Making a Stove Windshield - Budget Bushcraft

Wednesday, 16 February 2011 09:38

Ashley-Cawley

Posted by Ashley Cawley

Nearly all stoves benefit from being shielded from the wind, whether it's Gas, Meths or Wood burning stoves the wind can lower their performance and increase the amount of fuel you need to use.

This article will show you how to easily make your own stove windshield using basic tools & materials, the windsheild is small & lightweight meaning it's barely noticeable when packed into your rucksack.

Materials & Tools

windshield-tools-and-materials

3 x A4 Card Folder Dividers
Aluminium Foil Tape
Self-Adhesive
Scissors
Heavy-duty Hole Punch (optional)

The structure of our windshield will be made using the A4 card dividers which are obviously combustable, so hence we use aluminium foil tape which will cover the entire surface of the card sealing them from oxygen and reflecting the heat back at the stove/pot.

The first step is to prepare and join the card dividers together, do this by first cutting off the protruding tabs from the dividers making them into a perfect rectangle.

Next take two of the dividers and place them next to each other on their side (in a Landscape position). Cut a piece of aluminium foil to just over the height of where the two dividers meet, (as shown in the photo below) place the card dividers down onto the tap to stick them in place leaving a 1 or 2mm gap between the dividers.

join-card

Fold over the foil tape to stick it in place, repeat the process to join the third card divider and you should end up with something looking like this...

card-joined

Next measure and cut a piece of aliminium foil just-over the full length of all three dividers (horizontally), stick down and fold over the edges, making it look like this...

tape1

Add two more lengths of aliminium foil, over-lapping each other to cover one side, once you have done his turn over the card and you should be at this stage...

1-side-covered

Repeat the process to cover the other side...

foiled

When the card/dividers are bent you should have this basic shape:

shape

Fold each of the three dividers in half creating a corrugated shape...

corrugated

At this stage you can now work out where you might like to fit velcro tabs to best suit your stove/pot configurations, so for example here are two shapes that fit all the stoves I need:

10cm-billycan

Pictured above is a 10cm Zebra Billy Can sat on top of a "White Box" stove.

larger-billy

Pictured above is a much larger billy-can.

Have a play with different shapes that suit your stove/pot setup and then fix your velcro strips accordingly...

velcro

This last step is optional; use the hole-punch to put holes into the bottom of your windshield, these holes can be good for two reasons: Air flow is important and can helps stoves and they offer a place to peg down with a tent-peg if the conditions are really windy and your windshield wants to blow over!

holes

Thanks to the corrugated folds your new wind-shield will pack nice and flat, once you're done, complete with two elastic bands to hold it together...

stove-windshield-complete

If you have a go at making one please let us know how you get on in the NaturalBushcraft Forum, we'd love to hear your experiences and possible improvements.

Comments (9)

I made one of these and used it to great effect on my last overnight. A really brilliant piece of lightweight kit. thanks for the great article.

Hi. I stumbled across this web site while I was looking for reviews of portable stoves. Great job with the DIY windshield and what a super web-site. Might give this idea a bash when my improvised windshield gives up the ghost. Nice touch with the holes at the bottom. Keep up the good work!

Hi Mark, thanks for you comment, glad your enjoying the site :)
I really think you'll be happy with this wind-shield should you make one, I'm happy with this design and it came to me thanks to my friend Martin (who is a member on here & the forum). Cheers!

Nice job. I made a similar one using a stiff plastic sheet wrapped in tin foil, it worked ok but got easily damaged. The one I'm using now I made from an old tin tray bought from a supermarket that begins with 'T', cut it to shape folded the edges so it didn't cut everything it came into contact with then folded it to fit in the pocket of my bergen. I may give your idea a go next though. Keep up the good work I'm learning loads reading your site.

thanks for the wind shield idea that will go nicely with the hobo stove i have made

Andy - I should have stated it in the article: but the aliminium foil tape prevents the card from burning. And your right it does act well to reflect the heat back inward toward the pot :)

It would be totally naive to attempt cooking outdoors (in blighty) without some kind of windshield. Unless you're happy to waste heat to the air and keep refuelling every few minutes (meths). Heat reflection from the windshield back on the pot is just as valuable as wind blocking. Care would need to be taken to prevent the card catching fire. Having said that your system looks nice and flexible as well as lightweight.