Alcohol Sideburner Stove

I am the scoutmaster for our ward's scout troop. It's a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I recently attended a new scout leader training in our area and when they were talking to use about cook stoves, someone mentioned building a very light weight backpacking stove out of a Pepsi can. They had one there and it looked very cool. It sounded like a fun project that the scouts could work on before we start into our summer camping season.

I have been getting excited about doing some backpacking this summer -- for both scouts and with my family. I went out and bought the Hiking Idaho book. It talks about quite a few places to go hiking in Idaho. Anyway ...

After I got home from that scout leader training I read up on these homemade backpacking stoves. I came across this site: Zen Stove. They have all kinds of information about alcohol stoves. After looking around for a bit I found this stove: Zen Alcohol Sideburner Stove. The pictures make the stove look awesome, the shiny chrome look really did me in. I decided to build one of these stoves rather than the pop can stove because it seems to be a lot higher quality than other stoves I've seen.

I followed the instructions on the Zen site and gathered all the parts and tools I needed. I pretty much had all that I needed for the tools, I just needed to get the cans it talks about. So I stayed up till around 1 am the first night using an SOS pad to scrub off all the coating of the cans to get them nice and shiny. I didn't get mine as shiny as in the article I posted, but I figure it's my first time so no big deal.

I followed all the instructions as described, except for the part about the jets on the stove. I don't have a Dremmel or the right sized needle that is described, so I just grabbed a needle from my wife's sewing kit and punched my holes. I think they are slightly too big because I get some fairly big jets.

Anyway, I got the whole thing done and was ready to put it together with the silicone. I put all the silicone on and went to put on the bottom and I couldn't get it on quite right. I bent the bottom of the stove a bit and ended up rubbing off a bit of the silicone, but finally got it in. I think I should have done the part about expanding and contracting the top and bottom pieces for longer, because my stove isn't sealed as well as it could be and I have a few leaks.

Anyway, I got it put together and tried it out tonight and it actually works! I was pretty happy about it. I'm going to build me another, hopefully this time I can get it sealed better so I don't get any holes. I really like it and plan on taking it backpacking this summer.

Here are some pics of it, enjoy!