Penny Stove

I was forced to back out of a planned night ride last night.....I hate backing out of rides...more importantly, I hate not riding. I took a digger Tuesday morning on a section of trail that I have not crashed on in over 7 months. I guess that after my very first run down Geronimo last Saturday, my idea of gnar has been elevated and I have been hitting the every day stuff a little harder. Sam posted a great video of last Saturdays ride (check for my nice hair in the credits) found here in HD -(give the link a few minutes to load before it plays). Anyways...On Tuesday, I burped my front tire on some granite steps which sent me OTB...making first contact on terra firma with my left knee....always my knee. I finished the ride, not looking forward to the task of removing 1-hour old scab to tweeze out clasts of feldspar, quartz and mica from deep in the many recesses of my knee. What followed was the same ole-same-ole: cleaning, drying and hoping...hoping that the scab would start to heal enough for the Wednesday night ride. Wednesday night was postponed to Thursday night....did I just blow your mind? Good...lets continue....Thursday night I bailed on my riding buddies. Now I sit here on Friday morning....hoping that it will be good to go for Saturday....the last thing I want to do is sit around and drink beer.

In any event...last night, rather than sulking about not riding...I put my idle hands to work to make my 1st penny stove. I've been intrigued by the bikepacking thing, and since I've proved to myself that I can do 80 miles in a day without my knee leaving me stranded as cougar bait...I'm going to take a run at it. 1st order of business is to lighten my load....so the MSR whisperlite has got to go. At 14.5 oz's dry....add more for fuel and the canister.....it's easily going to be over a 1.5 lbs of stuff that I don't feel like carrying.

Enter....the penny stove. It weighs in at a svelte 2.3 oz's with another 3oz's of "fuel" for an overnighter.....isopropyl alchohol...or my favorite...everclear, since you can drink it, use it as a disinfectant, or fuel your stove. Gotta love multiple use items! Best of all, I get to make it myself...and I have to use beer cans to make it.


Entering the grocery...I could not remember which size Heineken cans I needed, so I bought a case of the 12'oz cans and 2 of the 24oz'ers just to make sure....I hate multiple trips! Upon getting home, I realize that...bummer...I only needed the 12 oz cans. Gee...what am I going to do with the extra 48 oz's of Heineken?????



The tools are ready, the extra beer is being disposed of.

As I started cutting metal with the Dremel, I realized....perhaps I need eye protection. I don't own safety goggles....but my ski goggles might work.....

Safety first kiddos.....the helmet I added just in case the can came up to smite me in the noggin....

After I laid the parts out...I read more of the directions (I hate reading directions)....I realized that I needed another can, smaller than the Heineken....bummer. Guess it's time to fish out that "la bala de plata" I had hidden in the fridge....and drink it. Dang...this is getting hard...what with the 12 page directions I "apparently" should have pre-read and the emptying of the cans....

OK....a few cuts made....two Heines down....working on emptying the Coors....

...and low and behold....after emptying the coors and cutting it....I see it is too small (inside can) for the diameter of the Heineken can(outside can)....guess I need to modify another Heineken can....Crack!

The burner part is all drilled and crimped.....

popping it into the fuel base.....this is the basic assembly...

1st light in the sink for safety reasons.....

and final test to see how it stacks up to the instructions standard burn times and efficiency rating to boil 2 cups of water....

Overall...I feel pretty good about the build. I have noticed that my burner holes are perhaps a bit too large and positioned too close to the outside wall of the fuel cup, leading to a combined ring of flame rather than discrete jets. However the total burn time on 3/4 oz of isopropyl in the test was just 30 seconds less than the standard posted times and I managed to boil 2 cups of water in 6:23....so not too bad. I'll be drinking more Heineken tonight and making another burner part with smaller jets and better crimping to see if I can generate those perfect discrete jets.