Gas Bottle Wood Burner / Stove
How to recycle an old gas bottle into a wood-burner and cooker

This is a on going project that I will probably spend a couple of months doing, please check back here frequently as I will update this page with my latest progress. I would like to use an old recycled gas-bottle to make an efficient woodburner and cooker for as cheaply as I can. If the project goes well and it works, I will probably sand the whole thing and they spray paint it black using exhaust paint.

Project Materials

Im using an old gas-bottled which was dumped at our local reservoir. I decided to help the country-side and myself by recycling this piece of kit and see if I could make good use of it. Its always satisfying when materials for projects come free. The bottle looks a similar design to the one displayed on the right, just a bit older with a lot less paint.

Gas Bottle Specs
- 50cm High
- 100cm Circumference
- 30cm Diameter
- 17.5KG Weight

The tank is now fully vented and depressurised! I've filled it with water to fully ensure all gas has been displaced.

Initial Design Ideas

After running a few design ideas through my mind, this is the main one that im contemplating at the moment. Basically keeping the main shape of the gas bottle and utilising its original stand.

Now my drawing isn't the best as you can see so everything's not quite to scale, I think the air-intake pipe will be a lot smaller in comparison to the diagram's scale. A basic door will be cut into the front with a number of hinges, not sure what type yet. I will try to keep the door as air tight as possible

A hole cut and then a good chimney with a bent neck welded on. The top of the bottle will be cut-off and a large, thick metal plate will be used as a hot-plate, possibly a disc-brake will be used for this, I'll have to see what I can scavenge. This hot-plate can then be used for cooking, with a pan on the go we'll have sausages cooked in no time!

The idea with the bottom 'adjustable air-intake' will be to control the strength and heat of the burn. I will try to keep the unit as air-tight as I can, the door will be the main challenge. The air intake will quite simply be a pipe with four or five holes drilled in, and then a larger hole on the outside with some form of controllable/adjustment on there, still to decide on what I'll use.

I will have some sort of grill to hold the fuel in between the fuel-door and the air-intake pipe, so that the fuel does not block the air-intake.

Click on the diagram to view a larger, full resolution diagram.

Work in Progress

Here's me working on grinding out the fuel-door for my wood burning stove. The dimensions I went for were:

18cm down vertically.

15cm across horizontally.

I had a 1mm thick cutting blade on the grinder to try and minimalism the amount of loss of metal in hope of using the metal-door that I cut out of the bottle, however I think even now there is too much loss and there will be a gap, I want to make it an air tight fit as possible to later have good control of air-flow. So I will be using a separate piece of sheet metal to make a door out of at a later date.

The work is going well so far, I have roughly cleaned up the edges of the cuts so far so they are not to sharp. Next I will need to decide on a size for my chimney and an appropriate hunk of metal for my hot-plate that will sit on top. Once I have decided on a chimney size I can cut the hole for that, and then providing I have found a hotplate I will prepare the bottle and joints for welding. I've got a disc for my grinder to clean off the paint etc. from the bottle. I don't have any experience in welding, Im pretty sure I wont be doing it myself (you never know!) so I'll probably get everything as ready as I can and then get a friend to do the welding.

Other Resources:

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=373641&postcount=6

http://www.stonecarve.com/woodburners.html

Article Created : 19/03/2008
Last Updated : 14/06/2008

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