AM I CRAZY? I have faint recollections of climbers making a similar heat exchanger with copper tubing to warm the cannisters on upright stoves. This is intended to help keep the cannister gas flowing in cold conditions. It was easy to flatten some 1/4 inch copper tubing and shape it. it is held on with a nylon strap. Has anyone done this and have actual experience using it? What are my chances for overheating the cannister?
I really don't want to do this and end up as some You-Tube video or worse...Scott

Have you seen this thread?

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=59148

It's the same idea, and it worked for the original poster.

Speaking of youtube, it would be cool to see your setup in action if you have the time/inclination.

As long as you can comfortably touch the canister it's not too hot. Your hunk of metal may be larger than you need - most of the rigs I have read about use copper wire. And make sure that is a NYLON strap, rather than a polyester or polypropylene one - nylon is much more heat resistant. If it's a polypro strap (and many are) it will most likely melt.

Wow! I'm curious how safe this is. Maybe you can test it in the summer on a hot day from a safe distance and let us know how hot the canister gets after it runs out of fuel.

I'm too sheepish to try this myself.

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Yeah, burns are really scary. I recall this heat exchanger being presented in either "Climbing" or "Rock and Ice" in their Gear annual issue a long time ago. The copper was used to heat Gaz/Bluet cannisters. State of the art gas stoves at the time. I'm going to back way off this idea and use the Jetboil in the summer when everything should be rosy. I bought a white gas stove for the Winter. I just thought I'd throw it out there and see if anyone had some real world experience. A friend had a similar device made by Primus in Japan. It attached to the cannister with magnets.

Wow, this brings back some memories. I made one of those for my Markill Stormy back in the day. Had to hog out a vent hole for it to fit, and then wrapped the whole show in blue foam. Worked great. I kept touching the copper for about 20 minutes to check for temp. and always found it just warm enough. Never too hot. I have to dig that stove out for show and tell. Thanks. stephan.

If you use a strap that melts, at 50C you would probably be safe. If you don't notice the can getting hot the strap will fail and then the metal rod would fall off (provided you designed it to fall off). Obviously this is something that should only be done on very cold days. If it is a warm day in summer take it off, since it won't do any good.

> Find a strap that melts at 50C

I like it... a fail-safe design.

I bet you can find a wax (synthetic or otherwise) with a suitable melting point...

I bet Blu-tac softens enough at 50C, and it you can't fix something with Blu-tac or gaffer tape, then it can't be fixed...

Polymorph AKA Instamorph AKA polycaprolactone is easy to work with and melts at ~60°C. You can buy beads on Amazon.

You could try a temperature indicator like those used on fish tanks and some packaging: http://tinyurl.com/7d5p49t

Try an aquarium place to see if the idea even works. Never tried it, just a random thought.

You're making this way too complicated : )

If the canister starts feeling warm then you need to back off

Roger did a couple articles about the theory of canisters where he determined that it's safe as long as it doesn't get above warm to the touch

And the technique that someone mentioned of using #14 copper wire (or aluminum would be better) wrap it once around the canister and then up into the flame. The wire will get hot but the heat transfer to canister isn't that good so the canister gets just a little warm, which is what you need.