Soup Can Stove Experiment

[Sierra5]

So I know this isn't any kind of high tech rocket stove, but for a couple cans of soup and a few spare minutes, I thought it worked pretty good. I used a large soup can and a regular sized one. I tried to illustrate the set up in the picture below. I was able to run the thing off a very small handful of twigs for a good amount of time. I'll do more tests with it soon to find out how efficient it really is (if at all). It sure is fun making stuff out of trash!

[Inconel710]

Did it get hot enough to boil water? That's the standard for usefulness - can you make dinner with it?

If you're not going for a wood gas stove, what is the purpose of the inner can? Is it just the floor of the stove?

[Sierra5]

Did it get hot enough to boil water? That's the standard for usefulness - can you make dinner with it?

If you're not going for a wood gas stove, what is the purpose of the inner can? Is it just the floor of the stove?

I haven't had the time yet to run a boiling test, but I agree that it is essential to knowing whether or not the thing is worth its weight.

With regards to the inner can, I really don't know what I'm doing. The idea was that the outer can would provide an insulating layer so that I could take advantage of the heat radiating off the inner can. Like I said though, I really don't know what I'm doing--I'm just having fun experimenting.

Anybody have ideas for a wood gas stove that doesn't take up a ton of space? All the ones I've seen use a paint can size for the outer can. I would really like to make a small, lightweight stove that burns wood efficiently.

[Crunch]

The idea of adding insulation is right, the higher the temperature, the cleaner and more efficient the burn. not sure how efficient your design is though since most of the heat will exit through the top ventilation hole and won't heat the pot.

Theoretically you can built a woodgas stove from all sizes of cans, the problem however is the heat. the smaller the can, the less heat and the faster the system cools down. The gasification needs high temperatures, below that (not sure about the exact temp) a woodgas stove is just a well ventilated hobo stove. With small woodgas stoves even a single junk of wood the size of your thumb can decrease the temperature enough to stop the gasification if its a bit moist.

I managed to built a woodgas stove with a 800ml (25oz?) outer can with a layer of glaswool around the inner can as additional insulation. It worked but the wood still had to be relatively dry. A well built hobo is more practical at this size in real life because it burns almost everything and you don't waste that much time to prime it /heat it up (that's just my experience so far). I still want to get a small woodgas stove to work and will do further testing. Currently I'm thinking about a hybrid with a small liquid fuel burner to keep the heat up. the problem with that however is, that at temperatures that high most liquid fuels won't burn with just the little flame I'm looking for.