Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Over-Designing the 2.4 gallon Waste Bucket backpack tent wood stove?

So the new cooking grate is connected to the stove via a clay cement - sodium silicate. So just as I expected - it absorbs the heat too much, so that the temperature gets lowered too much to boil water. Oops!

So I have to rip off the cooking grate and try clean off that clay cement.

On the back of the flue pipe - the black stove pipe wobbles due to the height and weight of the damper plus 6 feet of chimney duct. Once I put the chimney flue duct pipe into a "stove jack" that would stabilize the chimney - also I can get some tie offs. I saw one vid with a good idea on making tie off connections from those adjustable bands.



OK so then I had moved the latch down on the front door so that it closes easier as it is more lined up with the swivel part of the latch. But moving the latch down then causes the top of the door to no longer seal tight against the cylinder stove. This causes cold air to get sucked in through the top crack of the stove - and so counteracts the secondary air channel pre-heated air. So then the stove does not get as hot.

So then once I was able to push that front door shut and get the damper shut then the stove got super hot - as suddenly the duct flue pipe all oxidized - which means it was over 450 Fahrenheit.

So this is before oxidation.

And now after oxidation of the zinc.

No smoke.

OK this is still before oxidation. Then I added a 2nd load of wood after about 20 minutes of burning - so I had good coals established. Then it really kicked out a ton of heat.

boom - or whammo! Oxidized -

more oxidation of the zinc - or zinc oxide

So some people freak out about this - while others point out that zinc oxide is commonly found in hand creams and baby powder or something. Also it's only the zinc gas that is toxic - when it gets over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit or something. Zinc gas is common for welders but would be extremely difficult to achieve for a wood stove.

The damper was hard to "feel" as correctly adjusted - I needed to push the rod through more so that the spring was binding against the flue duct to hold the damper better. But it was too hot to grab onto the duct flue. So I just kind of felt for the damper straining against the metal.

All in all a fascinating test run of the wood stove. When it was really kicking out a lot of heat - then I was very happy. Clearly that would warm up a tent-tarp area. I still need to fix the door and try redo the cooking area - and also the black stove pipe needs more stove cement along the connection - which just cracked open a bit from the 6 feet of chimney "wobbling."

Also the legs held up well since they have a low center of gravity and I was on a hill. There was quite a bit of precariousness about the stove but since the back of the stove gets so hot - then it had melted down the snow more.

I got a lot more "zinc oxide" than any previous burn - so the combination of damper and bigger baffle definitely got the stove hotter. But the addition of the clay cement and grill absorbed too much heat to boil the water. oops!

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