Story Break
Commercial vs. Homemade Stoves
I’ve, like, made lots of alcohol stoves and I’ve never had one blow up on me. Used lots of commercial stoves too. They didn’t blow up either. We have a draw. Zero to zero. No explosions so far. The struggle for control of the universe is still tied.
Where’s this going?
Look, you ever been out, on the trail, maybe alone especially? And you feel kind of like things are watching you? Or you kind of feel whispering here and there? Not quite hearing it, sort of feeling it, always just beyond the reach of your ears? Me either, but if so, you can try upping your dose, or lowering it. Check to see what it says on the bottle, but don’t call me for advice. I’ve got some issues of my own deal with, and don’t have a license to practice medicine any more.
OK, stoves.
Commercial stoves are big and heavy and bulky, blah-blah. Dayglo colors, patent numbers meticulously registered by bureaucrats. Shiny brushed titanium, shiny brushed steel, shiny brushed aluminum, shiny brushed plastic.
Urban products.
To operate: Light, Heat and Eat.™ As seen on TV. If you order in the next 10 minutes we throw in a pair of space age blue antigravity dustbuster socks, absolutely free! Don’t think about it! Buy now! They never wear out! Or collect dust! Free with every purchase!
Go to the outdoor shop for these. Pay your money, pick up your goods. You’ll end up with a stove, a good stove. Decent. High-pressure tubes, regulators and gages, strain relief, a built-in lighter, an afterburner and a precision-designed logo created by art-school graduates.
Guaranteed to hit Mach 5 right out of the box. You can pound nails with it and simmer lobster bisque to perfection 20 miles from the nearest trace of a road, and then sleep under the stars without a worry, knowing that it’s there by your side to protect you. May be bought with an optional folding wagon for easy transport, and a two-week introductory cooking course.
Buy the right stove, polish it, respect it, and it could outlast you, except for some of the plastic parts.
Homemade stoves, different DNA lineage.
Homemade is one you make. About the only hurt you can give it is crunching it under your foot. Other than that nothing will kill it. Cockroaches won’t get it, not termites, not rust. No one will steal it, they won’t recognize it. They won’t want it.
Miracles are like that, no one recognizes them. Make your stove and it will be there as long as you respect your own work. No moving parts, nothing to go wrong, light as a sunbeam.
You make your own stove, it’s work though. It’s operating without a big brother to hold your hand, no air bag protection against crashes, and it can be scary. No more one-size-fits-all. No easy reach up to the store shelf. No more laying down your cash and going back home and forgetting about it. No safety net in any sense.
First thing is, you need to create an industrial research and design lab (that’s you), to scout terra incognita and return with facts about what you will be facing out there. Then you design a stove to handle it. This is where some imagination is handy, or experience, if you’ve already got imagination.
Refer to life’s first original shop manual, good old tried and true, our dear friend trial and error. Deep down everybody knows how to do this part. It’s how you learned to pull down your pants and poop in that order, and how you learned why it’s the right order. You didn’t know this to start off. You figured it out as you went along, and now you know, because of what worked and what didn’t.
Results will take some time in arriving because you have to make them up. Rev up your brain cells and turn them loose. Let them bang around inside your head like bumper cars until you see a pattern. That’s your design. Design is what you have after the last crash. They don’t teach that in school.
If the last crash leaves one big ugly lump, that’s failure. Failure is cool. Try again. Your head might hurt, on the inside, in the beginning, which can be interesting too. More so if you see nice colors. But it’s worth it, especially if you see colors. Lots of people have been on this for a while so designs are out there. You can pick the one that comes closest to what looks right for you.
Get some aluminum drink cans. Beer works. Soft drinks work. It doesn’t matter what was in the cans, so if you can’t decide what to drink then defer to Mom. Drink what she told you to, and then work from your pile of empties. If you like tiny-cute then skip the big cans and grab some five and a half ouncers and aim for the smallest of small stoves. If Mom isn’t handy, invite a bunch of friends over to drink stuff and rescue each can as it gets emptied. No crushing allowed. Tell them.
Get out the plans, lay out your tools. You are about to set up a factory. Marshal the workers. Direct railway deliveries. Sweep the shop floor. Wave your arms and shout with authority. Toot the noon whistle. Do it with your toes, standing on your head, any way you like, this is your very own factory. You are the boss.
Wash the cans. Measure them, dissect them, and reassemble the parts. Finish with a wrap of shiny metallic tape and your stove can pass for pro work. There will be some of you inside it. Your materials will have a history and carry some of you, especially if you get a nick and leave a drop of blood. (Nothing works as well as gloves: recommended when manhandling razor-sharp bits of metal.)
At the end you have something that came out of your own head and from your own hands. Something that is now your personal stove, with the size and shape you gave it, and that shares a story with you. If the first one has a small pucker to one side there, it’s OK. You get better and so do the stoves as you make more. Trial and error, right?
Carry it a year or two, the stove. Use it. Get a little tarnish on it. Get a scratch here and there. Wash it down, wipe it out, let it dry, it won’t wear at all. Not glamorous, not sexy, not titanium. No racing stripes, no tail fins, no guarantee, but no fuss, no failures, no disappointments either.
It will always have your fingerprints on it, the shape you gave it. Every little mistake, hint of a dent, anything off center, it’s all there. All part of you, your story, in this little thing you made so small you can almost carry it behind your ear, and it will work forever too.
That’s the difference. It’s you versus the anonymous black hole. You and your story and your friends and your whole life all together in a little bit of history that you made and carry around with you that’s all you and no one else. That’s the difference. It’s you.
And never listen to whispering voices when you’re out on the trail, no matter what they say. I don’t. Not anymore.