Building a heater for the boat

The wheater starts to be cold again and I like to have it nice warm and cosy. So my boad dit not yet have a heatet that would not sufocate me with CO gas. 

A friend sailor told me of a stove he build from amuminium sheet. He folded a long sheet of aluminium in a star and put that in a tube. In the bottom of the star he put a cerramic flowerpot to spread the heat and prevent te aluminium to melt. In the top he made something to fit a pipe as exhaust. In the outer pipe he made holes so the whole thing would become a heat exchanger.

From this idea I started thinkig how I schould make something like that. First I was like only wanting to use stuff that was laying around. Well that did not work. I ended up buying a MSR whisperlite universal multifuel stove and a peice of copper sheet 2000x700x0.3. I still had an old artelerie shell of 18 cm diameter and 106cm high made of brass (messing). That would be the outer shell and made shorter so it would stick just abouve the table. The cutoff peice would become a hatch to close off the hole to light the stove.

I made many pictures and movies to show you.

The cylinder

 The brass cylinder. We used to put our fireworks in this thing as kids. It made a great sound like we had super firecrackers!!

copper sheet folding

The folding of the copper sheet. This needs to be done very secure to make sure the top can be closed with an other sheet and solderd closed. This to ensure I will not wake up in front of a stern Peterus asking why I’m so early.

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 The last fold is a bit complicated. It is to connect both peices together and still be gasproof, more or less…

 

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This is how I planned to fit the flowerpot. See how the inside legs of the star are folded out. This will allow the cone to fit better into the star.

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This is the cone I used instead of a ceramic flowerpot. This is more sturdy. It will not break and it can whitstand the heat of the flame.

Next the top was closed with a round peice of copper sheet. That was soldered with a gas burner to the top. And tested on gasproofness to fill it with water and see where the leaks come out. This part was hard to do. The sheet is thin and if it gets dirty it wil not solder very well anymore. Stuf like S39 did not work to my satisfaction. In the end I used lead free solder wire for electronics. And I used a lot of it. This part was more difficult than what I expected.

Next the exhanger was put in the brass cylinder to make the markings where to cut the hole for the exhaust pipe (22mm copper). 

It was a lot more work than that but you can see that on the movies. Like the hatch to be able to take the burner out. The hatch locks te burner on its place with its legs to put the pot on.

 

Ok in the videos I did not speak english… but you get my drift. The conclusion: Heats nice, there need to be more holes in the tube to improve airflow. Do not put the burner to low. If the fuel cylinder touches the stove it heats up, but not to much. The result is that the pressure in the cylinder keeps and I do not have to pump every 20 minutes or so. Almost 1 litre of fuel will go for 5 hours at a fairly high setting and keep the cabin blazing hot, esp if the hatch can close after I made a proper exhaust. I tested the CO in the cabin and did not get an alarm even when the alarm was placed very close to the flame opening.

So nice stove and does not use any electricity and keeps the place warm and cosy!

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