A True Hobo Stove

[Air Pirate]

My family and I drive back and forth between Memphis and Nashville quite a bit. On the way is the town of Jackson, Tennessee where Casey Jones the famous railroad engineer lived. We finally stopped in at the Casey Jones Railroad Museum. There was a whole area about hobos, it covered the symbols they used and some of their equipment. I'm not sure why I was surprised to see this, but there was an old hobo stove made by an actual hobo! Hanging underneath it was a hobo's billy can. If you look close you can see the bail that was added. (I apologise for the quality of the pics, I took them with my cell phone's camera.)

Here's the stove.

And the billy can, literally a can.

 

[Goatboy]

Arrggghh, now the Caset Jones tune is in my head.... I'm off to donn a silly hat, get my denim dungarees and have a Sunday adventure....TOOT TOOT!!!

Nice post by the way, was the museum good?

Goatboy.

 

[Air Pirate]

In all honesty, the museum was mediocre. Not bad for a quick Saturday afternoon though.

 

[Wayland]

That's great.

Could you see if there was a feed hole or was it just fed from the top?

 

[Air Pirate]

Both items were hanging from the ceiling as part of a display so I couldn't get a real good look at them, but I was able to see that there was no feed hole. Just the top was open.

 

[HillBill]

Proper hobo's do not have a feed hole. Just holes in the bottom on one side and holes near the top on the other. You rotate the can depending on how hot you want it to burn. Bottom holes into the wind is a hot fast burn( air flow rising), top holes into the wind is a slower,less hot burn. ( air flow passing from top to bottom).

The Ikea drainers make inefficient hobo's, nearly double the cooking time in a bit of wind, without protection. True hobo's work better in wind than without wind and need no protection.