Amazon.com is a great resource for the survivalist. They list books well below retail, in some states you avoid the sales tax and if you don’t buy in one’s and two’s they give you free shipping ( a major feat itself in an economy where UPS continuously increases its fuel surcharge ). Of course by listing almost any book ever published by all major or minor book publishers they do offer the occasional bomb. One fiction book I ordered, some darn thing about the New Madrid quake flooding all of the Mid west, had a huge error three quarters of the way through. The last quarter was missing and they repeated an earlier section so you don’t know how things end. A pity, as it was a good book. Another was on clothes washing the old fashion way, about $7 for a padded pamphlet. And mainly just an advertisement for their ( hopefully defunct ) pre-Y2K company selling expensive goods such as the James Washer. No mention was made of cheaper products they didn’t sell. Another clunker was a book on the Hobo Stove. I bought it since it was basically about surviving with this stove. You could probably sell me a Nazi homosexual erotic thriller if you just put the word “survival” in the title.
*
Basically all that the Hobo Stove book said was to build a coffee can stove and use tuna can cardboard/wax for fuel. But it took around thirty or forty pages to do it. Was it worth the nearly ten bucks I paid for it? At the time, maybe. Now, after hearing from readers and seeing other articles on the same thing, perhaps not. One reader even got his tuna can fuel recipe printed in a magazines mail section. And it is a good idea. Take an old tuna can, clean it, remove the paper. Then take cardboard, the kind that has the reinforcing weave in the middle- corrugated. Cut it to the same height as the tuna can. When it goes into the can it should be just under the lip. Wind your strips of cardboard into the can so that you fill the whole thing ( think of a tortilla you roll up and then stand on end but rolled tight so there is nothing left out of the middle ). The open ends of the cardboard should face up.
*
After you fill up your cans, melt some wax. The cheapest is to gather up old candle nubs and re-melt them together. Or buy some big blocks of candle wax. Use a double burner, the bottom pot boiling water, the pot laying on the water holding your wax. When melted take the wax and pour into the cans filled with cardboard. The reason the cardboard is faxing open end up is that the wax pours in between the holes in the cardboard and the cardboard is turned into a giant wick. Since wax is almost always paraffin it is petroleum based and will burn well. This is your fuel tablet. You can use bigger size cans if you desire. Experiment to see that they give the same heat as the smaller tuna can that burns nice and hot.
*
Your stove is basically a coffee can emptied and turned open end down. Poke a few holes in it for some air to get to your fire. If you want to simplify your life poke two holes at the top and put a cloths hanger handle in it to be able to move your hot stove. The once bottom, now top end is now your cooking service. By the time your coffee can rusts away you will have emptied another one. Now you have a free stove/heater and almost free fuel tabs. Your only cost is the wax. The cardboard is from the trash and everyone eats tuna and drinks coffee. The book I was telling you about goes one with recipes and other filler material, but that is it in a nutshell. Make sure you have air coming in if used indoors. A window cracked even a half inch will work. I mostly depend on propane, having lived in trailers most of my adult life and getting a two-fer ( day to day use and good in survival situations ). But this stove is very light weight and smaller than a propane stove. And perhaps the fuel is not cheaper for the BTU per dollar delivered, but the cost saved on the stove will buy a lot of fuel.
*
Do not underestimate the need for hot meals on a winter day, especially if the power goes out. And by using a lot of your used cans you can save on trash ( always good for a hug from a tree-hugger if you can find one that is not a lesbian ) and make bigger fuel tabs that will work in a pinch for heating during a power outage. Get the smallest room you can, light up a can and huddle in a wool blanket. It will keep you from freezing. Pick a cool space to store your fuel to avoid summer time melting and always construct several at a time to minimize your clean up and time spent.
*
I have seen articles calling for only a single ring of cardboard on the inside of the can ( can was soup size ) and the rest filled with wax. I don’t know which is better. You will want to try both kinds. Test for longevity and heat output ( the standard test for stoves is how many minutes it takes to boil a cup of water ). And the amount of wax used. If it takes three times the wax in a single ring stove which only delivers twice the burn time, stick with the cardboard filled. If anyone can, e-mail the results and I will share it with everyone.
oRIGINAL: HOBO STOVE
Amazon.com is a great resource for the survivalist. They list books well below retail, in some states you avoid the sales tax and if you don’t buy in one’s and two’s they give you free shipping ( a major feat itself in an economy where UPS continuously increases its fuel surcharge ). Of course by listing almost any book ever published by all major or minor book publishers they do offer the occasional bomb. One fiction book I ordered, some darn thing about the New Madrid quake flooding all of the Mid west, had a huge error three quarters of the way through. The last quarter was missing and they repeated an earlier section so you don’t know how things end. A pity, as it was a good book. Another was on clothes washing the old fashion way, about $7 for a padded pamphlet. And mainly just an advertisement for their ( hopefully defunct ) pre-Y2K company selling expensive goods such as the James Washer. No mention was made of cheaper products they didn’t sell. Another clunker was a book on the Hobo Stove. I bought it since it was basically about surviving with this stove. You could probably sell me a Nazi homosexual erotic thriller if you just put the word “survival” in the title.
*
Basically all that the Hobo Stove book said was to build a coffee can stove and use tuna can cardboard/wax for fuel. But it took around thirty or forty pages to do it. Was it worth the nearly ten bucks I paid for it? At the time, maybe. Now, after hearing from readers and seeing other articles on the same thing, perhaps not. One reader even got his tuna can fuel recipe printed in a magazines mail section. And it is a good idea. Take an old tuna can, clean it, remove the paper. Then take cardboard, the kind that has the reinforcing weave in the middle- corrugated. Cut it to the same height as the tuna can. When it goes into the can it should be just under the lip. Wind your strips of cardboard into the can so that you fill the whole thing ( think of a tortilla you roll up and then stand on end but rolled tight so there is nothing left out of the middle ). The open ends of the cardboard should face up.
*
After you fill up your cans, melt some wax. The cheapest is to gather up old candle nubs and re-melt them together. Or buy some big blocks of candle wax. Use a double burner, the bottom pot boiling water, the pot laying on the water holding your wax. When melted take the wax and pour into the cans filled with cardboard. The reason the cardboard is faxing open end up is that the wax pours in between the holes in the cardboard and the cardboard is turned into a giant wick. Since wax is almost always paraffin it is petroleum based and will burn well. This is your fuel tablet. You can use bigger size cans if you desire. Experiment to see that they give the same heat as the smaller tuna can that burns nice and hot.
*
Your stove is basically a coffee can emptied and turned open end down. Poke a few holes in it for some air to get to your fire. If you want to simplify your life poke two holes at the top and put a cloths hanger handle in it to be able to move your hot stove. The once bottom, now top end is now your cooking service. By the time your coffee can rusts away you will have emptied another one. Now you have a free stove/heater and almost free fuel tabs. Your only cost is the wax. The cardboard is from the trash and everyone eats tuna and drinks coffee. The book I was telling you about goes one with recipes and other filler material, but that is it in a nutshell. Make sure you have air coming in if used indoors. A window cracked even a half inch will work. I mostly depend on propane, having lived in trailers most of my adult life and getting a two-fer ( day to day use and good in survival situations ). But this stove is very light weight and smaller than a propane stove. And perhaps the fuel is not cheaper for the BTU per dollar delivered, but the cost saved on the stove will buy a lot of fuel.
*
Do not underestimate the need for hot meals on a winter day, especially if the power goes out. And by using a lot of your used cans you can save on trash ( always good for a hug from a tree-hugger if you can find one that is not a lesbian ) and make bigger fuel tabs that will work in a pinch for heating during a power outage. Get the smallest room you can, light up a can and huddle in a wool blanket. It will keep you from freezing. Pick a cool space to store your fuel to avoid summer time melting and always construct several at a time to minimize your clean up and time spent.
*
I have seen articles calling for only a single ring of cardboard on the inside of the can ( can was soup size ) and the rest filled with wax. I don’t know which is better. You will want to try both kinds. Test for longevity and heat output ( the standard test for stoves is how many minutes it takes to boil a cup of water ). And the amount of wax used. If it takes three times the wax in a single ring stove which only delivers twice the burn time, stick with the cardboard filled. If anyone can, e-mail the results and I will share it with everyone.
Original: HOBO STOVE
Amazon.com is a great resource for the survivalist. They list books well below retail, in some states you avoid the sales tax and if you don’t buy in one’s and two’s they give you free shipping ( a major feat itself in an economy where UPS continuously increases its fuel surcharge ). Of course by listing almost any book ever published by all major or minor book publishers they do offer the occasional bomb. One fiction book I ordered, some darn thing about the New Madrid quake flooding all of the Mid west, had a huge error three quarters of the way through. The last quarter was missing and they repeated an earlier section so you don’t know how things end. A pity, as it was a good book. Another was on clothes washing the old fashion way, about $7 for a padded pamphlet. And mainly just an advertisement for their ( hopefully defunct ) pre-Y2K company selling expensive goods such as the James Washer. No mention was made of cheaper products they didn’t sell. Another clunker was a book on the Hobo Stove. I bought it since it was basically about surviving with this stove. You could probably sell me a Nazi homosexual erotic thriller if you just put the word “survival” in the title.
*
Basically all that the Hobo Stove book said was to build a coffee can stove and use tuna can cardboard/wax for fuel. But it took around thirty or forty pages to do it. Was it worth the nearly ten bucks I paid for it? At the time, maybe. Now, after hearing from readers and seeing other articles on the same thing, perhaps not. One reader even got his tuna can fuel recipe printed in a magazines mail section. And it is a good idea. Take an old tuna can, clean it, remove the paper. Then take cardboard, the kind that has the reinforcing weave in the middle- corrugated. Cut it to the same height as the tuna can. When it goes into the can it should be just under the lip. Wind your strips of cardboard into the can so that you fill the whole thing ( think of a tortilla you roll up and then stand on end but rolled tight so there is nothing left out of the middle ). The open ends of the cardboard should face up.
*
After you fill up your cans, melt some wax. The cheapest is to gather up old candle nubs and re-melt them together. Or buy some big blocks of candle wax. Use a double burner, the bottom pot boiling water, the pot laying on the water holding your wax. When melted take the wax and pour into the cans filled with cardboard. The reason the cardboard is faxing open end up is that the wax pours in between the holes in the cardboard and the cardboard is turned into a giant wick. Since wax is almost always paraffin it is petroleum based and will burn well. This is your fuel tablet. You can use bigger size cans if you desire. Experiment to see that they give the same heat as the smaller tuna can that burns nice and hot.
*
Your stove is basically a coffee can emptied and turned open end down. Poke a few holes in it for some air to get to your fire. If you want to simplify your life poke two holes at the top and put a cloths hanger handle in it to be able to move your hot stove. The once bottom, now top end is now your cooking service. By the time your coffee can rusts away you will have emptied another one. Now you have a free stove/heater and almost free fuel tabs. Your only cost is the wax. The cardboard is from the trash and everyone eats tuna and drinks coffee. The book I was telling you about goes one with recipes and other filler material, but that is it in a nutshell. Make sure you have air coming in if used indoors. A window cracked even a half inch will work. I mostly depend on propane, having lived in trailers most of my adult life and getting a two-fer ( day to day use and good in survival situations ). But this stove is very light weight and smaller than a propane stove. And perhaps the fuel is not cheaper for the BTU per dollar delivered, but the cost saved on the stove will buy a lot of fuel.
*
Do not underestimate the need for hot meals on a winter day, especially if the power goes out. And by using a lot of your used cans you can save on trash ( always good for a hug from a tree-hugger if you can find one that is not a lesbian ) and make bigger fuel tabs that will work in a pinch for heating during a power outage. Get the smallest room you can, light up a can and huddle in a wool blanket. It will keep you from freezing. Pick a cool space to store your fuel to avoid summer time melting and always construct several at a time to minimize your clean up and time spent.
*
I have seen articles calling for only a single ring of cardboard on the inside of the can ( can was soup size ) and the rest filled with wax. I don’t know which is better. You will want to try both kinds. Test for longevity and heat output ( the standard test for stoves is how many minutes it takes to boil a cup of water ). And the amount of wax used. If it takes three times the wax in a single ring stove which only delivers twice the burn time, stick with the cardboard filled. If anyone can, e-mail the results and I will share it with everyone.
Original: http://bisonsurvivalblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/hobo-stove.html
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