* Mungo Says Bah * Bushcraft Blog: fire

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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.

bushcraft, camping, hiking, stove, coke, algonquin, mungo, says, bah

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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A Walk in the Valley in -18c Weather

Our little fellow woke up at about 4:25 this morning, and wouldn't go back to sleep, despite Spring and my best efforts.

So by 5:30 I was feeding him breakfast. Shortly after that we played in the playroom for a bit while I worked my eyebrows up and down to get my face working for the day.

He eventually fell back asleep and slept for about an hour or so.

When he woke up Spring took James out for a few chores and some shopping around 9:00 into the -18 Celcius windy winter weather.

I quickly gathered a bag full of supplies, dressed in wool pants, wool socks, a cotton t-shirt, 2 sweaters, a wool scarf, my shearling wool cap, and my big huge super warm outdoors jacket (BHSWOJ).

My knapsack, which I had picked up for $8 at the Army Surplus Store nearby was a perfect size for what I needed for a morning hike.

The first thing I prepared was a wool blanket. I tied it up using what I call a butcher's knot - a jamming knot that I used to tie up roasts when I worked as a butcher, all those years ago...

Then I wrapped up the rest of it and tied off the end with a simple knot.

It's a good way to bring some cord along with you also.

The wool blanket was a $5 Value Village cheapy - great quality, all wool. It was to be the sitting mat.

I threw my Trangia Kit, a spoon, a Nalgene full of water, an army surplus Meal Ready to Eat (MRE) package, some hot chocolate powder, an MRE heater pad (water activated), a couple of Mora knives, some backup cord, a ferrocerium rod (with a homemade handle made from wood), and my trusty slingshot with heavy steel shot ammo.

I got going, and the air was cold in my lungs.

If the tops of my gloves slipped off (I used those wool gloves that have a top that flips up to allow you use of your finger tips), my fingers got painfully cold within a couple of seconds. It was cold...

By the time I was down into the valley, I took an alternate route through the valley over what is normally wetlands.

It is all frozen solid, and I was hoping to see some deer sign. I didn't, but a saw a couple of birds flap out of their ground nests, trying to distract me.

I went into the pine woods, opened up and lay down the blanket - folded over twice to give me some insulation from the cold ground. The woods gave me some protection from the super cold wind blowing.

I was warm as toast, except for my legs. I'll either go out and buy some thermal underwear, or just pick up another pair of cheap woolen pants from Value Village for a few dollars. I'd also wear two pairs of woolen socks next time to be extra warm.

I can always take off a pair. And if for some reason I find myself having to cross ice or slippery rocks in the water, I can wear a pair of wool socks over my shoes for excellent grip (that little tip was brought to you by Monty, the Beagle).

I opened up the MRE package and removed the Cherry Cobbler and formed chicken breast (formed from shredded chicken breast pieces, I guess) envelopes. After pouring about 4 tablespoons worth of water into the heater pack to activate it, slid the food envelopes into the heater envelope. I leaned it up against a tree and waited. When I tried it out last week at home, it took nearly 10 minutes for the reaction to begin.

In the end, the reaction probably took nearly 15 to 20 minutes to begin (I didn't have a watch to time it though) - and by that time I had to be on my way back home through the woods. I think more practise is needed - I want to feel confident in these heater packs. I pick 4 of them for $5 at the local army surplus store. At home when I tested it, it got too hot to hold, and heated up a bag of food to excruciatingly hot. Think I'll read up on them and see if there are any tips I can get.

Next step was to set up the stove to get the water boiling. I cast a spark using my Mora 510 which I was wearing around my neck in a sheath, on my ferrocerium rod. This got the methanol burning instantly, and in a moment I had half my Nalgene bottle emptied into the pot, the pot covered and my knapsack setup as a windbreak.

I should list what is in the MRE pack - just so you can decided if you'd like to pick some up at an Army Surplus Shop or online... This package contained:

Smoked chicken breast
Cherry cobbler
Whole wheat bread
Grape Jelly
A little package of Gatoraide like instant drink powder - to bring up your potassium levels
Package of cutlery

While everything heated up, the first thing I did was drink the remaining cup and a half of water from the Nalgene bottle.

Dehydration is a major enemy in the cold, and it is really easy to forget to drink. You always figure that summer time and sweating are the right time to drink.

But the dry winter air, combined with strenous activity and sweating - although it evaporates quickly - is a great reason to keep your water stores up. Remember the old saying - store your water in your stomach and not your bottle (i.e. don't ration your water).

I ate the bread with the grape jelly (yum!) and then the oatmeal cookie. Ingredients of the cookie begin with sugar, then hydrogenated vegetable oil, then flour etc...

Those food wonks sure know how to make tasty food last for years in plastic bags.

While I waited for my meal, I tried a couple of shots with my slingshot. I aimed for a stick about 30 feet away.

I hit it exactly where I had aimed both times (within a centimeter), and was sufficiently impressed with my skills, and sufficiently cold because I'd had to take my gloves off , that I packed up my slingshot and steel shot and put it back in my bag.