Today I went shopping for a couple of things I need for camping. The most important was a tiny pillow so I can be comfortable. $3.99 later I’m good to go. 🙂 Actually I also picked up a very small warm weather fleece sleeping bag, a tiny camp cooking kit, and to top it all off, the makings of a camp stove.
Makings of a camp stove? Yep, it’s a DIY alcohol stove. It seems they are, excuse me, hot stuff. Here it is on the edge of my sink where I just finished heating two cups of water for tea in about 3 minutes using under 2 tablespoons of denatured alcohol (one of the kinds you can’t drink).
It took about 20 minutes to make and, sadly, about 2 hours to get all the tools and parts together. The real problem is that I just don’t have a lot of tools. Mostly I needed a 1/16″ drill, a pair of pliers, a razor, some sandpaper, and…um, I think that’s about it for tools. Actually much better instructions can be found by clicking the image.
Speaking of the image, the stove is the part with the penny in it. It’s sitting on an aluminum plate which isn’t part of the stove, but I didn’t want to burn down the house so I figured I’d be better off putting the whole thing on something I could tip into the sink. As it turns out it wasn’t at all necessary – the thing worked as advertised and I got a nice hot cup of tea.
I may not use it for cooking while camping, but I’ll certainly be able to have a cup of tea or two. Speaking of eating, I’m going to have to come up with a menu tomorrow. I figure I can’ easily bring food for the first evening with me and pick something up the next day at a minimart, but hey, if I can pack it all in, so much the better.
Aloha!
Slower, cheaper, less useful…