Mostly Perspiration

According to Thomas Edison that’s what genius is – and he should have known, with his 2,000 patents. Each took countless experiments, lots of trials and error before he got it right. Tim Tinker is the Thomas Edison of the ultralight tent stove. For years he has been working away at his miniature radiative beauties in his eternal quest for the perfect stove.

I would like to showcase just two of his many creations:

The Coffee Mug Stove

– a powerful wood stove that fits in a coffee cup.

He writes,

‘This ultralight wood stove is for minimalist one pot at a time cooking where plenty of hot water will suffice to make lots of hot drinks, soups and noodle etc. Although it is small, this stove is powerful and effective can be used with large dinner pots. It has been designed to burn damp, wet or frozen sticks with minimal preparation.

The blower creates a very hot fire on one end of the sticks. While providing intense cooking heat, the stove also heats and dries the incoming fuel sticks, so that they will burn easily. The bed of coals that form in the burner will keep the stove idling without the continued use of the blower, but will still provide useful cooking/simmering heat in this state. When a strong burn is required the fuel sticks can be simply pushed into the burn chamber and the blower can be started again.’

Here are the components of this tiny stove (from left): mug, (sans handle), lid, stove, blower, power supply. The blower utilises a USB laptop fan and a rolled titanium foil tube. it only weighs about an ounce. You could power it with a single 18650 power bank such as this one which would weigh about 60 grams including the battery.

In action:

The Simple Dome Stove:

I should point out that this stove too is tiny: it is only 6″ (15 cm) wide and weighs just 190 grams, uses only 400 grams of wood per hour yet puts out well over 1,000 watts of heat! That should keep you toasty warm in your tent!

It can have a bottom (above) or legs (below)

It can even take a larger (1.5 litre) pot (with a support bracket)

It puts out lots of heat, something like 20% more than earlier models!

He has made subtle changes to earlier designs which have improved heat output. The (stick) fuel is gravity fed so you are not having to constantly stoke it. They ‘trickle feed’ long ‘lazy’ sticks down into the fire. They dry out on the way down. This stove will not reverse burn. The intensity of the fire prevents charcoal build up.

He has made the fuel tube adjustable so the burn is adjustable (below).

The stove bottom can be removed to store things inside it while backpacking. The stove is designed to work with a 40mm diameter roll up flue pipe. The stove is easy to start and can boil 250 ml of water in about 5.5 min.

Other intriguing ideas:

Can a tiny wood-fired tent stove be fired with oil for an all-night-stove?

A flame-resistant oil vaporizer for a tiny wood-fired tent stove

Tim is currently making me an even more improved miniature dome stove for use with my Deer Hunter’s Tent #2 & etc. I can hardly wait.