[pct-l] Pop can stove

[sfox@eskimo.com (sf)]

I've enjoyed building a bunch of alc. stoves over the past year. I used
one of the Henderson designs all summer and am totally sold. No more
WhisperLoud for me! I also built some Photon designs but decided they are
more hassle to prime (The Henderson is self-priming).

The only problem is the flames are a bit too wide and sometimes go outside
the pot. The Photon stove is also a hotter stove, so I decided to try one
made from the little 6 oz juice cans.

First I built a Henderson stove from the juice can. The annular area
between the double walls are a bit thin, but it does work ok anyway. It
took about 8 minutes to boil tap water indoors. That seemed ok. Most of
the flame was from the middle area, not from the holes.

Then I built a Photon Stove. On the bottom I glued (using JB Weld) the
bottom of a regular sized pop can. I figured this would give me a place to
put priming fuel. But the area access was poor and it was hard to light
the priming fuel. So I poured in a whole bunch of priming fuel, at least
1/4 oz and maybe 1/2 oz. It lit easily and once the fuel inside the stove
started boiling and shooting out the holes I had quite a towering inferno
going! I was a bit worried the stove might explode from the pressure (I
had not too many holes). Fortunately I didn't burn down the entire
building. I had lit this baby outside but on my deck. Fuel was coming out
of the holes so hard it was blowing out the flame! Quite interesting to
see. Once the priming fuel burned out, the stove cooled and it worked
quite nicely.

I didn't try boiling water with the new stove. Just added more holes and
lit it again. But I'm thinking it may not be too safe, and might stick to
the pop can stove of Henderson's design. Or try the improve the little
juice can stove again. Or better yet, figure out a way to combine the two
designs.

I'm interested if anyone else is trying stoves from the smaller cans. Hey,
it saves a fraction of an ounce! Monte will appreciate that, he could
carry 75 of them for one of his canoe winter stoves!