Home Made Gear?

plouw wrote: Very interesting, i would just be bit nervous of accidentally squashing the can in my pack. might have to consider making a hard cover of some sorts.

I just put it inside my tea pot, I take two stoves with inside my tea pot (note that if you use methylated spirits as fuel you should seal stoves in airtight bags before risking putting in inside kettles, pots, or muggs due to the methyl being highly poisonous) one full pressure stove that needs priming and one open vent which is easy to use and just as effective once pressure builds up but uses alot more fuel.

An update on my stove, i get 1L of water to boil in about 9 min and keep it boiling for another 3ish min after that. total fuel used is 55ml of methanol.
The best part is my pot stays clean. not a bit of soot to be seen, thanks to the clean burning fuel.
I have made a new pot stand cause the wire one i made gets hot and collapses, it glows a bright red. was funny watching the pot slide to the side and slowly drop. the new one is a bigger one and from aluminium, both thicker and further from the heat. I still need to test if the alu will stand up to the heat(have my doubts).

My goal is to keep it as light as possible hence the aluminium, i think i can keep the whole cooking set to say 700g with 500ml fuel which should be enough for a 4 day hike.

All my cooking pieces inc the fuel fit inside the pot so that is a bonus.

Well done guys! I'm really enjoying this tread. This stove will be my next weekend project because it has the added benefit of needing empty beer cans. While at it....polish the bottom of the can and use it as an inverted magnifying glass to start a fire. Watch the video on youtube.

The one thing I'm gonna try is a "Leg-sleeping-bag" meaning a sleeping bag that got legs like pants. I get real claustrophobic in a mummy bag and end up kicking open the zip.

I'm also interested in the improvements and alteration you guys made to gear instead of building from scratch.

Don't know why it took me so long to find this thread. I'm very interested in making my own stuff.
I've made 2 fleece liners, and also done some small mods to backpacks (adding in hydration bladder sleeve etc).
I spent about 2 months earlier this year tinkering with DIY alcohol stoves. I tried at least 3-4 different designs, cat-can, penny, 'traditional' soda can. I settled on the cat-can, simpler, lighter and same performance. I probably made over 20 stoves in my experiments. If anyone wants to chat about it, I'm all for it I've used the cat-can stove on 1 hutted overnight (Summit Trail in Kgaswane) and was very happy with it. I'm now looking at solid fuel/Hexamine (ESBIT/Coghlans) as it seems simpler and possibly lighter.

What exactly is a "cat-can" stove? I'm familiar with the basic 2 tin can and epoxy tape meths stove, but never hear of a cat-can stove.

Made from an empty can (of cat food generally): zenstoves.net/LowPressure.htm
Weights under 5g if I remember correctly, if you use Fancy Feast cans (we get them here, same brand as they use in the US. I have a regular supply if you want). I've also made from a can of tomato paste, but its made of steel and weighs a bit more (15g), but fits some pots better (like beer can pots).

On one load of fuel, (around 50ml IIRC, ie 50g) I get about 15 min burn time, with 2 cups water boiling around 9-10min (ie around 5 min simmer). (Most of my meals are soak-in-boiling-water type, with no actual cooking)

Note that you'll need a windshield for these stoves. I use a folded-up cooking tray, the foil is quite stiff.

I've also done quite a bit of experimenting with combination wind shield/pot stand/chimney combinations, made from recycled tins (baked beans, condensed milk etc).

I may be remembering badly, but I think my entire dry cooking kit, (stove, windshield, pots, lid and some accessories) is around 150g, with most of that from the pots. Fuel is about 30-50ml per meal (depending on type of meal). For a 3-day hike, I would take around 500ml (500g).

Very big weight savings over my Gaz cartridge-based kit, and the only thing I lose is a bit of convenience. The alcohol kit also packs up smaller.

I've made a soda-can stove which works exactly like my Trangia alcohol stove ( www.trangia.se/english )except it's way lighter; I use it with a 450mL titanium mug, a foil windshield and a pot stand made out of a wire hanger. The lid is from an old Casio watch box (it's metal). I removed the original plastic 'window' and replaced it with a piece of 2mm lexan...just need to find/make a decent pot lid handle/knob. I've also made a couple of ground sheets that fit under my tent and a couple of sil-nylon sleeping bag liners and a hydration bottle (uses a bottle instead of a bag).

The stove though works like a charm is what I usually take on shorter hikes and 300ml of meths is more than enough for a 2night/3day hike. My next project is a lot more complicated to make myself so I may just alter what I have to make it work...

Do tell what your next project is!
For a knob, have you tried screwing a piece of cork onto lid?

Where did you get silnylon from? How does it work as a liner? Are you trying for a vapour barrier effect?

Not sure if I should explain the next project because I'm still trying to decide if it's worth the effort - lots happening at the moment. Good idea about using the cork will definitely give that a try. Gonna take some pix of the stove set up and post once I give the cork thing a try.

Managed to get the nylon ripstop (parachute spec.) from a textile manufacturer just outside Durban. I used Nikwax gear water repellent for rucksacks etc and used very hot water and soaked the entire length of fabric in it for a day. I repeated the process again and then left the fabric in the sun to dry for about an hour.

The sleeping bag liner works really well...but I get too damn hot when using it!