I thought a separate thread to discuss chimney stove ideas / improvements might be useful.

It seems safest to require all submitted ideas to be "open source", ie anybody can use them commercially: such businesses will just have to compete on price / weight/ quality / customer service etc. It would be polite to acknowledge ideas sourced from this thread.

Here are my ideas:

A large advantage of a chimney stove (like the back country boiler) is the sooty blackness goes inside the chimney, not on the outside of a pot: it seems a bit like an inside out caldera cone:

does the chimney need to be inside the bottle?
what if it is made asymmetric, so that stove consists of firebowl part, and a firebowl lid with an offset chimney: a normal bottle/ mug / pot would fit beside chimney on top of lid. The lid is thus a hotplate / cooker ring. This might be easier for MYOG.


Is the chimney increasing efficiency much, or just making the fire burn well: it seems you can cook using heat in the smoke (standard kelly stoves have an pot optional stand, for over the chimney), so a reasonable amount of heat is being lost.

if the chimney needs to be in the centre, then perhaps could still just have lid(hotplate) central with chimney and place one D/canteen shaped bottle/pot on either side.
still easier for MYOG.



Convential chimney stove manufacturing idea: could the water boiler be formed as a W with (when viewed from the side) where the middle peak of the W is rounded will havee its top cut off, forming the top opening of the chimney: a lid can then be press-fitted:

no joints are then at the hot end.

Edited by ahbradley on 02/26/2011 05:01:29 MST.

Well, open source is open source.

Here is one:

A double walled chimney stove:
Outside: Cone shaped removble sheathing. Holes top and bottom, air inlet and exhaust.
Inside: "W" shaped water container, possibly rounded at bottom, hole in center
Lid: Hole in center

Stamped processes for all pieces. Assembly, none...sell the pieces.
Heat source: any... wood, alcohol, canister, WG, kero...

Advantage: Heats the inside and outside of the water.

Patents: I don't think this is patentable, not a new idea nor significant improvement, just not usually thought of.

The approx W shape refers to the shape that would result if you vertically cut a chimney stove in two, through its centre (centre viewed from above).

Here are some "pictures" to try and explain.

ie cross-ection from side

1) raw pressed etc W-ish part
-----
| |
xxxxxxx cut here to "open" top of chimney in stamped/pressed/cold-forged part
| |
| |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|___| |___|


2) now a Lid-less chimney boiler

| c |
| h |
| | i | |
| | m | |
| | n | |
| | e | |
|___| y |___|


3) finished stove with lid and boiler
^
| | ^
=== | |==== == is press fit lid (^ is spout)
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|___| |___|

\ /
\ / fire-bowl
\______/

Bah: website compressed spaces and ruined my diagrams. will try later

You could try a hand drawing , take a picture of it and post it...
Franco

"Bah: website compressed spaces and ruined my diagrams. will try later"

That's funny

I'm having a hard time imagining what it would have looked like without the compression

tried to format the ascii picture....didn't work....deleted

Edited by randlindsly on 02/26/2011 23:24:24 MST.

This is what I was referring to...

I have drawn my diagrams (from 1st post idea) and scanned them as these jpegs:

Conventional chimney stove manufacturing idea----
could the water boiler be formed as a W (when viewed from the side), where the middle peak of the W is rounded and will then have its top cut off, forming the top opening of the chimney: a lid can then be press-fitted:

no joints are then required at the hot (fire) end.

Edited by ahbradley on 02/27/2011 04:33:24 MST.

My wife is going to be really p....ed when I cut the top off her cake pan

"My wife is going to be really p....ed when I cut the top off her cake pan"
Don't upset her. Go to the local Salvation Army. They will save your soul, and sell you cheap bundt cake pans.

Design still needs an advantage compared to other chimney stoves available--chimney wall should have much more surface area. Suggest corrugated walls or add vertical heat fins. Bottom portion of "pot" should also have more surface area--possibly like on a Jetboil pot. More surface area exposed to heat=greater efficiency and faster boil times.

Also the removable lid looks like a good idea. The hole spout shown in drawing could be replaced with an edge spout (like on the MSR Titan kettle). This way the only hole needed (in lid) would be for the chimney to pass through.

Removable lid also makes this design a better 4-season option--ice/snow/slush can be added w/o "feeding" it in through a small hole.

Edited by Steve on 02/27/2011 10:14:44 MST.

Advantage (of the chopped W method ) was meant to be easier/cheaper manufacture perhaps allowing thinner metal (ie lighter).

However, might require higher volume sales to be cheap enough per unit.

NB I had actually intended the lid to be press-fit ie heat then fit, contracts so is fixed with out glue welding: but a removable lid for easy filling, with a side spout might be cheaper / easier / better.


Are any ring cake tins tall enough to be used as a chimney?

Edited by ahbradley on 03/02/2011 15:39:57 MST.