After being inspired by the sheer number of ingenious little stoves around for tent central heating, in particular Addo's brilliant ammo-box or 'AT-AT' stove I've uploaded a couple of photos to show my half-finished attempt at a similar job.
The stove so far has cost me £3.50, the rest of the material has been scrounged from the weld-shop at work but all in all, I reckon you could probably make one from scratch and purchase all the materials for less than £40. Despite the relatively small cost of the parts, I've been at this for the best part of eight hours already, with probably two hours left to complete the flue and paint to a more uniform colour.
I'll attempt to talk you through the construction process to the point you see here, but as per usual I was in such an enthusiastic state to get on with things I totally forgot to take photos as I went along.
Initially I cut and prepared the top plate from 6mm mild steel to fit the bottom of the ammo box (due to be the top of the stove), beveling the edges on the underside to allow for a bit of a filler-weld before welding and grinding back to a flat surface. This stage was followed by welding four bolts to the bottom (one in each corner) to accept the 500mm lengths of threaded bar (which are still not perfectly straight )
The door aperture was cut using an angle grinder before a door was fabricated from 6mm steel with a standard door hinge welded on and a thin 16mm x 3mm?? bar added by means of a bolt through a hole in the centre of the door. The door was retained by a catch roughly shaped from 4mm steel which was also welded to the left hand side of the stove, whilst the hinge was welded on the opposite side so that everything fitted smoothly together and worked freely.
The boss for the flue was made from a 50mm diameter x 50mm long piece of pipe, ground along the side and pinched to allow the 50mm internal diameter elbow to fit over. The boss was then welded on to the stove, which leads us to it's current state.
At this juncture, I've drilled a few 10mm holes together underneath the door to increase the draw when closed. I'm going to eventually cut this out fully and add a mesh or gauze and make the whole thing a little neater.
So far, I'm already wishing I'd done several things differently;
1) Used slightly lighter (thinner) steel for the top plate.
2) I'd use 12mm black rolled bar with a thread cut at one end of each length for the legs rather than threaded bar.
3) A flue constructed from steel with a threaded send and a female boss would've made a neater flue and an airtight seal.
Any suggestions would be most welcome for improvements
The stove so far has cost me £3.50, the rest of the material has been scrounged from the weld-shop at work but all in all, I reckon you could probably make one from scratch and purchase all the materials for less than £40. Despite the relatively small cost of the parts, I've been at this for the best part of eight hours already, with probably two hours left to complete the flue and paint to a more uniform colour.
I'll attempt to talk you through the construction process to the point you see here, but as per usual I was in such an enthusiastic state to get on with things I totally forgot to take photos as I went along.
Initially I cut and prepared the top plate from 6mm mild steel to fit the bottom of the ammo box (due to be the top of the stove), beveling the edges on the underside to allow for a bit of a filler-weld before welding and grinding back to a flat surface. This stage was followed by welding four bolts to the bottom (one in each corner) to accept the 500mm lengths of threaded bar (which are still not perfectly straight
)The door aperture was cut using an angle grinder before a door was fabricated from 6mm steel with a standard door hinge welded on and a thin 16mm x 3mm?? bar added by means of a bolt through a hole in the centre of the door. The door was retained by a catch roughly shaped from 4mm steel which was also welded to the left hand side of the stove, whilst the hinge was welded on the opposite side so that everything fitted smoothly together and worked freely.
The boss for the flue was made from a 50mm diameter x 50mm long piece of pipe, ground along the side and pinched to allow the 50mm internal diameter elbow to fit over. The boss was then welded on to the stove, which leads us to it's current state.
At this juncture, I've drilled a few 10mm holes together underneath the door to increase the draw when closed. I'm going to eventually cut this out fully and add a mesh or gauze and make the whole thing a little neater.
So far, I'm already wishing I'd done several things differently;
1) Used slightly lighter (thinner) steel for the top plate.
2) I'd use 12mm black rolled bar with a thread cut at one end of each length for the legs rather than threaded bar.
3) A flue constructed from steel with a threaded send and a female boss would've made a neater flue and an airtight seal.
Any suggestions would be most welcome for improvements
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