Love it!!! Some ideas to improve the design is to add a V shaped deflector around the exhaust outlet pipe. This would make the hot gases have to go around one more obstacle before exiting the stove. Another thought is to insulate the baffle to increase temperatures. And another thought is to improve heat exchange by creating a gap between the insulation and the outside wall, and allowing the hot air from the second chamber, (above the baffle) to go into the space between insulation and outside wall metal. This would make all the walls heat exchangers! Also adding a damper to the stove pipe can help regulate burn times.
Hike Yakima Washington ⬅️ I will chime in with a spark arrester at the flue entrance, which will remain clean by the extreme temps & adding a damper on both the intake & exhaust to control the burn/temps. Once it gets too hot, it needs to be adjustable, which also conserves fuel. I am thinking that an accessory water heater via copper coil that slips over the flue pipe & can be rotated to the sides or back and into a billy-can, etc. would be quite simple. A half-height fold-down warming plate opposite the door would also be simple. To offset the weight of the warming plate, drink warming plates on the door side would suffice. A clean design & great job!...
Great instructional video Chris! Couple ideas for the next generation build: One, add butterfly dampers in both the large (main) air intake and the exhaust, so you can control the heat better. Two, add a simple, flat, metal sheet surface to the top for cooking, somewhat oversize to accommodate a fry pan, only with a slot cut out of the middle to keep the handle functional for easy portability. Another idea I have, call it a bonus tip, is, for more permanent installations anyway, to add a large, maybe baffled, chamber in the exhaust to capture some of the heat that currently escapes up the chimney, before a second pipe section conducts the exhaust gases out of the living space. This may be a bit too much for this small type of stove, however. Over-complicating it, so to speak, and detracting from its overall simplicity and handiness.
Hi Bob, thank you very much for your thoughts. I love the idea about the slotted metal cooking surface! Extra heat release from the chimney is a great idea, but this will be dependant on the individual installation and I imagine there will be lots of different uses for these stoves. The Mk III will have a water heater option for off-grid hot water, which I believe will be very useful. Cheers! Chris 👍
THIS VIDEO IS ALMOST 3 YEARS OLD; when will you finish with your Mark III? I'd like to suggest you use a 20mm ammo can instead of a 50 calibre ammo can. The increased capacity for wood means you won't have to wake up in the middle of the night to add wood. I've just subscribed & rang the notification bell. Put legs on the stove then add the air intake on the stove's bottom & add a damper to control the air intake volume.
Thankyou Christopher, it’s the most brilliant version of a rocket stove that I’ve seen yet! I love the smokeless part and the shape and size. I’m looking forward to seeing the 3rd version. I hope it will be even more simply built, and I’d like to see you building one from start to finish.
I will weld the stove I make with plate metal just to practice welding, but I love that this is able to be made from scrap materials such as old ammo cans with simple bolt and drill design. It gives me an inspiration to make a bunch of these to give away to homeless folks, because they are light and can be easily carried and produce little smoke to irritate those nearby. Here on the West Coast of the USA we have recently had some uncharacteristic severe winter weather temperature drops and as a result a lot of tragic deaths and frostbite injury/amputations to our homeless citizens.
Hi Timothy, thank you for your comment. Yes, these stoves would be very useful for lots of people in a massive variety of situations. I imagine giving one of these to a homeless person in the winter would be absolutely priceless to them. Good luck with your building - I hope to see these stoves being made all over the world! Cheers, Chris 👍
Finally got around to making my stove yesterday to the specs you show. I used steel rivets instead of welding but everything else is pretty much the same. I did use copper for the secondary intake. Works great!!!! No smoke, just as you described. I will be installing it in my workshop in a week or so, after I make necessary accommodations for the flue and stove backing. Thanks again for your creation!!!
Christopher Barr - Random Chris No, thank you. Stoves like this are a big deal. A friend of mine that ran for Eastern Michigan University was a refugee in Eastern Africa. Items such as this a great for people like me but can be essential for people like him. Great work!
@@ColoradoCJ5 how long did it hold up? I am thinking of making one as a prepper/camping stove, so for the prepper part, I would like it to hold up for a while (my country just asked everyone living here to prepp for war, and its a damn cold country). So in case of war, I would like it to hold up more than 50 hours. More like a few thousand. Do you think that is it feasible if I mod it with vermiculite and steel sheets inside?
Straightening the pellet feed tube for stix will make it easier for feeding and if you make it out of channel steel pipe thats square or rectangular the end can be cut on the corner lines and riveted to the bottom and side of the mark lll to keep the stove rope use down to a minimum....but thats just a design i use here in the states ...hello from the east coast in Virginia...your videos are very useful from my standpoint as a poor man that comps for my peace sometimes.
A great little stove design! Chris here is my 2 cents for your next variation. Wood stoves "suck" the heat out of the room. A cool air intake helps that problem. A piece of duct work could be connected to your rocket intake with a damper to solve that problem. So one would have a rocket stove or a more efficient wood stove. All of the current tent stoves draw from the room. A door on the end of the container rather than the middle could handle longer pieces of wood. So the stove might have to be configured with the hinge on the opposite side to make that work. Good Luck
THANKS CHRIS! GREAT BUILD...ENJOYABLE VIDEO. The way you built the baffle was great. Not everyone has access or knowledge of welding, so learning that cool trick on putting in the flew is cool. LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING MACH III!
Thanks Kathryn - the Mk III is coming one day, (I've already got the design in my head), there just aren't enough hours in the day at the moment! Thanks for watching and commenting. Cheers, Chris
I'm late in responding due to being busy but thank you for the explanation Chris! I'm about to get started on my build again and this video was VERY helpful! I started posting details of my build on my website and plugged yours as well. Thanks so much!
Thanks Chris, I think the baffle is the secret along with the pipe line on the other side I have watched other people build a stove but so far your's takes the cake, I hope to see the video step by step great job thanks.
Brilliant, mate. Some great ideas in your stove Chris, I've been stuck on how to affix and secure a flue to a metal box and your clear example solved it for me. Thanks for sharing, subbed!
Hi!!! I'm not sure if you have built your next version or not. This is awesome by the way!!! my only change would be to give up the rocket stove part in exchange for an air intake control system. the benefit to secondary burn us you can choke them down for longer burn times without all the smoke. Just my $0.02, but there may be a very valid reason you didn't do that. Very cool and Thank you for your content.
I enjoyed your video. Have you considered placing a small covered hole (maybe 1/4 inch) on the side where the secondary air intake is, so that you could insert a small metal rod to poke and manipulate the position of the wood inside without opening the main door? This could come in handy when feeding the stove through the primary air intake. The only problem with this that I could see is lining up the wall insulation with hole, you could use a tubular rivet. This would give you a clean and semi permanent alignment. Look forward to seeing the Mk III. Best of luck.
Hi there, thanks for your comment. There are lots of different options depending on the type of fuel used. If I wanted to use sticks as fuel (as used with many rocket stoves) I would just remove the primary air intake elbow and feed them in directly from the side - in which case, their position could be manipulated by moving the sticks, or as you suggested, via a metal rod through the hole. If using wood pellets as fuel the 90 degree elbow is useful for collecting gravity fed pellets and directing them into the burn chamber. I even plan on experimenting with liquid fuels which could be added once the stove has been fired up with wood... Cheers, Chris 👍
Great project and a nice use of an ammo tin. I found your blog and videos while researching a slightly bigger rocket stove I'm planning to build. I'm looking at adding a copper coil to the secondary burn chamber and using the thermal movement to cycle water running through it. The eventual plan is to have a cold inlet from a pool pass through the rocket stove and then return back to the pool. If I can work in a heat powered fan to be turned by the pipes returning to the pool, this would then act as an active air ram for the stove. Between you and green shorts I've got a head full of ideas, and I look forward to seeing what you have planned for future builds, my only hope is that it doesn't encourage me to start over with however far I've got by then. 😀
hi, super gnome! I’m wondering if you ever found the time to build the stove you mentioned in this comment section. If you have, I’d sure like to see the video, assuming that you made one.😊
@daphneraven6745 Yes, I did, I made it with a 25m coil of copper pipe in the upper chamber, and with a cold hose attached at one end, boiling water came out the other. Unfortunately, I wanted to use it for heating a hot tub, but discovered that you can't run hot tub chemicals through copper pipes.
Mk 4 ... add a turbo boost, call it a Merlin ... my cabin stove just sat there, no rocket feature, it was a 'gasafirer" worked great. The dreaded downdraft can happen during high winds. Added valves "air inhibitors" controls heat out put and fuel burn time. Smaller (and fewer in number) holes in the secondary combustion injectors increases velocity and the resultant turbulence which improves combustion.
Chris, I really like what you have done with this! It is quite efficient and I'm going to build one and then one out of a 20mm ammo can for larger areas! Thanks again, for making the How-To vdeo! Cheers!
Just had a thunk. Perhaps the stove could be mounted and secured (turnbuckles?) in a tray with legs. That way, it could be solidly mounted (say in a boat), but could also be easily removed for service or beach cooking. Like your work, cant wait for III.
Pretty neat. Suggestion for the MK3: keep the window but ditch the side door. This simplifies design....... side door not really needed since you feed it through the end. Clean-out can be accomplished through the feed port and/or opening the top. For safety, you could add a hinged cap on outside--of a flush mounted feed port. This could have a few holes in it for minimum air flow and could be propped open for feeding and max air intake. Looking foreword to your next video!
Best ideas freaking great site no side door improves this window is nice but not necessary something to get it off the floor I need a heater for my van
Seems like you should try to get the intake air being released below the burning mass of wood, so that convection pulls it in even better. Perhaps the model 3 can have the copper pipe routed beneath the chicken wire that suspends the wood. Then as for the wood feed port, I think that probably takes over as the primary air intake replacing your pipe, since there would be less resistance for the air to come in that way, which is unfortunate and reduces the efficiency. So some means to re-jigger that would be beneficial. Perhaps a longer pipe (like the flue) would let you put wood in it, and then place a cap over it to block the air. Wood / sticks would then gravity feed down in to the fire box, but air would still be drawn through the pipe system.
I love that idea I was thinking about building one like that but doing it upside down so the lid of mo-kan is the bottom so that way take that off and it allowed for cleaning so much easier
Hi Crackin2000, someone did contact me on my website regarding humanitarian use of these stoves in refugee camps. I hope that these stoves can help others to stay warm... Cheers, Chris 👍
You're welcome, thank you for your comment. The Mk III will be designed so no welding is required. As you say, you can easily find ways around it to build one of these. Cheers, Chris 👍
Also another idea...if you could get sheets of stainless or titanium 9,10 ft long and possibly 0.03 thick .(or whatever is the appropiate thickness.) You could use pipe clamps for the form to hold its shape like the comercial camp stoves that you can buy. That would be impressive as ever. I think over there you would say brilliant as the expression goes. I know that solution has never been figured out by folks on the streets yet.
Very handy ! I think the handle makes it easier to carry, for a cooking area I think a handful of bolts/with nuts and maybe a washer for height put through the lid would provide a decent base for a pan or pot
I'm going with Marsh Rat's design but had a notion to test, incorporating your pipe idea to supply fresh air from outside the van. Thus a draft won't be needed as the air for the combustion will come from outside. Thought I'd post this in case you are still monitoring this video.
What about a tray for removing the ash? It would be nice if you could clean out the ashes without having to remove the lid. I am considering this stove design for a small interior space, with air intake and exhaust from out side.
This stove burns so efficiently that it creates very little ash - a miniscule amount in fact. If you were using one of these full time than I would estimate that you could go at least a week of constant burning without having to empty the ash. The easy way of having a quick ash-emptying procedure is to attach the ammo can lid and flue to wherever the stove is being fitted (rather than the can body). You can then use the quick-release catch on the ammo can lid to open it up, disengage the hinge, then take the bottom of the can to wherever you are putting your ash. You could have it off, emptied and back on again in about a minute. Cheers, Chris 👍
Hello from New Brunswick Canada, Nice looking stove. Is that a .50 Cal belt ammo can? For your Mk III: I wondering if a larger one (like 25mm belted for M242 Bushmaster) would make a better stove for heating a water and a larger space? Also for the inlet and exhaust pipes (hint in the latter) I wonder if you can readily access car exhaust pipes there. Here I could just go to our local Canadian Tire Store and pick some up. lol I missed the first stove, with the copper secondary burn tube, how did you shape it? I would like to see your MkIII build video, but couldn't find it, this one was uploaded three years ago by thelooks of things. Thanks for this one...might just have to give it a try.
Yep! I plan on doing this myself one day. Very handy to be able to make hot water for showers from firewood you can scavenge from pretty much any anchorage. This is the reason I started building these stoves... Cheers, Chris 👍
Thanks for your comment Adrian! My blog post explains this: randomchris.com/randomness/my-ammo-can-stove-homemade-wood-stove-rocket-stove-with-secondary-burn-system/ Cheers, Chris 👍
I was thinking of using ceramic tile instead of thin sheet of metal on the side and back to insulate it. Would that work better? There is plenty of cheap ceramic tile at the local Habitat store.
Sorry for being a latecomer, can this be made to breakdown to fit inside the ammo can and assemble when needed. Would be great on boke camping trips but size is an issue
Hi, @christopher_Barr: I’m looking around your channel, for the Mark III build video; it’s looking like I’m ready to start building my own, and it’s been too long since I’ve done any welding (not that I did a whole lot of it), so I’m really hoping that you’ve got a welding-free Version, as you alluded to here somewhere. no, it’s entirely possible that you don’t have it done yet, but it’s also likely that I’ve missed it here somewhere. If I just missed it, would you mind putting a reply with a link to the video for me please? And if you haven’t had a chance to make the video, but you have drawn up the plans, is that something you would share? I sure appreciate the hard work that you’ve put into this particular project, and I am more grateful that you decided to share it. Thanks very much and I hope to hear from you soon!😊
What is the insulation again?. Fiber glass? Or is asbestos involved ? Have you any info on fiber glass break down and breathing it in? Where does one get the rope rape you described ...I'm not familiar with that. Thanks again..it is great to learn new things..useful things..Bill
Hi Bill, thank you for your comment. I used Rockwool insulation. The insulation has withstood the heat very well but in all honesty I hate breathing in any kind of dust whatsoever so I would always advise anyone to avoid breathing in fibres or dust from insulation like this. Stove rope can be bought online or from any wood burner supply store - it's pretty cheap too. It is made from glass fibres so the same applies to breathing in fibres from this. Cheers, Chris 👍
Hi Chris i had been checking videos on you tube you stove is the best i like to now what size is the pipe which going around the stove for Oxygen and also it need the pipe in the back of the stove or is optional thanks for share you invention with us Johnny from New York
Hi Johnny, thank you for your comment. I used 1/2" i.d. steel water pipes for the secondary air intake but my Mk 1 used copper pipe and I'm pretty sure I'll use copper on the Mk III, as it has superior heat transfer compared to steel. The routing of the secondary air pipe along the burn chamber increases the temperature of the air progressively so that it exits the secondary air outlest holes at a very high temperature. Cheers, Chris 👍
Hi Chris, Are you any closer to getting the MK3 made yet?, and what size diameter flue did you use? (i bought some rope from a stove shop and the women there said i should not have a flue less than 4 inch or the thing might blow up!) seems a bit much, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Best Phil.
Hi Phil, I'm working on the Mk III but life is crazy busy at the moment! The initial flue section on this stove is 2.5 inches. Above this I have used 3 inch flexible piping as a flue, which worked really well, as well as 4 inch flue sections which also work really well. The smallest flue you generally come across is 4 inches but that doesn't mean your stove will blow up if you use a smaller flue :-D Cheers, Chris 👍
hi chris I'm building this for my 10x10 ice hut that I'm building this summer I have a 6x9 now do u think it will heat a hut up as I am a newbee for wood stoves. and what is the glass made from and where can I get it? what other options. can brazing work instead of welding? lts questions
Yes, you could use a similar design. I would have the area of the exhaust gas exits at least the same as the area of the flue. I would introduce the secondary air just below the baffle. Cheers, Chris 👍
Hey chris you should make an atattching anchor (only you woul ld need to invert the design 180') and i would love to see the window on the hinge side aswell THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT INFO
I looked at the stove for sale that you link in description area of this video. I don't see that stove being the same as the one you show in video because I don't see where it has the secondary burn feature that your stove has.
Why did you choose to make 2ndary air inlet pipe u-bended from bottom to top and not just an str8 pipe on top? Is it to pre-heat the air as it travels from bottom to top through the pipe?
The primary inlet is the back port to get the burn started & maintained. The secondary inlet is to enforce that proper drafting takes place & that the unburned wood-gas has a secondary burn from the fresh oxygen. Yield: less smoke, more heat, & more efficiency in burn chamber, which equals less fuel required.
I like your stove, but I am worried about the use of galvanized steel. I believe that galvanized steel can be toxic when heated. I could be wrong, but I wouldn’t wont you to get sick. Thanks for the video and have a great day.
Very cool Chris, psyched to see the Mk lll. Question : for the secondary burn air intake pipe opening at the left, bottom, rear corner of the box; did you use the same sealing methods that you used for the flu and rocket intake? In the video I noticed that you could easily move the intake pipe up and down as needed within the burn chamber. If it is not sealed the same and it's just a simple hole, how do you keep the loose pipe from falling down into the fire when in use?Thanks in advance for your time and I'm looking forward to future videos👍🏼👍🏼
Hi Anthony, thank you for your comment. The secondary air pipework is held in place by an 'interference fit'. Basically the hole in the ammo can is very slightly smaller than the diameter of the pipe. The pipe only went through the hole by applying force. It can still be moved by force but does not move under normal conditions, including when the stove is hot and the components are subject to differential thermal expansion. Cheers, Chris 👍
Very cool. I want to build this for my 300 cubic foot camping trailer. would either of the air intake tubes have to be plumbed to the outside? Would it still draw air the way it is suppose to if it is drawing it from the warm air inside the trailer?
Hi there, thanks for your comment. The intakes could both draw from the internal air of the trailer but to avoid CO being produced you must have an intake vent with the same or larger cross sectional area of the air intakes of the stove. Cold air would be drawn in via this vent, so it might be a good idea to locate the intake for external air as close as possible to the stove, thus avoiding a cold draft causing a nuisance. As always with any open flame device being used in an enclosed space, you should always have a working CO detector in there with you. Good luck with your build! Cheers, Chris 👍
I was thinking of using ceramic tile instead of thin sheet of metal on the side and back to insulate it. Would that work better or just as well? There is plenty of cheap ceramic tile at the local Habitat store.
Agreed (as per the disclaimer at the bottom of the video description). The first burns of the stove should be done outside in a well-ventilated area and combustion gases should not be inhaled. Cheers, Chris 👍
Kevin Sluder , galvanized metal is a zink coating so it doesn't rust, it can be and does burn off in a well ventilated area (outside). After a few long burns you should clean and hi temp paint.