Nimblewill Nomad Stove

A.K.A. "Little Dandy stove", this is a collapsible solid-fuel-burning stove made from flat plates of steel or titanium that link together with tabs and slots in the metal.

Disassembled it is an easily packable set of flat plates but sets up again in seconds.

It was invented by Meredith "Eb" Eberhart (trail name "Nimblewill Nomad"). Its five flat, thin steel plates assemble without fasteners, and quickly unhook again and fold flat for storage.

It was used by Eberhart in 1998 during his 4400 mile, 10 month walk from Key West, Florida to Cape Gaspe, Quebec along the International Appalachian Trail. The stove allowed him to burn anything at hand, and thus to carry no fuel. Smart guy, that one.

As for what to burn in it, see "The Firewood Poem" by Lady Celia Congreve from 1930.

O hey — I guess I have it right here...

These hardwoods burn well and slowly,
Ash, beech, hawthorn oak and holly.
Softwoods flare up quick and fine,
Birch, fir, hazel, larch and pine.
Elm and willow you'll regret,
Chestnut green and sycamore wet

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year.
Chestnut's only good, they say,
If for long 'tis laid away.
But Ash new or Ash old
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold.

Birch and fir logs bum too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last.
It is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood bums like churchyard mould,
E ' en the very flames are cold.
But Ash green or Ash brown
Is fit for a queen with golden crown.

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke.
Apple wood will scent your room
With an incense like perfume.
Oaken logs. if dry and old.
Keep away the winter's cold.
But Ash wet or Ash dry
A king shall warm his slippers by.

Oak logs will warm you well
That are old and dry
Logs of pine will sweetly smell
But the sparks will fly
Birch logs will burn too fast
Chestnut scarce at all sir
Hawthorn logs are good to last
That are cut well in the fall sir
Holly logs will burn like wax
You could burn them green
Elm logs burn like smouldering flax
With no flame to be seen
Beech logs for winter time
Yew logs as well sir
Green elder logs it is a crime
For any man to sell sir.

Pear logs and apple logs
They will scent your room
And cherry logs across the dogs
They smell like flowers of broom
But Ash logs smooth and grey
Buy them green or old, sir
And buy up all that come your way
They're worth their weight in gold sir.

Logs to Burn, Logs to burn, Logs to burn,
Logs to save the coal a turn,
Here's a word to make you wise,
When you hear the woodman's cries.

Never heed his usual tale,
That he has good logs for sale,
But read these lines and really learn,
The proper kind of logs to burn.

Yawn. (Who is this person?) Are we having fun yet?

 

More info:
at "Wings, the home-made stove archives"
at "Zen Stoves"

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Not that smart, usually.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Lighter

(1) Opposite of heavier. If you are prone to extremism, then you are an ultra-lighter.

(2) Person responsible for forest fires. If this person is especially nuts, and starts lots and lots and lots of fires, they are called an ultra-lighter.

(3) Clever little gizmo for creating fire with. Much more efficient than rubbing two wet sticks together. Easier to use than nuclear weapons. More fun too, since lighters come in a rainbow of colors, and some are almost small enough to stick up your nose.

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Having fun today weighing and sorting my booger collection.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Definitions: Brush Fire

(1) A fire found in lightweight perennial vegetation such as bushes, shrubs, and scrub growth. A brush fire may not be as large or intense as a forest fire, but you can't really bet your life on that.

(2) Also, fire in a brush recently used by a backpacker fresh off the trail.

This brush may have been used on the head, but more frequently on another part of the pelt (backpackers are known for growing excessive amounts of unduly long body hair).

Ignition is often spontaneous, triggered by oxidation of natural body oils which can't be properly removed by simple bathing, or by bathing and diligent scrubbing. Or even by a trip through an industrial clothes washer, though some try this, and it can be a source of temporary amusement during a long, dull, rainy weekend in some random town.

Rooms in lodgings along thru-hiking routes normally come supplied with sturdy airtight metal cans for disposal of body hair and used brushes, but carelessness often results in tragedy when a hair-clogged brush bursts into flames deep in the night (anytime after 8 p.m.).

Remain alert!

Definitions: Defensible Space

An area of at least 30 or so feet (10 m) around a structure or maybe around you, cleared of flammable stuff, so the structure doesn't burn (maybe you too).

If you get into a situation while backpacking where you need defensible space, then you've made your campfire too big. Cut back already.

In case of free range fire (that is, one that is not your fault) then such a space may be one you make to save your hide, or a defensible space can be the result of a natural barrier, such as an ocean.

Very few fires get big enough to jump an ocean. On the first try.

Which should give you enough time to do some more running away.

Screaming is allowed in this sort of situation.

Poking At The Potty Feast Stove

OK I did it. Finally.

Raw material.

Last summer I thought I'd try the Fancy Feast stove or the Fancy Feest or whatever you want to call it.

Original screening.

If you can call it it. Because there are several varieties going under identical or similar names. I chose the one that had the pot sitting on a screen sitting inside a cat-food-sized-can. Not a great design, but this was a feasibility study.

Closeup view (kina blurred, I know...).

For the last 14+ years I've been using a pot stand made of half-inch hardware cloth, with the stove sitting on the ground (on top of a reflector). In my scheme the stove provides heat but no support. My pot stand is as wide as I can make it, given the size of my "pot" (an aluminum cup). That means that the pot has a wide and stable support.

The new stuff (much better).

The Fancy Feast-style of stove puts the cooking pot on top of a stove whose base diameter is 2.3 inches (60mm). My current pot stand is 3.25 inches (83 mm), so it's roughly an inch larger in diameter. This can save lunch.

Screen cut out of its retaining ring.

A tippy pot support is never good. And besides being wider, my hardware-cloth stand has sharp nubbins on both ends. These bite into the bottom of my pot and the ground, adding to stability.

A double-width section cut to size.

But the Fancy Feast seemed worth trying, so I tried it.

Rolled, with ends stapled together.

I got a cheap frying-pan spatter screen from Wally World and cut out the screen. Then I rolled it into a tube and stuck that inside an empty can of potted meat. Inside the can I have a small wad of fiberglass insulation. The fiberglass insulation helps a bunch in getting the alcohol lit, especially on cold days. On several cold days I've had to use half a dozen matches before I managed to get my stove lit, and then had it go out again due to frigid fuel.

Top view of the same.

Fiberglass has thousands of tiny points and all sorts of thin, interlocked fibers that increase the surface area hugely, giving a match flame a much bigger chance of lighting the fuel. Fiberglass also mediates the burning, so the fuel isn't barely burning, then raging, and then suddenly out altogether. With fiberglass I get a much more even response all the way through, and as I said, the stove is immensely easier to light with a fiberglass wick.

Last summer's version burning.

So last summer I made the screen and tried the stove. It worked really well but had problems:

• It was too narrow as a pot stand.
• The screen wasn't stiff enough.
• The screen wasn't durable enough.
• The stove had to prime itself.

What's that last point?

Well, putting the pot on top of the screen after lighting the stove snuffed the stove out. I had to wait a minute or two (a minute or two) for the stove to get up to working temperature and heat up the screen, and then it was great, but not before.

And where are we today?

Today's version (very crummy photo, innit?).

Mostly at the same place.

The original screen that I got at Wally World was punched-and-expanded aluminum — very cleverly done, but an aluminum screen is not going to stand up to intense heat for long, so recently I bought another screen. This one is definitely steel, and woven of wires. Maybe it isn't stainless steel, but I don't really care about that.

Also, I wanted to leave a gap between the top of the screen and the bottom of my pot so the screen would act as a kind of chimney and draft-defeater, but because of the gap between the screen and the pot, setting my pot down wouldn't put out the stove.

Waiting one or two minutes for the stove to reach operating temperature is nuts, so I used my pot stand to support the pot, and let the stove do only the heating.

Results.

Eh. Not much to rave about, but I think I'll try this new setup on the trail.

Today's screen mounted in potted meat can.

The screen adds a few grams to the stove, but should protect and steady the stove's flame while routing the flame straight up to the bottom of the pot. That's what I want most.

I use a full-coverage windscreen made of folded aluminum foil (see link to previous post). I also have some aluminum foil wrapped around my pot support. Adding this new screen will give me a third layer of protection. Ideally, I'd like to have a hot flame burning in still air, and now I have three shots at getting to that state.

Better stove efficiency means the fuel goes farther, or the cooking goes faster, or both. Them are both good. Not having my stove fall over is a third good thing, which is why I'm staying with my pot support.

And, on top of all that, I'm not really ready to do a lot more experimenting. I've used Sgt. Rock's Ion stove for years, but the heat output is low, and partly because the flame is small, it's sensitive to being blown around by the lightest whiff of air.

Top view. (Yes, it is a crude hack job.)

Using a wide-open cat-food-sized-can gives a bigger flame but a sloppier flame. Adding a fiberglass wick helps, but it's still a big, sloppy flame. This new screen ought to improve things even though I have been actually getting by fine. It's an improvement, not a revolution.

I think I'll stop here unless I have a real need to change things. The other Feast/Feest stove models don't look interesting.

• The (Andrew Skurka) version with holes punched in its sides shoots flame out the sides where it does no good.
• The spacecraft-quality solid-chimney model from Zelph does more than I need and would be unstable anyway, if I did use the stove as a pot support.
• The 2007 pot-stand-and-stove version with a stainless-steel screen is another wobbly variation I can do without, although it is nicely made.

More.

• "Fancyfeast Stove" Updated Sept 12 2007
• Zelph's Stoveworks Factory
• Shugemery Fancee Feest Stove
• Zelph Fancee Feest
• Make your own: Fancy Feast Alcohol Backpacking Stove
• Sgt. Rock's Ion Stove
• Super Duper Ultralight Windscreen Super! Duper! Foldable! Crinkly!
  
  

Definitions: Ground Fire

Sharing hotness with the world at large.

Ground Fire: A forest fire that stays on or near the ground, without leaping up tree trunks and getting into the tree crowns.

Ground Fire: When the ground burns. Caused by using nuclear devices as fire starters (also known as "overkill").

Ground Fire: Freeze-dried fire in powder form. Handy but expensive. To use, just rip open foil pouch, add hot water and wait five minutes. Comes in yellow, orange, red-orange, red, and three levels of hotness.

Underburn

(1) The U.S. Forest Service defines underburn as "a burn by a surface fire that can consume ground vegetation and 'ladder' fuels." Since those folks get paid for what they do, this definition probably means something.

(2) Let's try that again.

Underburn: A fire limited to 'surface fuel' which therefore has a low to moderate intensity. Underburns are often prescribed for dry forest types such as ponderosa pine or mixed conifers to reduce fuel but leave the trees intact. These are usually classified as low-severity fires. When the professionals in charge actually know what they are doing.

(3) Partially-cooked food.

(4) The sensation you get from the very bottom part of your body the day after you've eaten something really really spicy, and it has suddenly decided to leave you in order to set out on its own. Suddenly. Emphasis on suddenly here.

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff+eff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Still running.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals