Heavy Wind Screen
Name: Oven-liner-foil wind screen.
Description of difficulty: Can be completed by the semi-dead.
Overview: Made from one of those big, flat oven liners that you find at the supermarket. These are made from a heavy form of aluminum foil. It’s pretty light, fairly simple to make, and more durable than the wind screen made of the aluminum foil that comes on a roll. It’s a design that wraps around the stove and cook pot, but leaves the top open. This is a good one to use with a wood-burning stove.
Technical details:
Height and Diameter: Size depends on the size of the stove and pot, and the diameter of the pot you use with it. Its diameter should be a couple of inches larger than the stove, to allow free flow of air, and some stand off to keep the screen away from flames. The screen described here is approximately six inches in diameter by 7.5 inches high (152 by 191 mm).
Weight: For this one, 1.3 ounces (37 g).
Materials list:
Heavy foil oven liner
Foil tape (dryer vent tape, aluminum on one side, adhesive on the back)
Hole punch
Ruler
Scribe (Pushpin, heavy safety pin or heavy needle)
Sandpaper (100 grit, or thereabouts)
Scissors (beaters that you can cut aluminum with)
Work gloves
Overview of construction process: Cut several sections of foil and tape them together.
Step-by-step construction:
1: Measure and mark.
If you can mark off one piece measuring 7.5" by 20" (191 by 508 mm), go for it — you won’t need to tape any smaller pieces together. Otherwise, measure off two or more pieces measuring 7.5" high by the appropriate width (which depends on how many pieces you’ll need). With your scribing tool, mark the lines to cut along.
2: Cut.
Put on your work gloves and cut out the piece(s) you need. Scissors will work for this.
3: Tape edges.
If you have more than one piece, lay the pieces together on a flat surface and apply foil tape to one side, overlapping halfway onto each piece. Repeat on the other side. Then apply foil tape around the outer edge of the assembled wind screen.
4: Punch holes.
Scribe two lines along one long edge (whichever one you want to be the bottom). Make one line 0.5" (13 mm) in from the edge and the other one 0.75" (19 mm) in. On one line, mark 1" (25 mm) intervals. On the other line, start 0.5" (13 mm) farther in from one end, and then make a mark at each 1" (25 mm) interval.
When you do this, you’ll have two sets of marks, at different heights and offset by 0.5" (13 mm) from each other.
Then use the hole punch to make a set of holes along each line, one at every mark. You’ll get two lines of offset holes along the bottom of the wind screen.
5: Finish.
Use sandpaper and take off any remaining sharp edges. If you want this wind screen to be closeable, you can either use a paper clip to fasten the ends together, or fold each end so you can hook the two of them together. Just fold over the ends — the last half inch or so. Have the fold facing out on one end, and have the other facing in so you can hook them together.
From upper left to lower right: (1) 4 pieces of foil laid out (2) foil laid out ready for taping (3) foil pieces taped togeter (4) outer edges taped
Finished, all taped together.
The heavy screen is made from heavier foil (surprise!), and you probably won’t get one piece big enough to do it all. This illustration shows four pieces which are cut, laid together, and taped together. Then the whole thing gets its outer edges taped. Use aluminum dryer vent tape for this.
Top view of the completed wind screen.
You can fold the two ends over and hook them together when in use. Or use a paper clip. Or nothing. Whatever suits you.