# Forum Home Renovation General Odds & Sods  Gas bottle wood stoves and BBQs

## Moondog55

What is the safe method of cutting down an old gas bottle to make a small stove from??

----------


## watson

Eeewww!!
Just google "cutting gas bottles" and then have a read and re-think.
They all quote 99 times out of  a 100...but.
Not much help I Know..but the best bit of advice I read was........."get someone else to do it"

----------


## Moondog55

I'm a cheapskate and wanted to save $40- 
I also  think the bushpig stove is too big for what I want to do

----------


## watson

Cooking in or cooking on?? 
Here's one made from Truck brake drums..that we've been using for over 10 years.

----------


## Moondog55

I'm looking at a tent heater for winter, what the Canadians call "Hot-tenting" and I was thinking of using the old 4.5kg bottles as the firebox.
of course this may only work in a floor-less tent and at the moment it is a thought experiment

----------


## BRADFORD

Fill them up with water and cut with the grinder.
Never done it myself, but my brother in law has.
He should be out of Hospial in a couple of weeks.

----------


## Bloss

> Fill them up with water and cut with the grinder.
> Never done it myself, but my brother in law has.
> He should be out of Hospital in a couple of weeks.

  LOL  :Doh:  but - a gas bottle from which the valve has been removed and has been water-filled (with a little dishwashing detergent - then emptied!) is fine to cut with a grinder as described above. But I lean towards Watson's last suggestion too "get someone else to do it!"  :Wink:

----------


## Ashore

If you can grip it and your worried , flush it out and cut it with a hacksaw , rotating it as you go . Once the ands cut off use the grinder 
i didn't cut the end off with the valve , but used the guard around the valve as a stand , drill some holes in the bottom and just use it as a wood heater , Throw in some moscuito coil as the night goes on and it you drill a couple of holes at the top and make a handle you carry all the ashes away , Great on a beach and you make no mess, good in the bush as you don't have a fire on the ground that can get out of hand. 
Some more better-er ones are often called choofters, Didn't make this one but thought about coping it  :Rolleyes:

----------


## Moondog55

Ahoy there Ashore matey;
I like the nice shiny new dixie ya have there; wherejageddit?? 
Doing this to lay the bottle in the horizontal isn't as easy as making a choofer I think, but when you consider the cost may be worth it.
I know of only one group who use a stove inside a tent but it is such a good idea when it is really wet and really cold

----------


## Ashore

> I like the nice shiny new dixie ya have there; wherejageddit??

   

> ,* Didn't make this one* but thought about coping it

  Don't know where they go it 
As for inside a tent , Personally I won't even run a primas light inside one.

----------


## stevoh741

why not buy a small stove that attaches directly to the top of the bottle you want to cut.

----------


## woodbe

> I'm looking at a tent heater for winter, what the Canadians call "Hot-tenting"

  Mate, if you're going to light a fire in your tent you might as well cut the bottle too, it can't be much more risky than that. 
Have you thought about playing with razorblades in the middle of the freeway? I've heard its a real hoot!  :Biggrin:  
woodbe.

----------


## Ashore

> why not buy a small stove that attaches directly to the top of the bottle you want to cut.

   Because it's out of date and you cant refill it ...but a stove or any fire within your tent .....not for me

----------


## Moondog55

While I would not light a wood stove inside a small bushwalking tent using a wood-fired stove inside a canvas tent is common practice in Canada and far north America in winter.
I have seen a small cast iron potbelly inside a cotton duck tent being used as a base by a high country horse touring group, by golly it was nice.
ice on the creek, wind blowing, sleet falling and inside the big 12 X 20 wall tent it was about 30 degrees

----------


## Moondog55

> why not buy a small stove that attaches directly to the top of the bottle you want to cut.

  Well for a start the weight of the fuel and fuel bottle when there is always plenty of stick-wood above the snow line, a healthy snow-gum forest is a firewood factory, secondly the cost of catalytic heaters; thirdly the small non-catalytic radiators are too directional and you cannot cook on any of those

----------


## Bloss

I have used spirit or gas stoves & lamps inside tents for more than 40 years no problems - but not for heating (although have used spirit hand warmers) and never while sleeping or unattended. Care too especially with modern tents to ensure plenty of ventilation (which sort of cuts out the heater option!) - carbon monoxide poisoning is a real possibility as is CO2 poisoning. Both are the 'silent killers' as they have no smell - you generally just fall asleep and don't wake up. If you are camping and are cold the answer is simple - you either have to few clothes on, the wrong sort of clothes or both. No such things as bad weather only wrong clothes!

----------


## Moondog55

An old fashioned Tilley lamp is a great heater

----------


## racingtadpole

> No such things as bad weather only wrong clothes!<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

  Would you mind spending nearly a week holed up in a tent at a little over 6000m in 100mph winds causing a wind chill of around -60 and get back to me on that. :Cold:  
To get technical and be a pedant, sometimes the weather is BAD and it IS effing cold, regardless of what your are wearing. Some say its character building though. :Shutup2:  And the rest of us are undoubtedly mentally unstable.....

----------


## chrisp

> Fill them up with water and cut with the grinder.
> Never done it myself, but my brother in law has.
> He should be out of Hospial in a couple of weeks.

  Me thinks it is time to revive the "funniest post of the week award"   :Smilie:

----------


## watson

:Rotfl: 
a man after my own heart!!!

----------


## Moondog55

> Would you mind spending nearly a week holed up in a tent at a little over 6000m in 100mph winds causing a wind chill of around -60 and get back to me on that. 
> To get technical and be a pedant, sometimes the weather is BAD and it IS effing cold, regardless of what your are wearing. Some say its character building though. And the rest of us are undoubtedly mentally unstable.....

  6000M isn't so bad, never experienced -60 tho, and in those conditions  I would be holed up in my sleeping bag and sleeping a lot, but windchill only counts if you are silly enough to run around naked

----------


## watson

Sometimes circumstances make that quite necessary  :Shrug:

----------


## Moondog55

What circumstances Watson? Please elucidate!! 
At those kind of temperatures I would be sleeping in a down suit and using a bottle to pee in.

----------


## watson

In the 70's....Army field exercise with Norwegian unit...above the Arctic Circle........the horror of realising you really need to do a number two's at 2 AM. No facilities.
Imagination is required.  :Frown:   :Frown:   :Frown:

----------


## racingtadpole

At 6000m its quite difficult to breathe if you havent been there for long, you get used to it eventually, once you gain acclimatisation (assuming you dont get altitude sickness that kills you first). Wind chill also drops the ambient air temperature even if you are not directly in the wind. A sleeping back rated to -30 (proper -30 not local camping store cheapy brand's idea of -30) a down suit, and three layers of thermals and its still too cold to sleep at those sorts of temperatures. Besides its actually not a good idea to sleep, many instances of people going to sleep under those conditions and waking up dead.
Taking a dump is horrendous. A piece of 100mm sewer pipe about 250mm long, capped at one end and lined with a paper or plastic shopping bag in the tent vestibule is the way forward. Its cramped but theres a bit of privacy. Take the bag out seal it and leave it in the vestibule,  it'll freeze solid in under 3 minutes. Turf it into the next bottomless crevasse you see when the weather clears.
My tip with pee bottles is make sure its a completely different size and shape from your water bottle... 
Anyway werent you asking something about cutting gas bottles open??? :Biggrin:

----------


## Moondog55

Watson I guess you were using 1970s SOP which meant sleeping naked or next to naked; with all your clothes underneath you, were you with the RM at the time?? I've met fellas who have done the ML course 
My mistake too, highest I have ever slept is only 4400M Mt Giluwe in Nuigini, no trouble sleeping at that height but climbing up there was a bit hard 
Wind degrades insulation value by stripping heat but as far as I am aware it doesn't actually lower ambient temperatures. High winds can and do compress the insulation in your clothing tho

----------


## racingtadpole

Put a thermometer in the snow when its really windy and the temperaure is always lower than when its not windy.  Wind depletes heat, that also applies to things you dont think have any.  With strong winds hammering the tent it will suck the heat out of the tent much faster than if it wasnt windy.  If the surrounding snow is colder and the tent is losing heat faster then the ambient inside the tent will be colder.  There is still a significant differential between temperature inside the tent and outside in the soup though.  This (and stopping the tent from getting obliterated) is why snow banks are a good idea.

----------


## watson

> Watson I guess you were using 1970s SOP which meant sleeping naked or next to naked; with all your clothes underneath you, were you with the RM at the time?? I've met fellas who have done the ML course

  OZ army...waiting for a course to start in England...so 6 weeks of fun in the snow. NOT.
Just to keep all the diggers busy and happy.

----------


## Moondog55

> OZ army...waiting for a course to start in England...so 6 weeks of fun in the snow. NOT.
> Just to keep all the diggers busy and happy.

  So NOT having the fun of doing the Royal Marines Mountain Leader course; just having a "nice little romp" to stave off boredom.  :Roflmao:

----------


## Bloss

> Would you mind spending nearly a week holed up in a tent at a little over 6000m in 100mph winds causing a wind chill of around -60 and get back to me on that.

  mmm - dressed properly and with oxygen - that's what Mt Everest climbers do - and they don't carry heaters . . . sort of proves the point don't it?  I regularly walk and camp in areas where the temperature drops below -10 and have done the same in -25C too - with no heating, just right clothes, shelter and a sleeping bag at night.  
In any case we don't live in those sorts of extremes and I am not suggesting no heating or cooling. The notion that we should demand to be able to simply flick a switch and create a temperature of between 20-24 degrees all year round so we can wear shorts and T-shirt is bizarre and very recent. All I am suggesting is that we should take responsibility for our own comfort a little more.

----------


## Moondog55

Bloss I tend to agree with you; up to a week or two it is fine and OK; but when you spend more than a few weeks in those conditions you clothes and sleeping bag have soaked up so much water from insensible perspiration that they simple cease to work as designed. 
That's why people in the Antarctic use heaters and insulated accommodation when  in the field for extended periods; to dry out the clothes.
That is the scenario I am thinking of. 
I have spent periods of time exceeding 6 weeks in the snow and at the end of that time I am sure my gear had doubled in weight, Australian snow conditions are not cold as such, but they are very damp and very cool.
Killer conditions; hypothermia conditions; just as dangerous in some ways as more extreme climates

----------


## Moondog55

A couple of links to US sites that specialize in tent stoves for heating  TiGoat Cylinder Stove  TiGoat Vortex Stoves  Potable wood stoves for canvas tents- Snowtrekker Tents

----------


## Moondog55

Whoops
What happened to my post??

----------


## watson

She's still there Moon.

----------


## Moondog55

Not that one Watson
There was a link to a bloke on my Bushwalking forum who makes these from gastronorm food containers

----------


## Moondog55

"Bushwalk Tasmania  View topic - DIY Wood Burning stove (with chimney)"  *Cross forum Link Removed*  :Biggrin:

----------

