairly noxious gases when they burn or even when they are heated (some materials volatize at less-than-combustion temperatures).

I'm thinking the primary purpose is to insulate and keep the interior cans in place? Perhaps sand would work as well, although I suppose it might then need a lid or something to hold the sand in when it was being transported, as it wouldn't stay in place like hardened foam would.

Any thoughts about this?

[sspadp]

Hmm, good point about it being flamable and toxic. I'm making one this week and may give it a try with sand just to see how it works before using the foam. I'll let ya know if it's a success.

[AZ Prepper]

Hmm, good point about it being flamable and toxic. I'm making one this week and may give it a try with sand just to see how it works before using the foam. I'll let ya know if it's a success.

You could try it out using that fiberglass insulation they use to insulate walls with in homes too. I'm sure packing that in good would work.

Also, those parts at the top of the #10 can that were cut out could instead be folded down over the insulation to keep it in. In other words, cut the two sides of those cutout and fold it in toward the center of the stove over the insulation. I'm sure that if you were careful in how you packed that stuff in there, it might keep it in enough to work...

I'll have to try that myself as well.

[Kelly Alwood]

The foam I used in my first one was the sprayed urithane foam used in skim coating house walls. It is the professional version of the can foam. It however, will not burn or melt. My friend used to own an insulation company, and the leftover from the hose he would spray in a cardboard box. I took them to make archery targets. Worked great, but when they got really torn up, I tried to burn them. That spray insulation will not burn or melt. The only thing that breaks it down is sunlight. That is a source for you to get it sprayed for free. Show up on a jobsite and ask them for ten seconds of time.
The pink wall fiberglass insulation works well too. But the foam will hold it together like cement, and will keep the bottom and sides cool so you can pick it up, and set it on your tarp or tent floor and not burn it.

[AZ Prepper]

Kelly, what about the foam spray in a can that you pick up at Home Depot. Does it have the same characteristics after you let it fully set?

[Northmountain]

It looks like you'd want to buy expansion foam with fire ratings. This company sells 2-hr and 4-hr rated foam. The product and rating standard numbers can be seen on their site... http://cableorganizer.com/abesco-fir...foam/#features

The article about expansion foam insulation on Wikipedia has a pretty good list of the various ratings, associated hazards, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spray_foams_(insulation)

Lastly, it looks like the article on the Do-It-Yourself site has good instructions and a firm warning about toxic gas and black smoke that is emitted by the foam when it catches fire. http://www.doityourself.com/stry/foamboardinsulation

Bottom line, read before building and choose the correctly rated product.

Great stove and plans though..

[Ether15:34]

You could also use ashes in place of the foam.

[Honnis]

This is a really cool invention. You said it would "heat a small shelter". How would it do that without burning up all the air in the shelter and filling it with smoke? Doesn't it need a stove-pipe in order to work like inside a shelter like a real stove?

[Kelly Alwood]

A couple options. One, I like to use these in my primative type shelters...Easy fast setup. The lean-to, and tarp type shelters. In a tipi type structure it would be perfect. The other option is to simply use a chimney, if you are going to put it in a tent. It would be a much smaller, cheeper, and fuel efficient alternative to a standard Tent Stove. These work great in Scout pits as well. But I have found that the smoke output is so minimal, that it doesnt really smoke you out of a normal type tent. The burn very efficiently. If you gather wood with no bark, or split wood not using the outside with bark, there is very little smoke at all. Your only concern may be the carbon monoxide. But I have never been in an airtight tent either.
Just some thoughts.