My DIY sink wood stove was a huge success after a test at home, but I needed to get it out and into the hot tent for several days to be sure. Would it fit my new stove jack location? Will it heat the tent efficiently? Will it overheat, melt down and take me out faster than Rona? Let's have a lookie:
I burned JUST shy of 4 days nonstop...95 hours to be exact. OK so I was a little off in the video; it got down to 33° not 40° at the cold point in the middle of the night. And that was the 9° night! Still pretty good after a nice 5 hours of sleep. TON of coals still. Stoke. Back to sleep. I'm just used to splitting wood small for my small stoves. This time I obviously went bigger, but I should have went bigger yet with some large round logs as all-night burners. I'm sure I can get even a longer burn. I wasn't even planning on burning all night on this trip!
I don't cheat by hanging the thermometer; yes of course heat rises. But I'm hammocking and sitting in a chair away from the stove at 16", so I place the thermometer on the other side about 14" off the ground. Outside temps were mostly hovering 24-29° the first two days then down to 9° with highs of about 15-17°. I was comfortably keeping the tent between 68-85° without much work.
The toboggan handled really well. I lost some space due to the non-folding stove obviously, so I used a smaller duffel down low with the tank on top half-loaded. I am going to sew my own low-profile tank just to keep it a bit more sleek.
The wide firebox burns a little slower and more evenly. The coals can be spread to fit more wood, yet still stacked plenty high. Nice size cooking surface. The heat-powered fan...what an amazing difference that makes!!! A+++ would burn again!
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