I am trying to make a copy of Wayland Hobo stove?

[spamel]

I aos learnt to sharpen drill bits by hand on a grinding wheel. Two ordinary nuts from a bolt held together give you a rudimentary test piece angle to check that you have a basic cutting angle for most steels. Approximately 120 degrees. I found the hardest bit to get right was making sure that both cutting edges were the same length and that the drill was still centred. If you grind it wrong, you get one big cutting edge and one small as the point of the drill is off centre. I fond holding the drill so that as you pushed it onto the grinding wheel the bit turned as your fingers were in the flutes of the drill bit, then the drill naturally rotated slightly enough to ensure the full face was ground evenly and a good cutting edge was created.

 

[shaggystu]

reamer? not that i have any experiance of drilling thin plate stainless other than piloting, but IMHO it's generally easier to make a hole bigger with a reamer than it is to step up through successively larger drill bits. just my thoughts.

also, not wanting to cause any arguments or anything but am i alone in feeling that disposable tools (drill bits or whatever) are a little bit against the ethos of bushcraft? don't get me wrong, i've worked in enough trades to have thrown away my fair share of pilot bits, saw blades, stanley blades, wheelbarrows, step ladders etc. etc. but i just feel that bushcraft is a little different. i could do pretty much all of my bushcraft projects much more quickly and easily with a stanley/craft knife, it's a lovely tool for all sorts of jobs, and i must admit that on occasion i do resort to a stanley knife, but i never feel happy about it. it feels like cheating somehow. instead i use my opinel for more or less everything, it gets blunt, quickly, and i sharpen it. admitedly it slows the job down, but to be honest that's half the point for me. isn't a lot of the idea of bushcraft to be sustainable?

cheers

stuart

p.s. no offence intended at all bimble, i've read a few of your posts and i agree with pretty much everything you've said so far. just don't like the disposable approach to anything.

 

[Bimble]

Sorry for any offense, as you see in the edit for the post I corrected the 'bin it' and said it should be recycled. For the skilled metal workers out there, yes it is possible to resharpen HSS drills with the right equipment and some practice. I just thought that 'the interceptor boy' doesn't sound like the sort of person, having asked the question, to have this level of kit or skill.
I just thought I was helping him make his hobo stove.... :sad6:

 

[Bimble]

shaggystu, I agree with you. Nothing annoys me more than walking into DIY shops and seeing the future land fill. You just can't buy good tools from these places...
I shouldn't feel guilty about Stanley knife blades though, the carbon steel they are made from is ‘relatively’ low impact from an environmental point of view, it doesn't have a lot of 'embodied' energy in its production, is 100% recyclable, and biodegrades (rusts) relatively quickly and safely. You'd have to recycle a lot of these blades to match the environmental damage done by the metal in your car, bicycle, or the computer I’m writing this on for that matter.
The chromium used in the cheap stainless steel of the ‘eco friendly’ hobo stove production is another kettle of fish! (I’m not preaching here, I have made one too.)
Life would be a whole lot ‘greener’ if I could just light a small fire with some sticks, then clean it up properly afterwards, but no, the anti’s want me to use stoves with disposable gas canisters so I don’t scar the environment!
If there’s environmental logic there then it beats me?
As an aside on the subject of hobo stoves, I got a bollocking off a so called ‘ranger’ on the long mind this spring. I lit my spirit burner in my hobo stove (‘cus their anal about fires and there are no trees anyway) and consequently got told off by a 19 year old blonde girl in a green tee shirt with ranger written on it. Thing was I deliberately had the stove on gravel by a stream bed, it had been raining for days, and I stood over it and never left it unattended. You couldn’t have lit the hillside with a dawn napalm raid!
Obviously I said sorry, put it out, apologised, waited until she had gone, and lit it again. She didn’t even have a waterproof with her, it started to rain, I felt much better.

 

[shaggystu]

as i said mate, i agree with pretty much everything you've said so far. hope you didn't think i was having a pop, having re-read my post it does come across as though i'm pontificating slightly. my apologies.

as you said "if there's an environmental logic there then it beats me", there is no environmental logic, just lots and lots of utterly confusing and contradictary opinions.

SWMBO just looked over my shoulder as i was typing this and stated very correctly that we need captain planet to save the world, she's spot on IMHO

cheers

stuart

 

[saddle_tramp]

I must be missing the point with these hobo stoves. since when did we all need a stainless steel container in which to light a fire, one that dictates the size and amount of fuel we burn, to what we can fit through a small hole, and so has to be tended constantly, and then theres the weight of the thing, maybe not much, but as much as an extra pot?

Ive looked at various pictures on here and many of them look ingeniously fabricated, but i cant help but think its a solution to what was never a problem

 

[IntrepidStu]

I must be missing the point with these hobo stoves. since when did we all need a stainless steel container in which to light a fire, one that dictates the size and amount of fuel we burn, to what we can fit through a small hole, and so has to be tended constantly, and then theres the weight of the thing, maybe not much, but as much as an extra pot?

Ive looked at various pictures on here and many of them look ingeniously fabricated, but i cant help but think its a solution to what was never a problem

The problem arises when you are cautious about the ground on which a fire will be lit. Peaty ground could burn underground without being visable.

 

[Bimble]

Saddle tramp, your right. The hobo stove just acts mostly as a wind sheild for a very small fire. It reflects the heat to the pot and back onto the fire making a small fire burn a bit more steadily. Consequently it produces a lot less smoke due to better combustion, uses less fuel and is 'camping stove enough' not to have every OAP rambler looking at you as if you were a pyromaniac. You can put it on some stones and not leave any fire scar at all and as pointed out by Intrepidstu is a lot safer when things are dry.
You don’t want to use aluminium as it melting point is too low, in a good breeze it would melt. ( Kelly kettles get around this by having a hole you can point away from the breeze if needs be.)
Mild steel just wouldn't last any time at all due to rust and there aren’t as many readily available sized containers as stainless steel anyway (we have ‘Changing Rooms’ to thank for that.)
Besides, there fun to make and everyone thinks theirs is the best design...... but obviously mine is far superior to anyone else’s.

(A bit like knives, 4x4's, cooking, tarps, axes, etc, etc... Life would be no fun at all without the differences between us.)

 

[saddle_tramp]

Im not convinced, but im new, so i dont wanna be to argumentative.

Im not a fan of those kelly kettles either. Sure theyre efficient, but seem a ridiculously cumbersome trade for that efficiency. but i can see the romantic appeal

 

[FGYT]

um yes you can sharpen drills by hand on a off hand grinder But even the most skilled practiced person will off center the cutting point which will mean the drill cuts well but will drill over size but is you just need the drill to do holes approx the size its suppost to be it can be fine i do all my Jobbers like this even change the angles etc depending on the material if i can be bothered and a hand drill wont drill the size on the tin any way

thin Stainless and big drill can be a pain as you can pull the drill tru the metal up the helix so the high speed low feed aproach is good with the job firmly fixed and the drill well held ideally a pillar drill and clamp etc However on a bit thicker a variation on pressure and speed can find teh sweet spot to best cutting wit ha squirt of lub for coolent
you could try a good quality step drill but hats quite an expense for a home made Hobo stove

ATB

Duncan