The quest for a Homemade Trangia

[Skidsteer]

Why?

What are the advantages of the Trangia burner over the homemade? Are they worth the extra weight?

Dances with Mice sums it up well:

Trangia burners :

- are more fuel efficient than any home-made stove, according to Sgt. Rock's study(True, considering stoves tested in the study, ed.). That finding confirmed my own unscientific gut feeling, btw.

- don't need to be primed. They also don't need to warm-up before you can start cooking.

- are easy to adjust for simmering. Few home-mades are.

- can be extinguished. Most home-mades just burn until fuel extinction.

- have a sealable lid. Very few (any?) home-mades do. This means unburned fuel can be saved without having to pour it back into your fuel bottle. Also for overnight trips you can just fill the stove and leave your fuel bottle at home.

- are bomb proof. You can step on one without denting it. Matter of fact you can jump up and down on one without hurting anything but maybe your foot.

So Trangias elimate some of the fuss factor compared to home-mades. There's no need to accurately gauge how much fuel to add since it's easy to put out the stove and save any excess. There's no prime and light or warm up routine. Trangias simmer, so that may open other cooking options. And you don't have to worry about crushing a Trangia.

Whether any of those advantages are worth a few more ounces is a personal call.

I wouldn't think twice about grabbing one of my Trangia burners for an overnight or week-long hike. But I have to admit I'm very fond of my own home-made kitten stove or the sleek and sexy mouse stove.

And I admit my combination wind screen / pot support (...in use...) is a direct rip-off of the T-25 and -27 cookset configuration, just a lot lighter and simpler.

A Trangia Westwind looks like this:

Trangia Westwind.jpg

I've recently been working on a homemade version:

Homemade Trangia.jpg

Homemade Trangia in Westwind stand.jpg

It's made from a small Sterno can with a double wall added and the jet holes on the inside of the stove to make it possible to seal it(sort of)with the original lid. My tests show that the lid is liquid tight but not vapor proof. Still working on that and Zelph has some good ideas as well.


Here's a comparison between original and homemade version:


Trangia(started with 90 ml)
Two cup(16 fluid ounces) test boils
Average start temp of water- 70 F.

Test 1- 10:00
2- 9:46
3- 9:29
4- 8:59
5- 8:24
6- 8:00
7- No boil; flame out at 5:00 Temp 133 F



Sterno Trangia(started w/ 69 ml)
Total 90 ml(21 ml added between tests)
Two cup(16 fluid ounces) test boils
Average start temp of water- 70 F.

Test 1- 8:13(added 6 ml post test)
2- 8:28
3- 8:30
4- 8:14(add 15 ml)
5- 8:10
6- 7:21
7- 3:14 Temp 135 F.

Pretty decent results considering it took about fifteen minutes to build. In short, I think it's not too hard to beat a Trangia's effeciency and it's dead easy to build a lighter stove that has many of the beloved Trangia features.

May this thread be a discussion of ways and methods to build a better Trangia!

Commence!

[Skidsteer]

As part of the Trangia project, Zelph recently sent me some wick material with instructions for testing with one of my Trangias. The results were a bit surprising:

Unwickatized Trangia flame.jpg

Wickatized Trangia flame.jpg

You would think that the wickatized Trangia would bloom faster but that was not the case:

Unwickatized Trangia(two cups water, 15 ml denatured)

Bloom- 16 seconds
Boil- 8:40
Burnout-10:15

Wickatized Trangia

Bloom-1:42
Boil- 8:28
Burnout-11:17

So, even though the unaltered Trangia blooms faster, the wickatized Trangia boils faster and simmers longer!

[zelph]

As part of the Trangia project, Zelph recently sent me some wick material with instructions for testing with one of my Trangias. The results were a bit surprising:

Unwickatized Trangia flame.jpg

Wickatized Trangia flame.jpg

You would think that the wickatized Trangia would bloom faster but that was not the case:

Unwickatized Trangia(two cups water, 15 ml denatured)

Bloom- 16 seconds
Boil- 8:40
Burnout-10:15

Wickatized Trangia

Bloom-1:42
Boil- 8:28
Burnout-11:17

So, even though the unaltered Trangia blooms faster, the wickatized Trangia boils faster and simmers longer!

Very interesting results.

I'd venture to say it made it better.

Thanks for doing the testing.

[english stu]

By wickisized do you mean adding insulation wool into the burner? After a few years of alky stoves I have been gifted a Triangia .More efficient burn it seems as well as the other improvements already mentioned -simmering is so much better ,thoough I use a cozy as much as possible.I reckon they are worth the weight gain.

[Skidsteer]

Not insulation in this case, Stu. If you look closely at the second photo, you'll see about 1/8" of woven fiberglass above the burner mouth. It's used for making auto body repairs.

[zelph]

Skids, at one time I had read where the trangia blooms/burns hotter in the summer months. does the flame pattern ever extend beyond the bottom of the pot and start to go up the side of the pot? (not that there is anything wrong with that, think ROF )

If you were to boil 4 cups of water the body of the trangia would get hotter and therefor expell fuel at a faster rate????

[oops56]

Skids, at one time I had read where the trangia blooms/burns hotter in the summer months. does the flame pattern ever extend beyond the bottom of the pot and start to go up the side of the pot? (not that there is anything wrong with that, think ROF )

If you were to boil 4 cups of water the body of the trangia would get hotter and therefor expell fuel at a faster rate????

zelph you got that right when trangia starts its a little yellow with a pot as it heats up gets good and blue with a windscreen lot better like a stoves

[Skidsteer]

Skids, at one time I had read where the trangia blooms/burns hotter in the summer months. does the flame pattern ever extend beyond the bottom of the pot and start to go up the side of the pot? (not that there is anything wrong with that, think ROF )

If you were to boil 4 cups of water the body of the trangia would get hotter and therefor expell fuel at a faster rate????

Yes, but it's true for two cups as well. Notice how the boil times get faster as the fuel amount in the burner gets lower. It seems that less fuel in the burner means the burner heats up faster.

I think this effect could be evened out somewhat by using the Trangia with a pot stand that allows it to sit directly on the ground rather than suspended like in the Westwind.

[zelph]

Skids, at one time I had read where the trangia blooms/burns hotter in the summer months. does the flame pattern ever extend beyond the bottom of the pot and start to go up the side of the pot? (not that there is anything wrong with that, think ROF )

If you were to boil 4 cups of water the body of the trangia would get hotter and therefor expell fuel at a faster rate????

Yes, but it's true for two cups as well. Notice how the boil times get faster as the fuel amount in the burner gets lower. It seems that less fuel in the burner means the burner heats up faster.

I think this effect could be evened out somewhat by using the Trangia with a pot stand that allows it to sit directly on the ground rather than suspended like in the Westwind.

Would the bloom time be twice as long if the trangia was filled to max cap.

What is max cap. of trangia

[zelph]

May this thread be a discussion of ways and methods to build a better Trangia!

Commence!

Thought I'd stick my version into your thread on Trangia types. Maybe get DaerenN to put his Golgia here also and some of the others that have come about.

It's made from a can of Magic Heat. The original wimpy wick was replaced with an appropriate mega-wick.

It has a threaded fuel filling hole that accepts a 1/4-20 thumb screw for closing.

It's burning the Magic Heat fuel(available in gallons)

It boiled 2 cups of 55 degree water in 10 1/2 min.

The fuel requires a wick to burn. It will not ignite by itself. The fill cap can be left off the burner, no chance of it exploding. This fuel is amazingly safe. It's used in the resteraunt/catering industry for warming food.

I've only made one test burn to check boil time. No other information available.

Cap screws on for fuel retention/storage just like the Trangia.

As the wick gets used, there may be better test results.
I have an idea to eliminate the fuel fill hole by putting an aluminum tube down the center and use that as the fuel entry point.