Let’s make a pot support for an alcohol stove

In this post and this post I detailed making an alcohol burning backpacking stove from a couple empty drink cans. In the last post we added a snuffer. Today, it’s a pot support. Let’s get to work!

Obligatory Safety Warning

We’re going to be cutting bits out of metal. The cut edges could be sharp, and could cut you. Be careful! Also, tools are sharp too. Or pokey. Or smashy. They could hurt you too. Be careful! Also also, some or all of the tools and materials involved are known by the state of Cancer to cause California. If you follow these instructions and cut off your legs, don’t come running to me.

For the sort of burner we made, it’s important that the pot is the right distance above the burner for maximum efficiency. If the pot is too close to the burner the flames just shoot out the sides and waste their energy on the open air. Too high, and the flames cool before they reach the pot.

It took some experimentation, but I’ve found a pot stand that’s about 3.5″ (89mm) works pretty well. We’re going to make a triangular stand that folds away for storage and should hold up any small backpacking pot.

Tools and materials

This is the most serious bit of metalworking you have to do for this project, and you’ll need some specific tools. At minimum you’ll need a vise, a file, and a hacksaw with a fine blade. A wire bending jig like I use is really helpful, and not particularly expensive. Amazon has many, just search “wire bending jig”.

We’re going to make this stand out of 3/32″ stainless steel rod, and 3/16″ aluminum tubing. This stove system is really only practical for one or two people, and the stand is strong enough to support a pot big enough for two. If you want to use larger pots you should make the stand from 1/8″ rod and 1/4″ tubing.

I got the materials from a local hobby shop. Every shop I’ve ever visited has had a display of little aluminum, brass, and copper tubing and wire, and that’s where I got this stuff. The brand is K&S. You’ll need three 12″ stainless steel rods (mine came in packs of two, so now I have a spare). You will also need a 12″ piece of aluminum tubing. You could also use brass, but we’re trying to make something lightweight here, and aluminum is lighter than brass.

Laying out the bends

I laid the three rods side by side next to a ruler, ensuring the ends of the rods were even with zero on the ruler, and marked out the bend lines with a sharpie. You need marks at 1/2″, 4″, 8″ and 11″.

Initial bends

I secured the bending jig in a vise, but it could be screwed to a workbench. If you don’t have the jig you could do all this by holding the parts in the jaws of the vise, though it wouldn’t be as easy.

We’re going to bend the 4″ and 8″ marks first. When we finish this the wire will hopefully look like a very blocky C. We’re going to call the section with the mark 1/2″ from the end the “leg side” and the section with a mark 1″ from the end the “pivot side”. One whole chunk of wire is a “support”.

The hard part here is making sure that the two ends of the wire are pointing in the same direction. You don’t have to get it perfect, because you can tweak it around a bit to fix it, but you want to be close.

Bend all three rods the same.

One of the legs needs to be shortened so that we can make this a folding stand. I held the leg in the vise for this.

Cut the pivot side. You’re aiming for the leg to be around 1.5″ long. Accuracy doesn’t count here. Once you’ve cut it, you’ll have a ragged end, so use a file to clean up the end and round it over.

Making the joints

Mark off the aluminum tubing the same way we marked the wire. We need two pieces each 1.75″ long for the pivots, and one that’s 1.25″ for the locking joint.

You can cut aluminum tubing by rolling it under a utility knife on a smooth surface. You could also use a fine-bladed razor saw or a tubing cutter.

Sand the edges and use the tip of the utility knife to remove an internal burrs from the tubing.

Next we have to squeeze the tubing to make it an oval shape instead of round. To do that, I stuck the piece of rod I had cut off into each length of tubing and squeezed it in the vise. The rod prevented me from over-bending and it came out the perfect size.

Assembly

Start with the piece with the cut off leg. Slide one of the pivot tubes over the leg side. Now slide the pivot side of another support into the pivot tube. You should end up with something like this.

Slide the remaining pivot tube onto the leg of the second support. Then slide the pivot side of the last support in.

Slide the locking joint tube onto the leg of the third support.

Time for more bending

Next we’re going to bend over the ends of the pivot sides of the second and third support. The goal here is just to prevent the pivot tubes from falling off while still allowing the pivots to turn. I made a point of bending the ends parallel to the support so the whole thing would lay flat when folded.

Once both pivot sides are bent, bend the feet over. These are bent at the 1/2″ mark that you made when you laid out the wire. Again, make sure that each foot is bent parallel to the top bar of that support, so the whole thing will lay flat.

Now trim off the ends of the bent pivots. You will save a little weight, and the excess rod won’t be in your way. Once each is cut, file the end so it won’t hurt you when you light the stove.

And it’s done! Huzzah!

Assembling the stand