Alcohol Stove and Stand

Alcohol stove and stand

I found several plans and pictures of alcohol stoves online a few years back. And after several attempts of making and using other people’s stoves, I ended up with this combination of ideas in my ‘own’ design.

The Stove is made from two 12oz Red Bull cans.  I painted the stove with high heat 'grill' paint for faster heat transfer when lighting the stove.


I found making the stove with the small Red Bull cans provide smaller flame that stays under my tea kettle better, heating the water faster...

I used a sewing needle to make the perfect size holes for the burner. Too big of a hole and the flame turns yellow and not blue... The blue flame indicates a much hotter and more efficient flame and more efficient use of your fuel. But you may not be able to see the flame in the sunlight so be careful.

The priming ring is the top from a can of French’s Onion rings.  I JB welded the priming ring to a triangular shaped piece of roof flashing.  I then put slight divots in the triangular shaped piece of flashing with a punch and a board with a slightly bigger than the punch hole drilled in it.  This helps keep the stand in place.

You place a small amount of denatured alcohol in the priming ring once the stove is full of denatured alcohol and light that.  The flame from the priming ring heats the stove and the alcohol in the stove vaporizes then exits the stove via the burner holes and ignite from the flame in the priming ring... the stove then become self sufficient as the alcohol continues to vaporize until it's gone.

The wind screen is made from roof flashing.  The holes were made using a paper hole punch.  I put a crimp in each end going the opposite direction so the ends can be 'hooked' together to form a circle.

The stand is a slight variation of the original stand that was designed with and put together with what I had in my workroom within reach at the time. ;)

......because of that, the stand needs some perfecting. But I'm hoping to find some time to design and make some parts with my 'new' mini lathe... the corners of the stand are currently bent "22" shells... but they keep falling off and getting lost at camp... I believe it’s a heat issue due to dislike metals heating and expanding at different rates... One end of each bent piece should have a “22” shell JB welded to it. This should allow it to be disassembled without loosing parts; well that’s the way it should work, and did for the first half dozen times or so it was used…