I just decided to test out stripping my MSR windpro canister stove.

but I am wondering, what do you use as a pot stand, and to keep the leggles stove upright?

I bet this has been mentioned, but I havent been reading this thread and I dont think there has been any pics of a stand.

Edited by ryanf on 11/30/2005 14:21:45 MST.

without a pot stand, the stripped windpro weighs 4.7oz.
I also got it to work with a pocket rocket head, but this wont work well in cold temps because there is no flame heating the feul line, but it will work in the summer.
the striped stove with the pocket rocket head weighs 3.7oz.

Here is a pic of the windpro canister stove.


The 4.7oz stripped stove next to pot stand.


the 3.7oz stripped stove






4.7oz flame looks exactly the same as the stove with pot stand in action

Edited by ryanf on 11/30/2005 16:09:16 MST.

Rejected Idea for light weight legs for the Xtreme. I made a set of legs out of .016" Titanium but when I put a pot with 1 liter of water on it the legs sort of fell over. I didn't add a crease in the Ti for extra strength and the water was to heavy. I have tried other ideas but I am not happy with any of them yet.



I have made stove stands out of cat food cans and other aluminum cans but don't like any of them so far.

I really think I want a separate stove stand and a separate cook pot stand.

Jason suggested a hanging system of some sort. This would work outside but I am not sure how it would work in a snow cave. The whole idea behind the "Diet" for the Xtreme was a stove that would be very good in the cold and be used to melt ice/snow for water on Ryan's winter hike.

The weigh of the modified Xtreme is 6.26oz but it still has no stand for the stove or cook pot. I have reduced the weight of the Mag casting from about 1.7oz down to about 1.07oz a savings of about 1/3 from the orginal weight. I was hoping for more but not yet.

Edited by bfornshell on 12/04/2005 16:57:44 MST.

I think I have reduced the Mag. casting for the Xtreme Stove as much as I can easy. I have each piece down to .507oz or 1.01 for the pair. I will see if I can file off the other 0.01oz to bring it to 1oz even. The stock casting was 1.68oz.

The pictures show the before and after. It still connects to the PowerMax Canister the same as in its stock form. I don't want to change that.






The milling tool I got works nice.

So it is finished. The Mag Casting has turned out to be .99oz for the two parts. The 3 steel screws that came with the unit weigh 2.4gr and I will look for something nylon or aluminum to replace the steel screws.

There was a question about doing a modification such as I have without a shop or special tools. I really think the answer is NO. The milling might be possible with a "flex shaft" drill system or maybe a Dremel type hand drill thing. I don't own a Dremel tool so I can't say for sure. I do know that my milling tool needs to be set on 20,000 rpm for the Tungsten Carbide Cutters I used.

The lighter burner head I am going to use needs a new aluminum tube to connect it to the fitting that has the pre-heat loop on it. The new tube (about 1-1/4" long) needs to be threaded in two different sizes, both uncommen metric sizes. The two tap's had to be special orderd and I hope to get them Friday. The burner head came off the Coleman F1 Ultralight Stove.

Then you will need to make a new lighter set of legs. I will start working on the legs for my stove on Tuesday.

Current weight without the legs is 6.18oz.

Bloody impressive. I want one.

Are you planning on using the stock control valve handle?

Edited by kdesign on 12/05/2005 23:30:04 MST.

Beautiful!!!

Bill, you inspire me! (Although after seeing your gear, I may never get up enough nerve to post pix of any of my cobbled-together, rough-cut homemade projects....) My stuff looks like a kindergartener made it next to yours.

Cheers,

-Mike

Thanks Kevin

Kevin Said: "Bloody impressive. I want one."
Answer: Send lots of money.

Q-Are you planning on using the stock control valve handle?
A- If I stay with the stock knob (I think that is what you are talking about) I will try drilling a few holes in it.


Thanks Mike.

Mike said: "Bill, you inspire me! (Although after seeing your gear, I may never get up enough nerve to post pix of any of my cobbled-together, rough-cut homemade projects....) My stuff looks like a kindergartener made it next to yours."

Never sell youself short. It is more important to get your ideas made, finesse' can come later. I call everything I make a prototype till I am happy with it. We should all understand a prototype is a work in progress. I also don't have a thin skin and like others imput. More sets of eyes looking at something has to be better than just one set of eyes looking. There have been times I didn't have the material I wanted and my prototype even made me laugh. But the idea I was working on "worked" and later I found a better material.

I know how you feel mike.
my stove stand for my wind pro is a little crude, if you saw it in person, and looks like garbage compared to bills Ti stand, but it works great and is light so I dont care.

Im getting a sewing machine soon so my first few projects will be...
but I think I will get the hang of it

Bill good job,
the milling machine basicaly files things down right?

Bill - Very impressive work! RE: The control knob. What about making a tensioned flip over wire control like on the Snow Peak and Vargo Ti stoves.


(picture from Roger Caffin's review of the Snow Peak Ti GST-100 Stove)

It would just require drilling two holes in the side of the control axle and then bending a piece of Ti rod

Edited by bobg on 12/07/2005 07:13:32 MST.

I concur with Bob about the control "knob" modification---very easy to use with the heaviest mitt.

Bob Gabbart wrote:
> The control knob. What about making a tensioned flip over wire control like on the Snow Peak ...
and included a picture of the Snow Peak GST-100.

It might be polite to mention that you got this picture from my OR on the stove at BGT, at
\\Warthog\BGT\MyOldORs\SnowPeakGST100\SnowPeakGST100.htm
but I am not really fussed.

Cheers
Roger Caffin

Sorry Roger. I've added a caption below the picture and added a link back to your review.

Bob

Bill,

Very nice work! At that size and weight, it's worth keeping as it makes attaching the fuel infinitely simpler. I may try to duplicate this with some much more rudimentary tools. We'll see....

By the way, you can drop another 0.2 ounces (7 grams) by losing the prop-up stand on there. It only serves to pool the fuel in the bottom of the bottle, but it works without it and there are about a million things that could replace its function (twig, small stone, dirt, etc.)

Can't wait to see your stand solution!

-Curt

Coleman Xtreme - Phase 1 Complete

I am posting this now so at least one Phase of the Coleman Xtreme's "Diet" can go into my "Year 2005 - Done Box".

I made 5 or 6 Stove/Pot Stands trying to keep the overall weight of both the Valve Assemby/PowerMax Canister Connector and the Stove Stand/Pot Stand at or under 7 ounces. I milled most of the extra metal off the Valve Assembly and cut down the stock gas on/off knob, The overall stock weight of the Xtreme is 11 ounces. For the different Stove Stands I made several trying to find the lightest but stable stand to support a larger size cook pot while melting ice/snow for water. The Xtreme w/PowerMax Canister is really great in low temperatures and maybe better than anything else on the market. At low temperatures things need to work easy and work well with light gloves on so that was my goal..

I worked on the Xtreme as a two part piece of equipment. The Stove/Pot Stand and the Valve Assembly/PowerMax Canister Connector.

For this version (I call ver. 3.0.1):
- the weight of the Stove/Pot Stand is 3.25 ounces.

- the Valve Assembly/PowerMax Canister Connector is 3.67 ounces.

This brings the complete Xtreme ready to burn at 6.92 ounces.

Things to note when looking at the pictures:
1. I used light nylon nuts to hold the Aluminum rod for the legs. These will be replaced by light metal nuts and even lighter "push nuts" where heat might melt the nylon. The weight of the stove reflects the weight of the final nuts used.
2. I used 1/8" aluminum rod instead of the 1/8" titanium rod I had because the aluminum rod was just a little lighter and a lot less expensive. The aluminum is also a lot easier to work with. The aluminum rod costs $0.17 a foot and the titanium with shipping and cut charge was about $0.89 a foot. I can buy the aluminum local.
3. For Roger A. - The Stove/Pot Stand required no special tools but I did thread some of the aluminum rod. The thread "die" costs about $5.00.
4. I did mill the Valve Assembly with skills I first learned in a "shop" class back in Jr High, about 50 years ago. The milling saved almost 1 ounce. Changing the stock stove legs saved 2 ounces.

Edited by bfornshell on 12/30/2005 10:40:30 MST.

Dang Bill,

I wish you had a windpro so we could see what you could do with that.

Good job on the new stand :-)

Thanks Ryan F.
I like the MSR WindPro but it has a big problem when trying to lighten it. It has a heavy burner head. If I adapted the Coleman Xtreme to burn off a regular canister the new gas line plus the modified Xtreme would be lighter than Mike's modified WindPro. Mike's WindPro is 5.1oz I believe. The stove part of my Xtreme only weighs 3.25oz. I could take the gas line off a WindPro and and use the Xtreme with a regular canister and be well under Mike's weight.

I think that before I buy a WindPro to modifiy I want to have a close look at the Brunton Optimus Crux a sit on canister type stove at 3.1oz. It might be eaiser to convert to a remote canister and it is really light to start. the Coleman F1 UltraLite out of the box is 2.7oz and I have one of them.

I may have to get a WindPro to use for parts and then see what I can do with it later. I can buy just the gas line but it costs $40. I think I would be better off buying a new stove. I could then adapt the WindPro to the PowerMax canister and use the WindPro gas line on the Xtreme and other stoves to convert them to a remote regular canister.

This is of course all for the sake of science.

Bill,

what I think could make for the lightest stove would be a windpro, with the smaller burner head modifacation, and the metal fuel line cut at both ends and then welded back together so there is less than an inch of metal tubing. Then the flexible fuel line shortend a few inches.

so it would end up with a smaller burner head, almost just attached to the flexable line with a half inch or so of tubing.

I dont think I explained this well, but you may be able to understand it.

Ryan, I understand.

I used the smaller burner head from the Coleman F1 on the modified Xtreme. I am not sure I would even call it an Xtreme anymore. Coleman still mostly yes. The burner head is from the F1 and the connecting tube is home made, the Mag casting while still the Xtreme unit is very much modified from the stock unit and the complete stove stand/legs are home made. I tried using the pot stand from the F1, they are nice but they are to heavy.

I do like the way the WindPro has the screw in the top of the burner head. That gives you a great way to attach the legs/pot stand.

I don't know what would happen if I drilled a hole in the top of an Xtreme or F1 burner head. I have also thought about trying to make my own burner head.

If we could pick and choose parts form stoves currently being sold I think we could come up with a really light stove. I called Coleman about buying a few parts and they really didn't want to sell them. I was told they didn't want folks modifing their products. This was said politely but a no is a no. They said if my stove was broke I could send it in for repair.

Hey Coleman supply us with some parts. We like the Xtreme and PowerMax Canister but just want it lighter. I would love to have you sponsor what I am doing for your stove. Sorry Ryan hope that doesn't get me in trouble.