greetings from Minnesota

This is Gary B. I have been lurking on this site. I am really impressed with the passing of information that you all share. It did not take me long to realize there are some very talented people here and I hope I can continue to learn more and maybe pass along some of my own lessons learned.

Here is my story. By trade I am a tool and die maker. I also have taken many welding classes. I have built many wood stoves over the years for myself and friends and neighbors. I build them all out of 309 stainless steel 1/8 thick. All are still in service oldest being 31 years. They all heat very good. The problem is they are all of the old design. So they smoke until late in the burn cycle of the wood load. I am tired of cleaning the chimney.

I can see you guys hate smoke and now I do too.

I am asking for some design advice. Here is my situation: I am planing on building a new wood stove to heat my shop.The dimensions of it are 40'x48' with 10' side wall it is insulated and stick built. My chimney is the old stile cement block and tile 8"x12" flue. Now for what I have to burn. I have 60-70 cords of white oak. Cut to 20 inches in length and 6"-8" dia. So you can see I am some what committed. Any advice on this design will be much appreciated.

Gary B.

Glad to have you with us and welcome.

Gary if you could I would really like to see some of your stove builds that you did out of the thin stainless steel.

I am wondering how you got around any warping issues with that.

I have great interest in this because I would like to incorporate any insightful information you can share on the use of 309 1/8 stainless steel.

anyway welcome to the site the advantages of a smokeless burn means less chimney sweeps and also less chance of a chimney fire

i will be honest with you i sat a whole month researching wood fired heaters before i settled on what i wanted to build myself

my main interests of a burner is desired look, efficentcy, loading times, glass door if possible i like the look of a fire burning and i have to start somewhere the ones below are the ones i choose myself

all designs are different and are giving out different values

try this

https://woodstoves.forumotion.co.uk/t4-my-first-rocket-stove

https://woodstoves.forumotion.co.uk/t41-turbo-rocket-stove



ppottys is 44" high

trying2hard 28" high

both heat 20' x 20ft and is uncomfortable ive shown the others as now they use the tech of a vortex however the smaller ones are able to produce the same

as theres no questions part to the site its worth posting in the ideas section of the site and you could post in the introduce yourself section there as well

a good amount of discussion and members builds of rocket burners can be found here

https://woodstoves.forumotion.co.uk/c2-rocketstoves-ideas-and-research-members-only

within ideas and research and also show us your stove the final thing is for you to decide which rs stove to build

id also like to see photos of your original builds as well

I typed up an answer to your questions thin stainless steel and how to keep it from ever warping or wrinkling and sent it but I do not no where it went. I have never had so much trouble on a site as I seem to be having now. I am getting old I guess. If you find it let me know. It was a little on long side but it had a lot of my lessons learned. I will try to do a video of my current stove I am replacing as it will be easy to show you and it will make sense.

Gary