My stove arrived this morning. Very interesting fitting it together a few times while I was waiting for the wife at the beauty salon. She tells me I should spend less time there but I tell her it's very necessary.
The pieces seem to go together better if I start with the right hand plate and work anti-clockwise (looking down on it) than if I do it the other way around. In fact when I put the right hand edge of the front plate on first, the left hand edge won't seem to fasten up no matter what I do. Doing it the other way it's easy. Weird. This of course assumes that the finished assembly has the trade name visible on the outside of the stove. It is also possible to assemble it inside out, which I imagine will make no difference at all to the performance.
Fired it up easily in pretty windy conditions using a tiny amount of paper and small ash twigs which I've had drying for months in the open part of the shed. Really nice the way that some of the longer bits of wood fall into the cutouts at the top of the stove and don't then get in the way of whatever you rest on top. Used one of my favourite cook pots (a jug style thing of about 2 litres capacity with a thick base about 6" diameter) to cook this evening's meal. The plates seem to cope well with the heat although they do move about a bit. Once running well, if there's no pot on top of it the stove produces a really great flame about two feet high with very little smoke, but sit a pot on top of it and straight away it's a very different story. To stop the smoking I had to hold the pot a few inches above the stove with my hand quite often, and I've now lost a lot of the fur off the backs of my hands (again). Unless I can improve my technique quite a lot I think a pot hanger or some other pot support might be necessary most of the time. Occasionally if I put the pot down on the stove the flames would go out completely, and I felt the need of a blow poker a few times while trying to get the smoke alight again as it was more reluctant than I expected. When I came in with the food the wife said I smelled "manly". Then she corrected that to "cave-manly". She has a way with that kind of put-down but I'm used to it after 26 years. Anyway simmering my patent "rice with bits in" for quarter of an hour on the embers was a real joy and it was a great meal even if I do say so myself.
I reckon this little stove will easily push out five kilowatts. It's well on top of any cooking/heating you'd be likely to want to do on a camping trip for three or four people, but I think (as to be fair it says in the instructions) it will take a bit of getting used to.
Though I've used only my bare hands I haven't managed to cut myself with it yet but it's easy to see how you could do that with a moment's inattention. To smooth the edges I think I'll use an India file rather than emery. Leather gloves would be a wise precaution, and I'll always want to use them anyway when the thing's hot and covered in soot. I carry a pair in the little duffel bag which came with my Ghillie, and a few pairs of disposable polythene ones too, so that's not an issue.
Thanks again Nice65 and FGYT for your efforts on the GB. Looking forward to people doing comparisons with things like the honey, Aldi drainer and bushwotsits, and to any and all help with getting the Emberlit to provide smoke-free cooking without carrying extra hardware.
