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Survival Stove

There are countless ways to make survival stoves. They can be ultra simple hobo stoves made from a single food can, alcohol stoves from soda cans or more complex stoves that require some tools and preparation. The Instructables community has some of the best examples of how to make stoves to fit every need and every situation imaginable. So whether you want a clever hand crafted camp stove to impress your friends or you need to know how to make one in a pinch for that random power outage or night spent in a broken down car, you'll find it here!

Use this guide to get started making one or more of your own. making these handy stoves can be a hobby all by itself! We'll start by looking at some of the more simple ones and then check out some that take a bit more prep, materials and tools.

mini Altoids stove by BenEatsNails

Altoids Tin Alcohol Stove by lo-tec

Altoids Sours BBQ Grill by vmspionage

Cool Little Miniature Stove! by NK5

Can Stove by atman

How to Make a Pocket Sized Alcohol Stove by Pyro the maniac

Hobo Stove from Tin Can - Traditional High Tech Camp Stove by TimAnderson

Hobo stove / hot chocolate maker by Redneck2

How to make a (hobo) stove by J@50n

Lightweight Camping Stove by myckro

Pocket Sized Camp Stove (The Improved by Javin007

Woodgas Can Stove by atman

Large portable wood gasifier stove by KoffeeKommando

How to Make a Simple Cardboard Solar Oven by solaroven

Solar powered stove using 100% recycled materials by desertdog

Altoids Tin Stove w/ Pot Rest by die_dunkelheit

20 comments

Jun 17, 2010. 8:48 AMharry88 says:

what is wood gasifier

Jun 19, 2010. 4:47 PMDavidfromcali says:

Wood gasifiers heat the biomass(wood, sawdust, whatever) in a restricted oxygen environment in order to drive off flammable gases like methane. As long as the wood is being heated enough this gas can be used much like a propane burner in a type of gas stove. When you see any blue smoke from a fire you are seeing the result of inefficient combustion. In a gasifier stove, properly designed and run, there will be no smoke and you will get a lot more energy from the same amount of wood than in an open fire. If you heat wood in the complete absence of oxygen you can use the gas for cooking or whatever and when all the gas has been driven off you have homemade charcoal. It can be very high quality and hot enough to use in metal casting. It is possible to design a stove that heats the wood by burning a small amount, heats the wood with it's own gas which you use for cooking, and when the wood is charcoal you can take it out and burn that too! If you filter the gas you can run internal combustion engines with it like people have done during wartime when no other fuel was available. It is a specialized stove that uses wood better and creates a flammable gas and a solid fuel.

Jan 4, 2011. 5:32 PMthepelton says:

I saw one of those running a truck in an old Mother Earth News magazine.

Jan 7, 2011. 9:15 AMDavidfromcali says:

They have been used in areas without fuel almost as far back as there were cars. In WWII there were a lot of them anywhere that people had a source of wood and a strong desire or motivation to use a vehicle. I've even seen motorcycles using them but they were clumsy to say the least and very low power. Sometimes people would do it simply to show their occupiers that they weren't giving up.

Nov 11, 2011. 7:02 AMdadokon6 says:

oops, just saw that it's mentioned further down......

Nov 11, 2011. 7:01 AMdadokon6 says:

There's an 'ible on this, about converting a Honda Accord to run on wood gas. Looks kind of like the Delorean from 'Back to the Future'! The possibilities boggle the mind....

Jun 21, 2010. 3:41 PM

Culturespy says:

Well said!

Jun 20, 2010. 4:30 PMharry88 says:

thanks that was very helpful

Jun 17, 2010. 10:20 AMchuckr44 says:

It is a fancy name for a wood powered stove.

Nov 21, 2011. 11:07 AMtlacovara says:

No not a fancy name at all. It is called a wood gasifier precicely because it uses the wood as fuel and it produces gas. Such as many comments.are words as the fuel that produces hot air.....a gas Therefore comments made before thought is given makes certain ppl speech gasifiers. LMAO

Jun 17, 2010. 2:02 PM

Culturespy says:

While they are technically wood fired or powered they actually do something slightly different than just burning wood. Most applications of gasifier technology are bit more complex. The internal air flow of this type of stove does make a difference in how they operate. The pertinent stuff is in the conversion of biomass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngas In other applications wood gas "reactors" that use the same principle can power internal combustion engines to power vehicles. http://www.instructables.com/id/Assembling-the-GEK-gasifier-and-preparing-for-fire/

Jun 27, 2011. 6:13 PMScubaholic says:

Excellent stove.***Ignore the nay sayers you have done well ***The process can be made shorter if you just use a pair of scissors to cut the cans. *** Your doing great, I like your presentation, you only need to rehearse your script a little more. ***The next comments are an attempt to be constructive. *** Im not sure showing you cutting branches off a live tree for no apparent reason as an intro to your videos is a good idea. maybe you could change that to splitting a small log to demonstrate your Wilderness Craft made adze (axe).***The knife in the tree is also an affront to keen wilderness people, maybe change that to putting it away into a nice home made leather sheath.***I do like the fact that you have personalized your videos and i think you might like to stop utubing them and find yourself a videogragher and make it a serious business. You could be the next Bear Gril. ***Good luck. The editing in this message space is frustrating

May 2, 2011. 8:14 AMgaiatechnician says:

Could you add my solar compass? Eventually it will be a stand for a solar cooker too. (So you can point the solar cooker ahead of the sun's path).

Feb 22, 2011. 7:00 PMBen_the_Sci_Kid says:

what do you get when you add the mini BBQ and the pocket sized camp stove?
a reaaly cool BBQ Can someone please make an instructable on this if possible? thanks