Bezabor: Penny Stove (posted from home)
Thursday, 11 May-
Today I built another penny stove. After all, I had bought a six-pack of beer and had to do SOMEthing with those three extra Heineken cans. Actually, I wanted to try a couple of small changes. This morning I had tested my newly-sealed original stove and found it didn’t work very well. Instead of ‘blooming’ after it’s heat-up phase, it went out. It did work on the second try but now I was curious—what had happened? I built the second stove and made a mod to the burner. It too went out before blooming. What was going on? I decided to make the second just like the first had been made. It did manage to bloom, but just barely. As I kept playing I realized that several other factors were important. I needed to have a wind-screen around the stove so it could more quickly raise its operating temperature during the bloom phase. And I also need to have the pot above the stove during fire-up. And I think the stove just doesn’t work as well in today’s lower atmospheric pressure (we have rain approaching today).
Wednesday, 10 May-
I rode the Concours down to the REI outdoors store in Timonium for some backpacking gear and for a longer bike ride on such a nice day. I just bought some little things like hiking socks but spent a long time checking out all the spiffy gear. I did snag deals on a set of saddles for Mocha Joe’s kayak rack and on a wind shirt.
Tuesday, 9 May-
I rode the Concours over to the hardware store to pick up some JBWeld epoxy for the backpacker’s stove then came home and sealed the stove joint and set it aside to cure for the day. Late in the day I rode down to Rocky Ridge and thought I’d try a longer jog. I jogged from the parking lot to the far (eastern) end of the park via the hawk-watch and north-side trails. I wanted to see if I could keep up a jog— perhaps only a minimal jog on the uphill sections—throughout my route. I had forgotten how long the uphill sections were on those north-side trails but did manage to make it with some struggle. I had originally planned to return to the parking lot via the center-of-the-ridge trail but I was feeling pretty good after making it up ‘Heart-Attack’ (the steepest hill in the park) and getting my breath back on a friendlier side trail. I made it back to the bike in an hour and a half and that was definitely it for the day. That evening we watched “The Memory of a Killer”, a Belgian (Flemish) film about a killer who has Alzheimer’s disease. Not bad.
Monday, 8 May-
In the morning I built a backpacker’s stove from three beer cans. I had found the plans for this alcohol stove while surfing the web. It’s called a ‘penny stove’ because it uses a penny to regulate it. Besides the penny, it requires three Heineken beer cans. To build it, you cut the bottoms off the beer cans at specific places. One of these can-bottoms is turned upside-down and, after it has been drilled and crimped, forced into one of the other can-bottoms, forming a repository for the alcohol fuel. In the center of the burner is a hole which is blocked by the penny lying on it. After the stove is filled, lighting it causes the entire stove to heat quickly. The penny serves to regulate pressure, allowing the alcohol to boil in the compartment below and flames begin shooting out the six jets, looking just like the large jets of flame of a commercial gas stove. (see http://www.csun.edu/~mjurey/penny.html for details and pictures).
Later in the morning I fired up the stove and it worked! I did notice it had a small leak around the burner, though, and decided I should seal that before using it any more.
In the afternoon I rode the Concours down to Rocky Ridge Park and went jogging. I’m so slow that I hesitate to call it jogging, maybe I should call it ‘slogging’ (for slow jogging). I pretty well exhausted myself by jogging two circuits around the trails in the west end of the park in about an hour.
Sunday, 7 May-
I spent much of the morning doing email and updating my blog. In the afternoon, we went to visit friends Amy and Mike for the afternoon and for supper. Amy prepared a wonderful meal for us and introduced us to two new wines. It was great spending an afternoon and evening with them; both the food and conversation were outstanding and I learned new things about both.
Thursday, 11 May-
Today I built another penny stove. After all, I had bought a six-pack of beer and had to do SOMEthing with those three extra Heineken cans. Actually, I wanted to try a couple of small changes. This morning I had tested my newly-sealed original stove and found it didn’t work very well. Instead of ‘blooming’ after it’s heat-up phase, it went out. It did work on the second try but now I was curious—what had happened? I built the second stove and made a mod to the burner. It too went out before blooming. What was going on? I decided to make the second just like the first had been made. It did manage to bloom, but just barely. As I kept playing I realized that several other factors were important. I needed to have a wind-screen around the stove so it could more quickly raise its operating temperature during the bloom phase. And I also need to have the pot above the stove during fire-up. And I think the stove just doesn’t work as well in today’s lower atmospheric pressure (we have rain approaching today).
Wednesday, 10 May-
I rode the Concours down to the REI outdoors store in Timonium for some backpacking gear and for a longer bike ride on such a nice day. I just bought some little things like hiking socks but spent a long time checking out all the spiffy gear. I did snag deals on a set of saddles for Mocha Joe’s kayak rack and on a wind shirt.
Tuesday, 9 May-
I rode the Concours over to the hardware store to pick up some JBWeld epoxy for the backpacker’s stove then came home and sealed the stove joint and set it aside to cure for the day. Late in the day I rode down to Rocky Ridge and thought I’d try a longer jog. I jogged from the parking lot to the far (eastern) end of the park via the hawk-watch and north-side trails. I wanted to see if I could keep up a jog— perhaps only a minimal jog on the uphill sections—throughout my route. I had forgotten how long the uphill sections were on those north-side trails but did manage to make it with some struggle. I had originally planned to return to the parking lot via the center-of-the-ridge trail but I was feeling pretty good after making it up ‘Heart-Attack’ (the steepest hill in the park) and getting my breath back on a friendlier side trail. I made it back to the bike in an hour and a half and that was definitely it for the day. That evening we watched “The Memory of a Killer”, a Belgian (Flemish) film about a killer who has Alzheimer’s disease. Not bad.
Monday, 8 May-
In the morning I built a backpacker’s stove from three beer cans. I had found the plans for this alcohol stove while surfing the web. It’s called a ‘penny stove’ because it uses a penny to regulate it. Besides the penny, it requires three Heineken beer cans. To build it, you cut the bottoms off the beer cans at specific places. One of these can-bottoms is turned upside-down and, after it has been drilled and crimped, forced into one of the other can-bottoms, forming a repository for the alcohol fuel. In the center of the burner is a hole which is blocked by the penny lying on it. After the stove is filled, lighting it causes the entire stove to heat quickly. The penny serves to regulate pressure, allowing the alcohol to boil in the compartment below and flames begin shooting out the six jets, looking just like the large jets of flame of a commercial gas stove. (see http://www.csun.edu/~mjurey/penny.html for details and pictures).
Later in the morning I fired up the stove and it worked! I did notice it had a small leak around the burner, though, and decided I should seal that before using it any more.
In the afternoon I rode the Concours down to Rocky Ridge Park and went jogging. I’m so slow that I hesitate to call it jogging, maybe I should call it ‘slogging’ (for slow jogging). I pretty well exhausted myself by jogging two circuits around the trails in the west end of the park in about an hour.
Sunday, 7 May-
I spent much of the morning doing email and updating my blog. In the afternoon, we went to visit friends Amy and Mike for the afternoon and for supper. Amy prepared a wonderful meal for us and introduced us to two new wines. It was great spending an afternoon and evening with them; both the food and conversation were outstanding and I learned new things about both.
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 20:27
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