Story Break
Uncle Pudzer Makes A Stove
Q: So how long have you been backpacking?
A: Pretty long now, dont remember for sure. Pretty near 40 years I would guess, long time. Makes my feet hurt thinking about it.
Q: And how long have you been making stoves?
A: Not so long. I guess only about 10 years, which is still longer than most people.
Q: How many stoves have you made over that time?
A: Hard to say. Not like I keep notes. Its something you do. I dont recall every meal I ever had or every time I was in church, or anything like that. I just make a stove here and there and go on to something else, and come back again if I have an idea or just feel like it. Sometimes you feel like doing one thing, sometimes another.
Q: Any idea how many you’ve made?
A: About 20 or so, maybe. Maybe more, 25 I dont know for sure. Theres guys out there that sit and make them all day long now, just like theres women that sit all day and knit sweaters. I never was one to just do one thing all the time. It would be fun to have a parakeet that talked, but Im not likely to sit around for two, three weeks straight with the damn thing on my finger trying to teach it to swear.
Things are different now than they used to be. Way back when you never thought about it, never knew you could make a camping stove or a backpacking stove. You were a kid maybe, and didnt have money, but had a bright idea, and thought it would be fun to make something like that, so you went at it. You would think to try something and never worried about failing.
But once you grow up and get smart you stop thinking, but when your a kid you dont know your supposed to take whats for sale and shut up, so you get some odds and ends and give it a try, make stuff. See what happens, and usually give up after a couple of hours, like when Butch and I, my next door neighbor and best friend tried digging to China. Did not work I can tell you, because we dug down about two feet and got tired. Too damn much work. Hot, too. Later on we decided to cut down the big tree in his back yard, a huge cottonwood, so we took our toy saws and cut around on the bark for a while, and pounded in a few nails, and that was it.
The smart guys are like that, but they succeed. They do stuff. They are just smarter, or have more determination or something, because they succeed. Then you come along and say jeez, why didnt I think of that? Because your not like them, thats why. It looks so easy after you see it, but not before. I am definitely in Group B, or possibly Group C, not an inventor, not on the A team but I catch on after a while.
Q: What kinds of things did you try early on? Anything that’s fashionable today?
A: Nothing too fancy. Your not going to sit down and make your own telephone out of stuff you find in your junk drawer. You hear about a tin can phone with a piece of string and maybe you try that out of blind enthusiasm. Like that. You find out that its a nice toy but not much else. You cant call New York City and order a pizza with it, and if you are an ordinary, reasonable kind of person you dont pursue it.
Stoves. You might make a stove but it isnt one with a hammered brass fuel tank and pressure valves and gas generators and all. No engraving. You stay close to the ground. You think about what you know, what you understand. You think twigs and candles and charcoal briquettes. And you end up with something that looks the part.
Q: So what did you use, tin cans?
A: Sure. That was probably the first. Everybodys got cans. Back in the old days coffee came in cans where you needed a key to open them. You popped the key off and hooked it on a little tab and turned and turned, and this little strip of metal pulled off the side of the can around the top and when you were done you popped that off and then you had a steel can and a steel lid that fit back on real tight. Nowadays you cant sell something like that, people would get ahold of that sharp edge on the the lid and put themselves in the hospital, and go crazy suing everybody in sight. Nowadays coffee cans have plastic lids, and you cant make a stove out of plastic.
Q: So you made stoves from coffee cans?
A: A couple. I had a little folding Sterno stove too. I used to go out in the garage and cook over that and come inside and eat it. It was like camping out but I didnt have to go anywhere when it was 20 below zero. Sometimes I set up the tent in the back yard and slept out all summer. Seemed like I cooked on little stoves mostly in the winter though. It got damn cold in North Dakota so it was easier to heat up a can of stew and a can of corn out in the garage than to go out tramping somewhere and freeze to death in the snow. If I stayed home I could eat in the kitchen.
Probably the first stove I made was a little oven. I saw an older boy do this on a Boy Scout trip with a five gallon can he got somewhere. I used a two pound coffee can. Mine was tiny. I have always liked small things anyway. I punched a hole in the bottom end with a church key and cut a tray out of sheetmetal that went inside the can to make a shelf. The can laid down on its side. I lined it all with aluminum foil to keep it clean and put charcoal in the bottom half and a piece of steak on the shelf in the top half.
Then the coffee can lid fit back on but not tight. Left it open a crack for air, so the fire could breathe from the front end and go out the hole in back end, but it was closed up fairly tight, and stayed hot inside. It was slow but that was good. That was OK. A little oven about a foot long and six inches high. The meat roasted real slow on the little shelf and got pretty tender. I liked that stove. It was small and cozy and easy to make and gave me some fun. Not practical maybe but fun. Then again, a person could use something like that as a camp stove too. Could bake biscuits in it without much trouble, so maybe it would be OK.
Q: So you never used that one camping?
A: No not that one. I used some regular cans as cook pots over wood fires, and once made a fry pan out of aluminum foil strung over a wire coat hanger. Butter and a couple of eggs, over coals, cooked real slow, it worked. Good eggs. You can do things like that. Some people wont blow their nose in anything that dont have some guys name on a label somewhere. Wont cook over wood unless the wood comes wrapped up tight with a red ribbon and sold in department stores with perfume sprinkled on it. Let alone an empty pork and beans can with wire for a handle.
Later on I tried a couple of stoves made from cans. One was a coffee can filled with charcoal. I punched the sides full of holes for air, and set a pot on top and the damn thing never cooked. I had it full of charcoal – must have been damn near a pound in there. Had lots of air. Air came in through the holes in the sides and the heat went back out the same way. Had to scratch my head over that one before I caught on. I was younger then. None of the heat went up the top. Theres such a thing as too much air. But you learn from mistakes. You cant fool Mother Nature.
Another stove was a can with big air holes cut out of the top and then a little door at the bottom for fuel and air. I stuffed twigs in through the bottom and put my pot on top, and it should have worked but it didnt. Not enough draw, not enough air getting through. Might have worked with a taller can. I had to lay my head down on the ground and blow into the little door for about an hour. Finally got lunch cooked and I just buried the can and left it there when I was done. That was meal one on day one of a backpacking trip, and the end of that stove right there. I didnt want to carry it for the rest of the trip. Back in the days when steel cans were still considered biodegradable.
Q: That’s it then?
A: No, not by a long shot. I tried a tea candle in the bottom of a can once. About the same idea as burning twigs, but using a candle instead. Not hot enough, by a long shot. Took about an hour to make a lukewarm cup of water, and the candle puddled by then. This was during a bicycle trip. Another one time wonder. Threw it away in the woods too.
The first day I rode 115 miles in the rain, then camped in some woods, and tried this stove the next morning. Between the stupid rain and the stupid stove I almost gave up right there, but things got better after I threw away the stove. Maybe that was the point.
Had good luck lately with a wood gas stove. Somebody got smart on that one. I didnt invent it. You would not expect it, but wood burns lousy from the bottom up and just dandy from the top down. Now I am almost exclusive to alcohol stoves, but I did play with Esbit a little too, if you want to hear about that.
Q: Sure. How do you do it?
A: Heres what I recommend to try.
Get yourself a scrap of hardware cloth. You dont need but a bit. Half inch pitch is good. Cut a piece about one inch by two inches, and put the fuel tablet on that, over a sheet of foil, to protect the ground.
Then cut a piece of hardware cloth about one inch wide or a little more and roll it into a cylinder. This will hold up your pot. You need enough width to stabilize the pot. Your pot will be one inch or so off the ground, and the fuel tablet is a half inch thick, so youll have plenty of room for the flame.
Now you will have a layer of foil oven liner on the ground, a little square of hardware cloth under the fuel tab, and a ring of hardware cloth supporting the pot. Thats about it. Light the tablet, lay it on the little piece of hardware cloth, set up your pot, and plunk your wind screen down around it all.
The whole stove weighs about half an ounce and it works, but the Esbit fuel is expensive, about fifty cents a tablet, so it adds up pretty soon. One tablet will boil two cups of water in a few minutes and if your fast you might be able to get a second charge of water into the pot to make a hot drink with before the tablet burns out. It lasts about 15 minutes overall. Does not put out a huge amount of heat but you can get by just fine if this suits you.
Some people do all there cooking over fuel tablets. For me there too expensive and you cant buy them everywhere you are, but if it suits you, it suits you. No problem with that.