Redux: A Tutorial on How To Build a Coke Can Stove for Hiking, Bushcraft and Camping

I was just looking over my Coke can camping stove tutorial and thought it might be a good time to post it again - it is such an easy stove to make, and lots of fun.

Okay, following up on a post about emergency preparedness, picture this: your power has just gone out. It is the middle of winter, and the battery-powered radio reports that a major substation has suffered an outage due to iced-over power cables. You are told to expect that power will return in no less than 7 days. So you get out all the blankets in the house, and warm up the bed. You find your 72 hour kit, first aid kit, candles, flashlights, your food supplies (some freeze-dried entrees and cans of food), water, radio and more. After all that fussing around, you decide you want a nice cup of coffee and a hot meal. You have a camping stove that runs on naptha but you'd rather use that outside so the fuel doesn't smell so strongly. You need a quick stove for in the house. A good option for this is an alcohol stove.

I was at a dollar store the other day wandering around the aisles. Other than the things we were actually going there to get, I started browsing the shelves with an eye on camping and bushcrafty things - products I could use directly or indirectly to fuel the fire of my hobby.

I saw a pile of Fondu Fuel bottles containing denatured alcohol and had a little ponder. After a minute of semi-deep thought, I decided that finally it was time I made a Coke Can Stove. Or a Pepsi Can Stove. Or a Pop Can Stove. Whatever you'd like to call it. But because I drink Coke, it would have to be a Coke Can Stove.

Boiling water is obviously important when camping or hiking or during a power outage. With one you can make hot drinks, heat meals (boil in a bag, or heat straight from the can), cook rice or eggs, wash for regular hygiene or for first-aid reasons, sterilize gauze or needles or sutures, and much more.

Now this is a very simple little stove. All that is needed to build one is a pair of Coke Cans (specifically the bottom half of each can), a tuna can or some kind of base, something to cut the drink cans (knife or scissors) and something to poke holes in the drink cans (pin, or drill, or awl, or a nail). Into the stove you pour the denatured alcohol, light it and heat up your food or boil water for tea.

Anyway, all I know is that it took me about 15 minutes to assemble a Coke Can Stove. Here is how you can do it too:

Acquire two cans of Coke and drink them quickly and grab a can of Tuna - consume tuna quickly. Rinse out the cans.


First of all drill roughly 8 to 14 1/16th holes into the rim of one can - you can also use the awl on a pocket knife or a pin mounted in an Exacto-Blade sheath. These holes are the gas jets. Also drill 3 1/16th holes into the center of the concave section. These will serve as gas jets also, but primarily as the fuel-filling holes.


Carefully score each Coke can an inch from the bottom using the tip of your knife resting on a solid item about 1 1/2 inches high (I'm using the tuna can above). Rotate the can against it a few times. This will keep the score consistent and level.


Then remove the tops of each can by roughly cutting an inch above the score.




Dispose of the cut off tops (recycle them).


Slowly working your way around, cut tabs down to just above the score marks on each can using scissors.


Bend them back and forth to get a neat break at the score line. This makes a very clean and straight edge.


Dispose of the tabs (recycle them).


The next step is to nest the two halves together, top into the bottom.


You may find that bending little indentations in the top piece will help you slip it into the bottom piece.


Be patient, it seems tricky, but you'll get it.


Once it starts nesting, firmly and carefully tap the top section into place using a heavy object like a full can or a book.


In the image above, you can see the fuel jets and the filling holes.


This is a lightweight stove, which is also pretty tough. You can carry one around in your jacket pocket. The fuel is stored separately.


I'm using a metal tray for safety above. The Bic lighter will get the stove going.


Fill the concave cavity about 3 times with fuel and allow it to drain into the stove.

Then pour about a teaspoon of fluid onto the priming section (in this case the tuna can). The fuel within the stove needs to be primed before it can ignite - i.e. it is heated by the external flame on the priming surface until alcohol fumes are pressurized and are emitted from the fuel jets.


Above you can see the priming flames begin to heat the stove and the fuel within.


Here too - but I have used a regular empty tin can as the priming surface (better for the photograph). Soon the priming flames will exhaust themselves and burn out, hopefully not before doing their job.


See the priming flames on the side of the stove in the image above, and the pressurized fuel jets beginning to ignite.


Here the initial burst of pressure has subsided, replaced with the regular fuel jets burning. They will increase in size in a minute or so, once the stove has warmed up.


In the image above, I have placed the stove within an Ikea cutlery drainer which I have used as a wood stove. Above it I have placed a camping pot full of water. It took about 10 minutes for 1 1/2 liters of water to come to a boil, shortly before the stove ran out of alcohol fuel.

You can keep one of these stoves at home, one in the car and one in your jacket pocket for the moment that you need hot cocoa.

Let me know if you have any questions please about the construction of this stove.

Cheers,

Mungo

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Mungo Is Still Mad About Wool Blankets

So this is a rewrite of an older post. I'm going to start writing more again soon - but with the cold winter upon us here in Ontario, I wanted to share my Wool Blankets post again. Stay warm out there!

I picked up some wool blankets recently at a second hand thrift shop. They cost $4 each. I am utterly amazed at the prices there. To buy a new King sized blanket at the Hudson's Bay store in Canada, it would cost me $475. For a Double sized blanket, $275. Even to buy one on Ebay.ca, with shipping factored in, I'd be paying at least $75.

So instead, I occasionally stop in at the neighbourhood thrift shop and browse the rack at the back of the floor where you can pick up used comforters, sheets and towels. Nearly every time I go there, there are one or two blankets waiting for me.



Why is this such a big deal for me? I'm not sure. I'm obsessed for some reason. For the outdoors, there is something magical about a wool blanket. It is a terrific insulator. Your body emits about the same amount of heat energy as a 150 watt light bulb. The trick to staying warm in the outdoors is to keep that heat from leaking away from your body faster than your body can replenish it. You can achieve that equilibrium - or overcome the environmental temperature differential - by keeping colder objects away from your body (the ground, water, even cold air) or by adding warmth to your immediate area (warm air from a fire, hot water bottle, infrared radiation from a fire-heated rock wall, etc...), which effectively does the same thing - keeping the cold away.

Mors Kochanski talks about treating your clothing and covering as a micro-environment. He says that you should be sufficiently clothed to survive whatever nature can throw at your for 4 full days, without having a shelter. So you need to have layers of covering and clothes that will trap air in it, and not hold water. Water is not a great insulator. In fact, it allows heat to migrate from your body to the environment 27 times more efficiently than does air. Worse still would be to wrap yourself in aluminum foil... I would be prepared for the worst if I had a couple of wool blankets with my normal winter camping clothing. Even wet, wool retains a degree of insulation - and it won't wick and absorb moisture like cotton does.

A wool blanket is safe around a fire - when sparks land on a wool blanket, it chars but won't catch on fire. It won't melt like polyester fleece, or like plastic. You can use a wool blanket to sit on, or as a quick tarp-like shelter which will protect you from light rains, and from the sun.

A wool blanket can be quickly and easily made into a coat, or with extra effort, into a nicely-cut shirt, and can be used as a sleeping bag.

A backpack can be quickly made with a wool blanket and some twine, to carry your gear, or even a baby. Tightly rolled up and tied off with a bit of twine or paracord, I can easily attach a couple of blankets to a knapsack.

You can collect nuts, seeds, berries, fruit and other edibles on an outspread blanket, and of course use it to transport them in.

But for me, a wool blanket is mostly for wrapping myself in when I am sitting down in the outdoors.

Cheers,

Mungo

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Matt's Solo Canoe Trip In Progress, Using a SPOT Satellite Messenger

My friend Matt is currently on a 10 day solo camping and canoeing trip in Algonquin Provincial Park, in Ontario.


Last year prior to a two week solo trip he too, we had been chatting about what he might do in case he got in trouble. Since there isn't phone service in the vast majority of the Algonquin region, he ended up buying a SPOT Satellite Messenger.



There are 4 buttons on this satellite device (which is about the size of a BlackBerry device):

1. An OK Button.
   When you press the OK button, SPOT acquires your location from the GPS network and routes it through the SPOT satellite network. Your contacts receive either an SMS text message on their mobile phone with your message and coordinates, or an email with your message and a link to Google Maps™ showing your location.
   
2. A HELP Button.
   Once activated, SPOT acquires your location from the GPS network and routes it along with the HELP message through the SPOT satellite network every five minutes for one hour or until canceled. Your contacts will receive an SMS text message including coordinates, or an email with a link to Google Maps™ showing your location.
   I guess this is one step up from 'I'm okay' but not severe enough to alert the emergency and Search and Rescue groups as described next. They say it is for a non-life-threatening incident like 'Ran out of gas' or 'Bicycle tire punctured' or 'Snowmobile stuck'.
   
3. A Track Progress Button
   Matt didn't spend the extra for this option, but it would allow the user to send out 'cookie-crumb' messages every 10 minutes, so that friends and family could track the person's progress live via Google Maps. This would be great so you could do a trip log later. But even still, you can simply hit the 'OK' button every so often (unlimited allowance) and this would do the same thing. It just means you'd need to manually put together all the GPS locations later.
   
4. A 911 Button.
   Once activated, SPOT will acquire its exact coordinates from the GPS network, and send that location along with a distress message to a GEOS International Emergency Response Center every five minutes until cancelled. The Emergency Response Center notifies the appropriate emergency responders based on your location and personal information – which may include local police, highway patrol, the Coast Guard, the Canadian consulate, or other emergency response or search and rescue teams – as well as notifying your emergency contact person(s) about the receipt of a distress signal. Note: not to be pressed for fun, or if you are bored and lonely in the middle of the wilderness and just want to hear the sound of someone else's voice.

Coverage is nearly world-wide:

"SPOT works around the world, including virtually all of the continental United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Australia, portions of South America, Northern Africa, and North-Eastern Asia and hundreds or thousands of miles offshore of these areas."

He is taking it a little easier this go around. Last year he changed campsites virtually every or every other night. I think this time he's making camp at three sites, and using them as bases for day trips. He's up in the north east section - in North Tea Lake, Manitou Lake and thereabouts.

I'm a little bit jealous... I'll bet he's having an amazing time!

Cheers,

Mungo

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Chris Townsend Video, Books and Blog

I am a huge fan of Chris Townsend, hiker extraordinaire.

I have a couple of his books, which are in my top 5 outdoors books list - the ones you'd want if you were stranded after a small aircraft crash landing in the mountains somewhere north in Canada.

Here he is in a video describing which gear he would take with him on his upcoming 12,000 mile (no, that is not a typo) Pacific Northwest Trail hike.



You can preview his book "The advanced backpacker: a handbook of year-round, long-distance hiking" here:


Finally, you can follow his online column at The Great Outdoors magazine and read his blog 'Chris Townsend Outdoors' which he supplements with some terrific photography.

Cheers,

Mungo

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A Hike At Whitchurch Conservation Area North of Toronto

I went for a nice hike up at Whitchurch Conservation Area north of Toronto, just off of the 404 highway near Stouffville on the weekend.


First of all, here above is a video I took, giving you a quick tour of the place I set up my blanket, kit, food and book to read.


View Larger Map
Above is a map - if you can't see it, you may need to install a Google Earth plugin, or simply use the normal view of Google Maps:



I brought along my military surplus knapsack that I picked up at a thrift shop for a few dollars. It is made of canvas and is a terrific piece of kit - big enough for a day trip, with lots of connection points on the outside for attaching extra gear.


I reached a grassy verge at the edge of a pond, and laid out my wool blanket, my stove, and cooking kit, pulled out my book and sat for a while relaxing and reading.


I brought my Trangia kit - a great compact size, everything fits into the pot. I brought my Mora 510 carbon steel blade knife, and a stainless steel camping cup for eating lunch. It was still early, so I read and watched the birds, and listened to the sounds of nature for a while.


At one end of the pond, last year's growth of cattails are fluffing up and breaking down amongst this year's growth. Had I been especially hungry, I would have pulled up the roots and made a little stew or roasted them over a flame. I wasn't especially hungry.


The grass was full of edible and medicinal plants. Narrow leafed plantain above.


Broad leafed plantain or common plantain. You can cook up the leaves like spinach - and roast the roots for flour.


I was on a grassy spot but most of the area is thick woods, a mix of deciduous and coniferous woods.


The other end of the pond was narrower, and at one point a Great Blue Heron flew in. It got spooked and flew away the second it saw me bumbling with my camera (shaky and blurry shots below).


Fat bumbling tadpoles soaked in the sun in the shallows.


They might make good bait if I were in a fishing mood.


I had the place to myself. Wonderful. And on a Victoria Day long weekend (a Canadian holiday) where traditionally most folks go to cottages or go camping or to wilderness areas to escape the city and to locate the beers.


I'm not sure what this little yellow flower is - anyone?


Ahhh.... Wild Strawberries! The paths through the woods were littered with them. As I crawled along the ground looking for plants (a sight to see), I noticed beneath the strawberry leaves there were little strawberries. I ate a few and they were tart and delicious. Each of them, a tenth of the size of a domesticated strawberry had as much flavour as the latter and a much fresher taste too.


I ate a small handful worth of them.


After nibbling on strawberries, yellow wood sorrel, plantain, and other bits and pieces I found about, I read for a while longer.


Then I figured it was time for curried chicken with rice. I opened my can of curried chicken with my knife, and plopped in some rice. Nothing tastes so good when you are hungry and when you are outdoors in nature.


A rude honking squawking sound emerged from the sky, and I had to scramble to turn on my camera and try to capture pictures of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias). It looked like a gigantic pterodactyl.


It landed but despite my stealthy stumbling, it saw me and flew off as quickly as it could.


Next time I will wear a Ghillie suit and hide in a tree for the day, waiting for the bird to land again.


The bigger and the more unusual the bird, the ruder the sounds they make. That's my theory. The loud, coarse rattle of this irritating bird was a Belted Kingfisher (Ceryle alcyon). Well, it was nice for a while, then it got irritating.


After a few hours, I decided to be on my way. I packed up, ensured the place was cleaner than when I first got there, and started through the woods on the path back to where I had parked my car near the road. As I walked slowly, looking carefully at the various plants scattered along the pathway, I recognized ferns, and wood sorrel, and a couple of Jack in the Pulpits.


And then suddenly, as though I had recognized an old friend, I saw a mushroom standing amongst the leaf litter. I knew instantly that it was a Morel, although I've never seen one in real life before. It is such a recognizable mushroom, much like a giant puffball is unmistakable.


Roger's Mushrooms has these details about these highly prized, rare, and exceedingly edible Morchella esculenta. I picked the two that I was able to find, for a dinner treat later that evening.


This is an Ink Cap - I believe. There is a self-digesting enzyme within the cap, that upon maturity emerges to cause deliquescence... Deliquescing is what happens when the cap liquifies, through autolytic action. It is named an Ink Cap, because the black fluid that the cap breaks down into was once used as a writing ink.


Here is a bunch of immature Ink Caps still in their button or egg form. They are edible (always cook mushrooms before eating them), but if you drink alcohol within 72 hours, you will suffer from mild gastric distress, due to an interaction of the metabolites of alcohol and the Ink Cap.


I've always been drawn to the soft, velvety leaves of the first-year growth of Mullein. My mum told me they were known as fairy blankets when she was a child in Ireland. If you pick one up, you'll understand why.


Baby blue coloured Forget Me Nots were scattered at the wood's edge.


They look so nice. By the time I was in the car, carrying two Morel mushrooms in my jacket pocket, lots of pictures in my camera, rice, curry and chicken in my tummy, I was rested and relaxed. I had read a terrific book and was feeling really positive.

There is nothing like nature to restore the soul and mind.

Cheers,

Mungo

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