Ha, I love it. I got the stove delivered today. No scratches, No dents. Nothing wrong with it at all. A minor bit of damage to a small amount of the outide of the package. It is pristine. Awesome.
time to do the goo the plan is to wrap a thin strip of ptfe plumbers tape around the open edge of the teg cell with that in place a thin strip of masking tape and then the goo two coats on all four sides the instructions say to clean the brush in naptha great - and where can I be finding naptha at this hour?
not the neatest goo job - but it should be waterproof well that's the warranty banjaxed the best way I can describe this stuff - it is like the glue you got with airfix kits dries fast and remains 'peelable' if the need arises I will let this dry overnight and tomorrow I will apply the 'nano diamond' heatsink compound and slap it all back together
time to apply the other goo - sparingly cos you don't get a lot of it for five quids using the spatula provided I smeared a thin layer in the footprint in the graphite sheet where the teg cell sits it lives! I call that a swirl
Certainly not the cheapest John I 'll admit, but if all you want is a relatively small amount it's there, even their paraffin prices aren't too bad. With the popularity of bio in real fires prices have improved. Not sure where I would go for the best deal.
My review is not very detailed. I will reference a point that I remember John mentioning. >> It is best to continue feeding the fire, rather than feed it when it is low. I agree. It seems a bit sluggish when fuel is added too late. The few times I did use this stove I found that to almost be a constant task. I could not let it go very long before I found that it had burned down and was then not burning well. I should qualify this with a declaration of my fuel. I was camping in Kentucky for a few days, Mammoth Caves National Park. We had thunderstorms and very hard rain several times every day we were there. So, even though we were in a hardwood forest, the twigs we had to use were wet. The twigs we used were varied from unknown hardwoods. The size: 1/8 - 3/8 inch diameter, 2 - 4 inches long. We collected a good size pile and broke them up to length. I got the stove running well enough that we cooked 4 hot dogs on it. I was very pleased with the heat. The hot dogs came out good enough for the grandkids to say "Well Done GrandPa". I also put the Biolite pot on for heating water for dishes. It did a splendid job. I tried it again at a few days camping here in NC. The ground and wood was wet from recent hard rain. Up to and including the day I tried the stove. I only burned the stove, I did not cook anything. I did not put a pot on it. I just played with fire. I had a harder time keeping it going this time. More different situations may help identify some better methods for me. I do not see dry wood as my usual source of fuel. I live in Appalachia. I cannot say anything about the charging. I did not connect a device. I will say, I got the "Battery" light to go as high as the 4th light and was blinking, indicative of charging, right? That was as high as it went, for me. I would like to keep trying this stove. I wonder if smaller lengths of wood are better than the 2-4 inch pieces. I mean, like the pellets we have mentioned before. I wonder if larger diameter, 3/8-1/2 inch, are better than smaller, 1/8-3/8 inch. Is a hardwood better than a evergreen? Other than the obvious soot/creosote. Ken in NC
Hi Ken, glad you gave the stove a good run in the wild. I think from your description you pretty much covers all the idiosyncrasy's (?) of the stove. My impression is they don't worry too much between hard/soft woods and operating without smoke then tar shouldn't be an issue. They can be a bit labour intensive if you're running on higher fan settings as fuel consumption will be correspondently higher. Little and often is the trick and will depend on the water content of your wood. Damp stuff will have to dry out in the fire obviously, and from experience too much will lower the temperature too much and stop the gassification. Smaller sized sticks approx 5mm 1/4" will just be burned quickly. Better with larger sticks, and try and keep a full stove if you can. That gives a good balance between char bed, semi consumed wood and fresh fuel. You will probably have to tweek fan speed as well when adding fresh fuel to overcome the damping effect this will have. You'll get the hang of it after a few months I'm sure.
As @presscall is a bit busy at the moment with putting fires out, he has probably more experience than myself with practical use. But my comments are from seeing what John was doing at Newark and a few firings myself with the simple Cookstove with a variety of odd fuels. They can be quite impressive smoke generators from a very small.package.
Hi Ken, as long as you are not using green twigs, if you can split your fuel lengthwise you’ll expose the dry wood in the middle allowing each piece added to ignite more easily. Probably won’t change how much you need to add but should even out the output. I find it best to gather fallen twigs / branches etc that have not been laying on the ground. Always good to look up for dead wood that has caught up in the lower branches of a tree. Regards John
