Baby hobos

[Hulahoop]

Inspired rather by No Idea, I just tried out my first baby Hobo stove.

I made the first row of holes at the bottom to let the air in, I used that implement on my penknife. Not entirely sure what it's meant for, but it worked.



The tin with a window made for feeding the fire. I used a pair of pliers to bend the edges over so they weren't too sharp.



Berk putting holes in part of his with a hammer and nails



...probably a more sensible way of doing it than mine...

The stove up and running in the garden, with sticks resting on the tent pegs that we used to prop up the cider cans for cooking in. build in stick dryer! And the other one with a can 'heating' on top of the other one...



I put heating in inverted commas there, as it never did really heat up. Berk gave up on his, But I was more persistent, and got the bike pump to get it going a bit more

]

It didn't really work. No hot chocolate. The wood was all really wet, and didn't burn that well. The feeding window was too low too, we couldn't put anything on top of the fire really. I'm not too sure if the air holes were working too well either...

We have some more cans, so we are going to give it another try soon. Although we might have to think about how to make the holes, since we don't have a drill...

Any good ideas welcome here.

 

[No Idea]

Hi Hulahoop

Hi Berk

Wow!

Thank you for the compliment.

The pointy thing on your penknife is for digging stones out of the hooves of your horse - I think.

May I suggest you make one of these to get your fire up off the bottom of your tin, so the air can get to the middle easier?

We use our stoves up on a table, so we can get to them. With the collendar thing in the bottom of the tin, they dont burn the table.

If you put a lid on your water pot, it will hold the heat in the same way a saucepan does on the cooker.

When looking for firewood to use, try to snap dead twigs off trees as these are up off the ground and arnt soaked through.

The first time we used ours, we lit it with newspaper and cardboard. Didnt have any wood at all.

Looks like you have done better than I did!

Brilliant!

Well done!

 

[Hulahoop]

I forgot to mention the grill, we've got that bit in too, made out of the bottom of some other cider cans. In our garden there are only so many dead sticks on the tree
I might see what we can do about extracting a table to use them on in future though
Thanks for the tips.

p.s. I thought the hook on the penknife was for that?

 

[WeThePeoplexfbm]

^^ i love hobo stoves mine was used every night last winter, but since it been summer it rustyed away

---
Skipp

 

[No Idea]

Er....

You could be right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=950UpIcV2dQ

Looking forward to your next go!

 

[Barn Owl]

Good effort, that's how you learn.

The pointy thing on your knife is an awl, the hook thing is a 'lifter' e.g. lifting a billy can with bail wire handle or to help carry say a heavy carrier bag without said bag digging into your fingers.

 

[Bushwhacker]

I thought the pointy thing was for sewing.

 

[Hulahoop]

The awl certainly made holes in tin cans! following No Idea's You Tube link, you both look right with the sharp thing, makes holes, but with a hole it in, It also looks like a thread could be used to sew things up. Still, It's been around the Welsh, and Shropshire hills with me, and is still in one piece, except a melted patch on one side where it was rested on a trangia... Great tool!

Any Ideas how to make larger holes in the tins for air holes, without a drill?

 

[No Idea]

Im pretty sure that the hole size doesnt make any difference, only the amount of air that flows.

If you havent got access to anything bigger, I would just use a lot more holes.

I would also try using a worn out pozidrive/ crosshead screwdriver if you want bigger holes, or even a small electrical screwdriver.

If pushing a screwdriver through the tin, make sure the handle is really strong if you are hitting it with your palm as some cheap screwdriver handles can break, sending the other end of the blade into your palm.

 

[Highbinder]

I thought the pointy thing was for sewing.

I thought it was for making holes?

 

[No Idea]

Have you had another go yet?

 

[ged]

Unless you're keen to learn-by-doing it's probably worth spending some time searching on the Internet for designs for stoves. it will most likely save you a lot of time. Getting air to do what you want it to do in a stove is a real engineering problem. I think most people make the air holes too small when they start out making stoves. Air behaves a lot more like a liquid than you'd think when you try to get it to flow through holes. i've spent quite a few hours fiddling around with various great ideas I've had on stove designs. So far they have all been dismal failures. Don't let me put you off having a go, but don't have a go thinking that it will be easy, because it won't. Some people have spent literally years working on this kind of thing!

 

[Berk]

I fully agree on the air flow thing, sadly we have little that might do to make larger holes, so that's something that needs looking into. We've not had a go at making any more hobos though I do have some tins lined up, but at the moment I'm far too busy procrastinating about uni work to mess around much.