Building a Wood Burning Stove

This is Manufacturing. Do you want to build one or one thousand?

If one, you might post in the General section, too.

Welcome to CR4. Sounds like fun. When you build it, take pictures and blog it on workbench creations.

Thanks, I will do that

I want to build a wood building stove.out of 10 guage steel, I have two questions: (1) What, if any, alloy should I use?

Cast Iron is the old time stand-by for wood burning stoves.

(2) What material should I use as a gasket at joints?

Asbestos except that it's use is outlawed be EPA etc.

Grandma's old kitchen stove didn't have gaskets. A good chimney draft provided air flow to assist combustion of the wood.

10 gauge is to thin for a wood stove. If you want it to last very long I would suggest 1/4"+ thick plate at least for the firebox portion of the stove. If you use stainless it will have a little bit less chance to be affected by the heat. You should go to a hardware store and get some ceramic fiber rope or flat ribbon gasket material made for high heat. Also kao wool can be rolled up into a fine gasket for wood heaters.

Hi All,

Don,t know a lot about wood burners, however a colleague of mine has made a super stove for his garden deb out of an old LPG cylinder, will try and get pictures to post later

Do remember that with throttled burning (which is needed to control the temperature in the house), you need to wait for the stove to be cold before opening the door. Many have not waited and been severely burnt in the resulting explosion....

Also, make sure you put a chimney liner in place as it is possible to turn a chimney into a cheap "cracker" and various fluids can sink into the brickwork and ruin decorations as they seep into the wallpaper etc....

This can happen with properly built stoves as well as badly built ones if you do not fully understand the principles.....!!!!

Wood burners also produce prodigious amounts of dangerous fine particles. Search on the web using as a search argument "danger fine particle", it may change your mind about building one!!! Especially as many countries are eventually planning to make coal and wood burning stoves to have an expensive "scrubber" to reduce fine particle emission......

Pipewelder suggested thicker plate for the firebox. Another option for your fire box would be firebricks. If you are in the U.S. any local brick dealer will have firebrick and refractory mortar for a surprisingly reasonable price.

Here's a link to a stove that a fellow built out of a barrel:

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/lee108.html

and another:

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/matthews78.html

I know you're building out of plate, but this might give you some ideas.

Fire bricks have not lasted well in the several wood stoves I have made over the years. The stoves I have mad are more of one of a kind commission type heaters and fireplace inserts. I also make a few forges and electric glass blowing pot furnaces and glory hole furnaces. If you use firebrick either use the hard type that can take some beating or get a good ceramic coating to harden up the outside of the soft brick. I have tried many different ways to build the fire boxes and I can tell you that the top area of the fire box will scale through first because there is no really good way to protect it. Also if you are planning a blower type heat distribution system be careful not to over insulate the heat to air exchange area. In most of the heaters I have built over the years the fire bricks get broken up because of people jamming wood into them over and over again. The last heater I made had a layer of insulating castable refractory with a 3/4" protective layer of very durable 90+% alumina non insulating refractory on the fire side. If it were mine I would use this set up with 1/4" 304 stainless steel plate outside for the fire box and as thick of a plate as you can get for the top of the fire box..

Good point. I guess with a wood stove you wouldn't have the space to handle wood as you would with a fireplace. Thus the wood gets jammed in.

It looks like jockmac would be better off (at least financially) purchasing a low cost cast iron stove. my father-in-law bought a cheap chinese knock off of a vogelzang stove and has used it in his shop for about 7 years now. Not too bad for <$100.

If you have the skills, equipment and tools and just want to build a certain design or save a little money it works very well to build your own heater. I have been running one I made for many years and it is a very good heater but all I really have in it is my time. If on the other hand you do not have any of the above mentioned items it will probably cost more than it would to buy one. This is especially true when a design may not work out and one could have to start all over after realizing the heater does not draft worth a damn when it is finished. It usually doesn't take to many expensive "boat anchors" to throw a project like this way over budget IMO. I burn wood because I have 18 acres of it available to harvest as I need it and it really makes my gas bill way cheaper. Also I have always used wood to some extent to at the least supplement my heating costs.

While 10ga is a little thin, line with fire bricks. Also note that I have spoken to a few mfg that did welded plate wood burners. Without the appropriate approvals, if you have a fire in your house the insurance company will not honor the claim. Using outside the home is fine. Good luck I have been heating with wood for 12 years in my present house and started in my youth growing up. What I want is to hook up to a hot water system via my wood burner.

The first step is to consider legislation in your area for home-built wood stoves. It may negate your home insurance. Even if it is used in a seperate building

The second step is to consider the final cost of building one compared to buying one. Basic materials, welding and metal working as well as all of the additional little bits.

I wanted to build one. By the time I considered the cost of a certified stove compared to something I would build, the value just wasn't there.

(I agree with the above statement that 10 GA is too thin.)

Gaskets?
Glassfibre rope. ?
Del