Hobo hideable throw away stove

Note: The Hobo stove has been rendered obsolete by the even greater simplicity and superior efficiency of the low tech Capillary Force Vaporizer stove.

To prevent forest fires many areas no longer permit campfires or cook fires built on the ground. Instead only a commercial cook stove is permitted. If you become destitute or otherwise find yourself in an emergency situation, violation of such a regulation may not be tolerated by well kept government officials who could care less about whether their hard boiled antics may be responsible for the skyrocket increase in arson and who will put you behind bars and feed you jail house food without a second thought.

If you have built a cook fire on the ground and find yourself in route to jail, just write a letter to your congressman and petition the government to provide anyone who is in need of cooking the food they have to eat or boiling water they have to drink, under any circumstance of desperation, with a free commercial cook stove and fuel for its operation versus locking offenders up in jail.

If you must cook the food you need to eat or boil the water you need to drink in absence of government understanding and assistance then a stealthy and disposable alcohol fuel stove may help keep you out of jail.

Step 1 Prehistoric man could have built and used this stove

This stove is so "down to earth" (pun intended) that caveman could have built it using many suitable clays, especially clays (think about it) that contained aluminum ore. In fact if I lived near a clay deposit, I would use clay just to see how well it might work, especially if I could find no aluminum. I'd need glaze to make it leak proof and high temp clay to keep it from falling apart but that's another instructable I will not go into here.

As reality would have it my environment is inundated by pieces of aluminum foil (and your's probably is too), which has all of the needed characteristics so that is what I have decided to use instead of other materials.

If you can not find scrap aluminum foil you can always purchase aluminum foil at most any food store or a food product wrapped up in aluminum foil. The use of preformed aluminum cans to build a stove is already a well traveled road. Reserve aluminum cans for advanced stove construction.

What you will need for this instructable are three pieces of aluminum foil or whatever else your imagination can come up with that will do the job as well.

Comments

[NE patsrock]

did you find that bowl???

[jaefaul]

Hey, if this tip is for a hobo, where did he get the thermometer? Hmmm. What you can find in a landfill....

[jsundvall]

and furthermore.. how is a hobo going to even see this?

[xZCodmaNZx]

if the temp is 200 it would be boiling lol

[foo23220]

I love it, so simple you can make it in a minute or two, given you have the right shaped molds, throwaway able, cheap. Also I like your pot stand.

[xenobiologista]

No he couldn't because distillation wasn't invented until Babylon. He could definitely get drunk but he couldn't set booze on fire.

I know what you mean though =)

[pandaboy292]

i have the same knife

[GorillazMiko]

Cool, I guess.

[watermelon]

There are lots of people out there who travel, some for fun and some for necessity, and many, many rest stops, parks, etc. that only have a restroom. They have always been allowed to stop and cook their own food instead of being forced to stop at a fast food restaraunt. But now-a-days that has changed due to forest fires being started by cook fires on the ground. Instead you have to buy and carry a commercial cook stove with you everywhere to cook your own food. While a stove is a good idea the requirement for a commercial cook stove is an over reaction to forest fires being started. An equally safe cook stove can be homemade. To make this stove even safer all you have to do is to mix up a solution of calcium acetate to make the fuel into a gel. The purpose of this instructable is to assure that if you do not want to use a commercial stove that you have an option which can both prevent forest fires and keep you out of jail. You do not have to guess that I think that is cool.

[chuckr44]

I think it's an overreaction in SOME areas. However, every year forest fires are started by nature and by people, doing millions of dollars of damage to homes in California. For instance, I've never heard of a forest fire in Michigan, even though we don't get enough rain to wet the sidewalk in June, July, and August.

[unspecified]

Well Michigan is not a desert with vast fields of dried scrub just waiting to burn... (California resident who was evacuated last year)

[chuckr44]

In July and August it is. You have mostly pine forests, or mixed pine/deciduous which burn great anyway, but which are dried out in July and August. We don't have major forest fires in Michigan but each year I see several roadside fires of several hundred square feet. So in June and July, the scrub and weeds are extremely dry, with fire warnings most years for the past 10+ years. (I've been in Michigan 30+ years.) A fire warning means, no open fires anywhere, for any reason, especially in state parks. That means no fires even in fire rings. So if you forgot your camp stove, you are SOL. Actually they have "fire risk". This fire risk is posted at the entrance to most parks in Michigan and is "low", "moderate" or "high". No open fires during the "high" risk season. Fire risk is also posted outside most fire stations (that I've seen.)

[chon]

I love its simplicity. Long ago, I made a more crude aluminum foil stove in boy scout to cook a rice meal after a long trek and I don't remember any complaint about my design from my fellow, hungry and exhausted mates.

[watermelon]

I'm showing a friend who must wait at a bus stop a mile from a shelter how to make one with a chimney and improved wind screen to help him keep his hands warm. I'm sure he will be equally as happy to find warmth, although perhaps not as thankful as the hobo who may have little other choice than to use this idea.

[Maxx1]

Heh heh....Fire....Cool

[Hegemone]

I've seen this done with two halves of a soda can rather then the 'cups'. Still, cool.

[watermelon]

Yeah, the soda can ones are cool but harder to build and for that reason a little less disposable. Plus an uncrushed can might be harder to find than a piece of foil that won't leak. If you are doing super ultralight backpacking (5 lbs or less) then pieces of foil cut to size may weight less than a can stove once you learn to mold them by hand.