How to make a wood sticks candle using aluminum foil

Easy to make a wood sticks candle made by folding aluminum foil. Wind proof. No tools or cutting needed. 30 to 50 minutes of fire with from just one handful of wood sticks. No smoke. Wind resistant. No need to keep adding fuel. Useful for survival, bushcraft, ultralight hikers, and education. Lightest emergency wood stove. Total weight 23g. Packs flat in a backpack or bug out pack.

i call it my Bundle of Joy stove.

The Description in my other Bundle of Joy Stove video provides a description of HOW DOES IT WORK.

This is a modified version of the Everything Nice Wood Gas Stove design by Nathaniel Mulcahy of World Stove - (www.worldstove.com).

Written instructions for the prototype in http://listserv.repp.org/pipermail/stoves_listserv.repp.org/2010-March/013402... . Improvements are:
1. Added small charcoal pieces before closing off the bottom of the inner cylinder for (A) Protection of inner cylinder from excess heat at the air holes, (B) Reduce the amount of smoke when the fire is out, and (C ) To diffuse the primary air to allow it to reach the centre of the fuel.
2. Instead of cutting off the excess aluminum from the bottom of the outside cylinder, fold it.
3. Make the holes smaller.

Measurements:
- Material - (A) Two sheets of heavy duty recycled aluminum foil, 12 inch width. Length = 460mm and 540mm. (B) Two small pieces of sticky tape.
- Inside cylinder - weight 9g. Height 250mm. Diameter 70mm. 25 holes (2.5mm diameter) located 9mm off bottom.
- Outside cylinder - weight 14g. Height 260mm. Diameter 90mm. Flame concentrator ring opening diameter 40mm. No bottom. No holes.
- Fuel is 191g of maple sticks (including 10g of toothpick sized sticks as fire starter) plus 22g of charcoal
- Fire starter - 1.2ml of alcohol as accelerant delivered via a syringe and the 10g of toothpick sized sticks
- Flame height reaches 200mm after 5 minutes. Stay at 200 mm to 250 mm for 20 minutes.
- Total time to flame out - 32 minutes
- Weight of remaining charcoal immediately after flame out - 75g (including the original 22g of charcoal which was not consumed)

Recommendations for future development:
- Could be useful for teaching boy/girl scouts about fire. The stove design is safe and fun for children to build if sheets are pre-cut. Adult supervision needed to use, obviously. Use popsicle sticks or wooden coffee stirrers as fuel, wooden toothpicks as fire starter material. Will not burn picnic tables if you first load bottom with small stones.
- Cook something. Try using 2 or 3 stoves under a large pot if more heat is needed
- Find the maximum practical size
- Find a way to control primary air volume after the stove reaches the desired flame level.
- Determine the lifespan of the aluminum foil, assuming after each use the stove is spread flat, rolled for storage in a backpack, and then unrolled for reconstruction.
- Try other fuel - small twigs, annual plants, bamboo, braided grass. (Already tried wood pellets and that works great - up to 55 minutes on one load)
- Which is more efficient to boil several litres of water - put all the water in a large pot first, or boil one cup first and then add more slowly
- Product design. Suggest using ideas from Aluminum Venetian blinds.

References:
Paul S. Anderson, Ph.D.Dr. TLUD (Tee-lud), TLUD Handbook, http://www.bioenergylists.org/files/TLUD%20Handbook%202010-02-21.pdf
http://www.hedon.info/docs/BP53-Anderson-14.pdf

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Everything
• Nice
• Wood
• Gas
• Stove
• Pellets
• charcoal
• room
• space
• heater
• Make
• TLUD
• emergency
• survival
• camping
• biomass
• biochar
• sticks
• cooking
• ultralight
• hiking
• backpack
• hobo
• gasifier
• education
• scouts
• Bug
• Out
• Bag
• kit
• survivalist
• mini
• bundle
• of
• joy
• алюминиевая
• фольга

[jw934]

No need for alcohol. Here is a video of me showing a couple of friends how to make them. We put 3 or 4 slivers of birch barks on top of the wood sticks then lit another piece and put that into the stove as well. Worked great. /watch?v=KjFqigxjfpg Couple of things to watch out for: (1) if the holes at the bottom are too small then the flame will go out in about 10 minutes. It should burn for about 40 minutes. (2) same symptom if you squeeze the aluminum foil tightly around the sticks.

[emcegriddle]

DOOODE I LIKE IT i am gona make one for fun :P or like 20 of them :Pbtw does it have to be liquid alchahol or w/e can it be  like... nail polish remover or what?? plzz rspond

[jw934]

@emcegriddle Also, there is no need to split the sticks if you can find thinner sticks. It works with any bundle of straight sticks without side branches which will puncture the aluminum foil. I choose sticks without bark if I see them on the ground since bark probably don't burn as well and may affect how smoke is released from the sticks. But i really haven't experimented enough with this stove to conclusively whether bark matters or not. If you could please let me know.

[jw934]

I took three friends camping and each of them made one. Use some small pieces of birch bark as tinder. On first ignition all three flamed out once the bark finished burning. The problem for all 3 was that the holes on the bottom where much too small. Once the holes were enlarged two stoves were able to char all the wood sticks. One didn't because there was not enough sticks and the foil was so tightly wrapped around the sticks that no air can rise through the sticks.

[beamgale]

Hi, I love your ideas, very creative. I don't know a lot about the physics of the wood gas stove and I wonder if you can explain, or do some field tests, to show how different shapes (tall and narrow vs. wide but short) affect gasification/ stove performance?

[jw934]

@beamgale I think of the weight/bouyency/speed of these gases - smoke, air from secondary air hole, flame, exhaust, downdraft into the stove - and how the stove shape provides pull, resistance, laminar/turbulant mixing/flow.

At the secondary air hole, I think of the smoke creating a flaming envelop around the fresh air. The flame then draws air and smoke to continue the burn. To light the stove, flame located below the secondary air hole heats the fuel. Keep bottom of flame envelop in stov

[WatchRyder]

We already have lives and this is one way to get educated.

When the lights go out you'll be running for your ma in no time while the rest of us know what to do... :)

This is a great video and I've rated it 5 stars.

[MegaEggman10]

I took a giant thing of foil got waz from the candle melted wax took a lighter put a hole in the top and put it in my street at night it was cool

[ironmountaindesign]

so doing this right now! and if it works, I think I will make a snake one too. my plan is to get hours and hours of burn from one. thanks for the vid!

[TheConstantNow]

This is awesome. I made one from a Charcoal Chimney Starter and a piece of flexible aluminum air duct. It did not work until I set the base of the charcoal chimney on a tapered clay flower pot flipped over. The flame got so hot, the aluminum started to melt. I will experiment more with other material and hope to post a video soon. I plan to incorporate it with the Kandle Space Heater concept.

greenoptimistic /2008/11/06/candle-room-heater­/

[Cumbriansurvivalist]

simple yet effective,i think it could be improved upon but pretty impressive imo.

[emcegriddle]

OMG IT WORKEDDD!!!!!

[emcegriddle]

@jw934 lol im doing it right now im on the one when you poke holes :)

btw i found laterwhen doing the shell thing it helps to use a water bottle for like a mold thing

[emcegriddle]

@jw934 lol im doing it right now im on the one when you poke holes :)

[emcegriddle]

@jw934 so nail polish remover works?? and i will try it with bark but i think it will make sparks you know? ill make allot and exsperiment and ill put a video as the video response lool ty