One nagging problem with most of the stoves that I've encountered is their bulk. Those that take up little room generally don’t cook that effectively.
As soon as my friend Ed Sackett saw the page on the Flatpack stove, he came up with an interesting idea: Add a fourth side to the windshield and use this as a sort of square sided hobo stove. From here it was just a short jump to add a windshield and the alternate heat sources used in the West Mk 1 stove.
I've expanded the idea by giving the stove five or six sides, making it easier to fit a windshield. The latter is constructed as described for the West mk 1 or West-Elbow.
Like the original West Mk1, you have two choices for the top of the stove.
The first is to construct a polygonal hotplate that is supported by brackets on the inside of the stove walls. This saves the bottom of the pot or billy becoming blackened. You can remove the hotplate to scrub if the bottom becomes too sooty, or better still, wait till you get home and pop it in the dish-washer or soak it in a bucket of suds.
Depending on how well you get this part to fit, there may be some flame seepage with certain heat sources.
Alternately, you can also have the stove open topped and construct an alternate means of supporting the pot. One of the interesting benefits of making a West Mk1 by the flatpack method is that you have more control over the size of the stove. For example, you can make the diameter of the stove about a centimeter or two smaller than the diameter of the bottom of your smallest billy. Since you've also constructed a windshield that leaves a centimeter airspace around a pot, and is low enough to cover the upper vent holes, you have a system where by the pot sits on a hot-plate and hot gases pass across its base and up its sides. Another advantage is that you could create several sizes of windshield to suit different pots you own, and have them all fit on the same base.
As well as being slotted together, the sides could also be joined together by means of hinges.
The real beauty of the Sackett-West Boxer (as we’ll term it) is its low bulk. The sides and top can be taken apart to form a very flat package, and the windshield can nest around a billy with very little bulk.
Parting Shot.
An interesting idea occurred during the discussion of this variant of stove. In certain situations stoves such as this or the Mk 1 could have their heat loss reduced by piling loosely packed earth against the sides.
By the Author of the Scrapboard : | |
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 | Attack, Avoid, Survive: Essential Principles of Self Defence Available in Handy A5 and US Trade Formats. |
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 | Crash Combat Fourth Edition Epub edition Fourth Edition. |
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