This ought to be fun guys. I often think in a crisis either short term or long, we often don't think of what we can fabricate with materials on hand and end up being rushed when we do.

Just thinking what's around your house, let's say the powers out and your backup stoves just broke.

How would you fabricate a stove?


Here's one of mine. I'd take a cheap lantern, cut if off, then braze a piece of grill onto it. Bang!, a kerosene stove.

Let's hear your ideas?

Tj

I've got several propane stoves, and a few bottles of gas. (should get more!)
I also have some charcoal, and a nice grill.

Worse comes to worse, I can burn some of the lumber that I have lying around, I've got about 200 lbs. of Poplar 1x4's in 3-4' lengths, and plenty of 2 by's. Of course, furniture will burn too, I have three bedroom sets! I think I'm good to go for a while!

Not very creative, but I'll work with it. In a SHTF scenario, I'm screwed anyway. I'll have to sit and wait it out. Packing up and getting out will be futile, if not dangerous. I live in a big city, and if anything even remotely close to the fiasco down in NOLA should develop around here, it will be ugly!

If I had to cook something, I could just light a fire in the grill, with wood or charcoal. Or, I could wrap something in foil and leave it on the dashboard of my car to cook. A ctually do that once in a while with cookies (already baked)-wrap them in foil, and put them on the dashboard. The sun bakes down through the glass and a few hours later the cookies are warm and tasty.

I have a two-burner propane stove with 2 large bottles and several camping size bottles. If it craps out I've got a one burner. If the one burner goes I've got a dutch oven and a grate to use in the fireplace. If the fireplace goes then I've got bigger problems to worry about.

If you have sterno in your stash you can take an empty soup can, poke some holes around the top and bottom rim for air, then turn it upside down over the sterno. It's not exactly high tech or fast, but it works.

I'd just take my gun over to my sheeple neighbors' house and "borrow" theirs.

Either fire up the grill or if needed I could use the fireplace.

LOL, I guess that has an extra advantage too. When the crisis is over, you won't have to worry about stoves for a long long time, unless your job is in the prison cafeteria instead of making license plates.

Oh... I thought we were talking TEOTWAWKI, not just a temporary SHTF.

Bummer... I've got this fantasy about taking things from sheeple in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. Does that make me a bad person?

Probably not, unless you act on it.

Dig a hole in the backyard and do a little dutch oven cooking.

Grab a few bricks and make a mini oven in the back yard. As long as you keep things small, you can cook just about anything with a minimal amount of wood. After all, it is a cooking fire, not a campfire.

Personally I have a couple different camp stoves, both propane and multi fuel and keep a fair amount of fule around. In fact I have 4 5 gallon plastic gas cans always full and on hand for the generator. The fuel is stabilized and will get used each spring in my truck and freshly replaced.

Then there is the gas grill

Options abound, fortunately.

I remember when I was young, in cub scouts (i think) we had to cook a hot dog using a shoe box and some aluminum foil. It did work, but I couldn't bring myself to eat the thing.

Take a walk outside, Gather some wood from the treeline... Pour a little gasoline on, Throw a match in... Instant fire!

That or grab some MRE heaters, lol.

All smartassery aside... In a real SHTF scenario... Like all utilities gone forever for some reason... Id rip my gas oven out of the wall, Drag it outside... And make it into a wood burning stove, lol.

This post has been edited by Watson: February 24th 2009 7:00 AM

my wife hates me for it but I keep alot of cans of latex paint around that are only quarter to half full and pretty much rubber now, put one in the five gallon steel pail I keep on top of a brick or two, poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke (ok ya get the point make a bunch of holes in the lid), add a splash of gasoline through the new holes in the lid toss in a match and woof we gots fire for at least four to five hrs, stinks like hell but hey we're alive (don't forget to ventilate the room) til I can gather some wood and rocks to make a real good fire pit outside.
ETA: I almost forgot after the cookin pit comes hunting down a brick wall to tear up for a fireplace in the house and some pipe to vent it. YUP I AM Canadian and I grew up on Red Green, keep yer stick on the ice and if the women don't find ya handsome they better find ya handy!

This post has been edited by Warlike: February 24th 2009 8:45 AM

Well, there's the stove in my travel trailer (parked in my driveway). My Coleman 2-burner camp stove (from my tent camping days). My Sterno stove (from my back packing days). My Esbitz, pocket stove (from my Army days). My gas bar-b-que, with extra propane tanks. Or I could dig a hole in my yard, use some of my firewood, and place a grill over the top of the hole. If all alse fails, fire up the generator and plug the microwave in to that!

I have a couple two burner coleman stoves and a one burner, if they all break then I could use either my charcoal or propane grill. If it gets past that then I would use my wood stove to heat up food, mostly soup.

I also have a generator and some electric skillets, this is usually what we resort to first when the power is out for extended periods.

If all 5 of my grills/camp stoves broke, including the big gas cooker, the turbo on my F-350 will get hot enough to cook just about anything. I've done this several times out on jobsites that were too remote to drive anywhere for lunch, you just gotta wrap it real good with foil.

If all my other options are done, like THESPECIALIST, I'm up for some manifold cooking. I've got a nice flat spot on all of my vehicles that could be expanded with a C-clamp and a piece of flat steel, and I've cooked on manifolds before. My father used to keep a coffee percolator wired to the exhaust manifold of his truck all winter long when going to and from job sites. Even the most remote jobs had fresh hot coffee for the guys.

My old man used to do this, too. I went with him for a few months on a house framing job(we were framing out a model row in a new subdivision), and part of my duties was running the coffee back and forth to the crew. We also used to order more pizza than we could eat the night before, so that we could foil it and lay it on the manifold for lunch. Good times...

9th Coastal Rifles - welcome to the site!. So you framed houses? I used to do that too. Hard work (but it kept you in shape),. How I hated framing in the winter time!