Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Backpack stove spark arrester????

Just wondering if anyone can post some links to the spark arrestor they use in their stoves (mine is a Kifaru large) to help eliminate sparks from getting on the silnylon tent.

Thanks

The Kifaru I played with had 1 or 2 stainless mesh screens that slid into slots in the pip adaper(?). They seemed to clog up with creosote pretty easy and didnt realy stop the sparks.

I dont know that we ever used the stoves without putting a few pinholes in the tents.

When I finally get around to building my stove im going to use a HMF spark arrestor. I have one laying around from when I had a HMF exhaust on my grizzly. Just a thought as im not sure if it will work yet.

Search way back in Woods Walker's posts and you should find a very cool stack robber that he built for his stoves. It not only solved the spark problem, it increases the heat he gets from his fires.

I have the Ti-Goat arrester on my cylinder stove and the Kifaru on my med K stove.

The Ti one has fallen off a few time into the red hot stove when I was adjusting the damper. It is supposed to be held on by pressure on the pipe - on the bottom in the firebox. So it is not my favorite.
Never had a problem with the Kifaru screens - clean them once a day or so. Both my tipis are pin hole free, so both methods are doing something - as well as, proper wood selection.

I don't think it's possible for a spark to make it past the internal baffle plate, high heat and duel A-frame spark arrestors inside my stack robber. Then it would need to get past an adjustable damper if packed and the Kifaru spark arrester system. It's just not going to happen. The increased heat output is also a win but at a cost of extra weight.





But all that being said a good spark screen system and damper with non problem fuels also works.




So far only got one pin hole (didn�t use a damper or robber that time) in the Paratipi in over 6 years and zero in the 4-man for the past 5.

Hey Woods, thanks for posting that. Aside from the spark protection, can you quantify how much extra heat you get from the arrestor? Either more radiation, longer (slowed) burn times, or both?

It�s hard to rate the increase in heat output because there are so many factors to consider.
First it has a baffle plate and it's own A-framed spark screens which not only smashes sparks but reflects heat back into the fire box. A hotter fire box with cooler pipe. A stock stove system can get hotter than one with an heat exchanger for a few minutes as the whole pipe may turn red during the height of a good burn. When using a heat exchanger I can often touch the pipe 3 feet above the fire box for a short time even with the robber cherry red. But the longer hot more even burn puts far more heat into the tent than a more extreme shorter duration spike. Also aids in more complete combustion aka fewer coals in the fire box to restrict air flow and clog the smaller fire boxes of these backpackable woodstoves.

Second there seems to be a secondary combustion of any un burnt gases within the smoke so it dumps more BTUs into the shelter not out the pipe. This combustion seems to compensate for the reduced airflow which could be why I can run it with up to 3 spark arrestors, two inside the Kifaru collar and a Ti goat inline I got with the cylinder stove plus an adjustable damper to boot. This is no easy task in a take down stove though it works best after the first few stokes.

Third it allows more room for the flames to expand into. Kinda like an add on fire box that can be removed when not need.

The net result is a longer more even burn as the robber turns red for the majority of the burn. In the case of the my homemade more (relative to the Kifaru) airtight stove this burn has been clocked at the ECR for around 55 minutes of real heat output. I timed the less air tight Small Kifaru stove at 35+ minutes. This is a substantial increase over the usual 20-25ish. It makes a BIG difference in ease of operation.







A robber isn�t all that easy to make right as you need to find the sweet spot in relation to volume, air flow and weight. I gotta make a non welded take down UL version this summer. Somehow think a sideways mini cylinder stove might be a good way to do this but still unsure. Maybe I will just do up another SS container but somehow have the inside accessible for gear storage etc. Again not sure.

Woods, I use a stack robber on my wall tents, and never use a damper. It seems the extra air intake into the robber helps gassify and cleanly burn anything headed up the pipe. I like the Kifaru design, as the extra air intake helps burn anything down low in the pipe. With a backpackable stove, the surface area of the pipe is much greater than the area of the stove itself, therefore, I would guess that more heat is realized in the tent from the pipe than the stove itself. I'm in the process of building some stoves, and (I'll know after more testing) I'm thinking the spark arester at the top of the pipe won't work near as well as the robber/arrester down low. I like the robber you've designed, any more details? Thanks, Tim.