[pct-l] Homemade alcohol stove

["Brett Tucker" <blisterfree@surfree.com>]

Hello,

I noticed a few posts several weeks ago about making an alcohol-burning
stove using tin cans and a few simple tools. Someone supplied a few web
sites for obtaining further instructions, among which were:

http://www.uvol.com/scouts/stove/stoveUNPC.htm
http://www.backpacking.net/contents.html

Even a year or so ago I recall talk of PCT hikers banishing their trusty but
weighty MSR's and getting into the stove building business. So I thought I'd
try it for myself.

But a few questions have emerged. I followed the instructions from the
backpacking.net website to the letter, but they've left out a few details
that would be helpful. The suggested fuel for use in this type of stove is
methanol - methyl alcohol. A cursory search around town for this fuel turned
up nothing. I'm sure it's out there, but this leads me to wonder about
availability in the kinds of towns one finds along the PCT, or other out of
the way places. Has anyone who has used this type of stove successfully
found methanol on a reliable basis while on journey? Or did you turn to
another fuel? How did that work out for you?

Lacking methanol, but eagerly anticipating the first firing-up of my
hard-wrought creation, I headed into the basement; opened the bulkhead for
ventilation (it's winter, nighttime, indoor stove-testing), and tried
burning the two fuels lying around the house. Isopropyl alcohol, 91%, was
first. Poured a tiny amount into the stove-can; lit a match. With a bit of
coaxing, it did burn, weakly. Apparantly not resiliently enough to vaporize
the fuel out of the 32 burner holes located around the stove's perimeter.
The result was a paltry flame eminating from the large hole in the center.
Not enough to cook a meal with, I figured.

The second fuel was good ol' white gas, which I predicted would fair about
the same, plus soot. Sure enough. A bit more vigorous was the flame, but
still no action from the burner holes.

And this leads me to wonder how methanol will fare, if and when I find it.
Will it vaporize from the holes, and if so, what sort of flame will this
produce? A blue flame, like a "professional" stove, a strong yellow
flame - sufficient to boil 1 qt water in the prescribed 10 minutes?

And the big question. How does this stove actually work? I can build it, but
that doesn't mean I understand it! The stove, by virtue of the fact that it
contains an interior cylinder of scrap aluminum soda can, has "two walls."
Between the two, we have no ventilation save for the burner holes and the
v-shaped notches along the bottom. The notches appear to allow fuel, and
thus flame, to pass into this "chamber." For some reason, therefore, the
fuel is supposed to vaporize out of the holes as it burns, producing a
strong, burner-type flame. Is this the result of extreme heat build-up in
the chamber, a lack of oxygen, or what? And I wonder why it isn't happening
with isopropyl alcohol (granted, not ideal) or white gas?

Certainly someone on the list who has used this type of stove in the field
will know the answers to these baffling questions, and be able to help me
shed my packweight by 13 ozs. Or at least the methanol availability issue
would be nice to have a handle on.

By the way, this stove is purportedly an emulation of the mini-Trangia (20?)
alocohol stove, which I assume runs on methanol and functions about the same
way. Only the homemade weighs 1 oz to Trangia's 3 ozs.

Thanks for the insights,
- Blister

"A man on foot...will see more, feel more, enjoy more
in one mile than the motorized tourists can
in a hundred miles." - Ed Abbey


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