Adventures in Coning

[Meadows]

I've been tinkering with making stoves for a few years now and have reproduced most of the popular ones. Except the fancy feast which will be next. Soda can Trangia style were first with regular size cans then redbull size. Penny stoves - regular and mini Whitebox type stove of differing diameters an flame patterns. Wick stoves like the Starlite. All have their pros and cons but the main issue i had with them all was i was never happy with the stability on rough ground due the diameter of the burner or the pot stand for those burners that required them. The Caldera cone system seemed to tick many boxes but didn't like the bulk of the separate cone as I like everything to go in the pot when stored for transporting. My first cone was built for my GSI Minimalist mug, to be used with a wick burner as I was wanting a fuel efficient system that would do the standard 500ml boil on about 15ml of meths. Slow but efficient - if I want faster I go with gas. The first was done the old fashioned way using a ruler but then I got to grips with 'Captain Paranoia' cone making script on the Zenstoves site. This allows you to design and print a cone template by inputting the stove variables, pot height, pot circumference etc and even allows you to make a split cone that would fit in the pot. Unfortunately each cone is specifically made for each pot so you have to make a cone for each pot. So here are my cones for my pots 350ml MySolo Ti mug with homade lid using a 10ml wick burner. 400ml Evernew Ti mug uses a 15ml burner. 600ml GSI Minimalist mug uses a 30ml burner 900ml Alpkit Ti mug/pot uses a 30ml burner

[Thumper]

Looks great

[Bowlin]

Excellent! Being ignorant of the subject I assume the cone has a duel function of pot stand and windshield?

What are you making these out of ? A thin aluminium? Do they come apart or do you fold or roll them up to fit into the pot?

Like most of us on the forum (I suspect) I have several different pot/ stove/ windshield set up depending upon the type of outing planned, I'm just getting into the lighter/ smaller pack size stuff for WIld Camping/ short/ trips so your cone post is very interesting. Another piece of kit to try!!

Cheers
Steve

[Scotty Von Porkchop]

Awesome, I keep meaning to make a setup similar to yours but just never get around to it. Yours looks great!

[GadgetUK437]

Excellent! Being ignorant of the subject I assume the cone has a duel function of pot stand and windshield?
What are you making these out of ? A thin aluminium? Do they come apart or do you fold or roll them up to fit into the pot?

Looks like Meadows' has a flissure joint (two parter, top/bottom), so that they can come apart to roll up and go inside the cookpot.
The two parters are handy for taller cookpots, but I've gone for a 1lt Trangia pot (aluminium has better thermal properties to the fancy-dancy titanium pots anyway) and it is shallower, so the caldera cone doesn't have to be as tall; so mine can be one piece and still roll up small enough to fit insde.
Caldera cones are a very effient way of heating, directing hot gases around the pot and out through top vent holes. And they double as very stable pot stands, very handy if you are struggling to find a level spot to cook.
Materials? Titanium or Aluminium sheet in the 0.2mm range. The Americans have access to aluminium flashing (for building house roofs), but it's not really a thing over here. The cheapskate option (that's me that is) is to use beer cans, plus you get to dispose of the contents first (in a responsible manner). Have to joint them together, but it's not complicated.



Hunt down Captain Paranoia and caldera cone on google

[Meadows]

Sourcing the material is the tricky bit depending on what you want.
These were made from aluminium sheet salvaged from my old tumble dryer condenser.
You can use thick aluminium foil from disposable baking trays, Disposable serving trays from caterers buffets, beer cans etc. You can purchase alu sheet, Ti sheet/foil or stainless steel shim from eBay. I wanted to get the design right before spending any money on materials. The cone is wind shield and pot stand in one so no more wobbly wire stands.
There is a good walk through http://www.trek-lite.com/index.php?t...the-myth.1772/ on the Trek lite forum for how to use the Captain Paranoia post script thing with some other great constructions.

You can make one piece cones for short wide pans that will fit horizontally when rolled but I went for 2 piece cones that split apart and fit in my mug/pot.