Text Box: Stove Selection & Use Light weight stove or heavy steel model ? If you are hand hauling or using dog team or pack animal think about a lighter weight stove. Other wise the heavy steel Dog models have more user friendly features that greatly out weigh there weight. Light weight items are not always the best way to go if the item might fail no matter what the item ! Stove Position in tent ? A lot of that goes by culture use or what your daddy did. I’ve have found the best position for a stove is as close to the center of tent as possible. Why ! Well the sun is the center of the universe . In the tepee “ North America”, yurt “Mongolia” or Lavu “ Nordic” structures the fire was in the center and once the use’s of steel stoves the stoves where in the center. At present the Swedish, Finland and Norway military all use there stoves in the center of the tents. It allows for better draw on the stove pipe, more radiant heat off the metal of the stove pipe before the hot gases leave the pipe and better heat distribution in the tent. Not to hot in the corner and cold in the far corner. Proper clearances from combustibles must always be observed. Min. 24” all the way around !!! If your getting singed inserts or damaged canvas your to close !! Or have poor insert placement. YOU CAN”T BE TO SAFE !! Stove designing ? First the door , it will make or break the stove. To have good combustion of your fuel you must have three things. 1– fuel , the dryer the better, wood does not become fuel till it becomes charcoal, to become charcoal it must first get all the moisture and resin out of the wood, that is why smaller wood burns hotter and more efficiently. 2– air , oxygen that’s what lets the wood burn. That is why the door is important. If it warps and you can not control the air as it comes in you can not control your fire ! At best it hurts efficience, comfort. At worse it gets away from you and burns the tent down at 3:00 am when it’s 20-. Not good ! 3-turbulence, it allows the hot gases to mix and create a cleaner better burn. The shell should be made so as not to allow air to enter or smoke to escape, if you close the damper and smoke comes from the seams, not good. That is a sure sign you that you stove will suck air at (cont) Text Box: The worse times , thus creating a safety hazard. YOUR RESPONSPILE FOR YOUR SAFTY !! Over all fit and finish ? Is this a item you would trust your life to ! Because you will if you use it in a cloth tent !. Can you sleep with it in operation ? If it looks poorly made why would you trust life to it ? You wouldn’t drive a car with out brakes. Does it have a baffle and or a true air tight door ? Both add to the safety, effiency and usability of stove. If it does not have high temperature gasket on the door it is not air tight ! A baffle aids in cooking and efficiency as well as safety (no direct flame in stove pipe, built in spark arrester) STOVE USE THE BEST MADE STOVE WILL SUFER FROM OPERATER FAILURE !!!! What does that mean ? Well the better you learn your stove and practice sound technique the better the stove will work for you. In this high tech world of today we all like to be able to push a button, point and click and every thing works right now and how hard can burning wood be ? It’s a bit of an art with specific laws of physics one must work within. A stove is like a mule the more you tend to its need the better it will work for you and like a mule you must learn it likes and dislike. Also if you treat it rough and with disrespect you don’t want to turn your back on it cause it might just kick ya!! So it’s up to you to learn the magic to get the stove and the wood to do it’s magic! Keeping you warm, cooking your food and yes even possible saving your life. Now for some facts. One pound of dry wood material contains 7,000 btu of energy. Now that stick of wood will have from low of 16% water if dry and seasoned and up from there. If dead laying on the ground horizontal up 40 to 60% water and or if green. That means you have to take from that 7,000 btu’s to make wood in to fuel. The higher the water the lower the btu’s from that one pound. The larger the wood the more energy used to cure the wood or in other words the harder it is to get the water and resin out of the wood to make fuel. Text Box: One pound of dry hardwood contains as much heat value as pound of pine. The deference is in the volume , pine will take twice as much room as oak in volume. So the same fire box filled with oak will give twice as much heat as a charge of pine. Blue smoke is a sure sighs of a poor burn and technique. You should have only two colors of smoke white and none. Blue smoke is unburnt gases and energy leaving your stove. That’s what makes that nasty creosote in the pipe. Its from buring to cool a fire or placing new wood to large on to small a coal base. You should never place a stick of wood in a fire box larger the 1/3 width of the fire box less one finger width. Also always rake your coals forward on a new fueling. That will give you the heat you need to make that new wood into charcoal White smoke is normal when new wood is added , it is the water vapor leaving the wood. No or clear smoke means your burning all the energy being released from the wood before it leaves the pipe. Dead standing wood with the bark off is the best fuel to find, any angle on the tree will add 1% water to 1% angle. Good starter tree like that at 6-8 in diameter will allow you to get a good fire started thus allowing you to use less desirable wood with a higher water content. Efficiency means how much usable energy you extract from your wood, so if you burn your stove at 30% efficiency or at 60% the deference means you must cut , haul and stock the fire twice as much at 30% then at 60% . Twice the work half the fun. Small wood good ,big wood bad. The little bit of extra effort to cut and split the wood pays of with a better burn and less work in the long run. Learn and perfect you fire skills, it will help you amaze your friends and family . Who knows it may save your life or that of a love one and at least it will help you enjoy your time in the woods. We can do something wrong for thirty years and do it for another thirty years the same way it still doesn't make it right. Stay warm and keep your traces tight ! D. Kevilus