A little tip from a metalworker for those of you who don't have a large selection of drill bits for 'stepping up' drill sizes to drill the 8mm holes - They sell 'cone drill' sets in sets of 3 quite cheaply, and they produce very nice round holes in thin metals. They are a good, reasonably priced investment for the DIYer.

I’m amazed how people use their mistakes as a chance to blame someone for not warning them of the obvious. If you need a label like “turn off your chainsaw before fitting a new blade” then the warning label allows stupidity to live longer than they would naturally and then they breed more stupid into the world. Keep up the good work, you help millions of people from freezing to death, as for the rest, stupid is as stupid does.

I think our Rob might becoming a bit of a Pyro 😉😄

I love this wacky professor vibe you put out. You remind me of 2 of my favorite teachers who had the same attitude you do, make education fun! All the students in highschool got the better grades from their classes. Thanks for making learning fun again. Greetings from across the pond.

I did this last Christmas season with the tin from some Dutch sugar cookies (biscuits). I used a pipe flange and nipple and JB Weld. I found from experience that you need a small vent hole somewhere well below and far away from the flame. If you put this in an enclosure it's going to heat up enough to create pressure in the fuel tank. I found this out the hard way. A simple, tiny vent hole prevents all that. I put on top of all this a stainless steel heater mantle I got from Amazon for a little less than $20. Then, I se it inside a 5 gallon bucket that I cut a section roughly 12 inches sq. I put a Sterling motor stove fan on top, then another uncut 5 gallon bucket on top. Voilá. It heats my uninsulated garage/shop very comfortably, and because of the constant flow of air via the fan inside, the bucket never heats up to the touch any more than it would outside in the sunshine on a hot Summer day.

There is no accounting for the idiocracy. Common sense is becoming a very rare commodity! Great video as always Robert :o) x

One improvement would be to cut a longitudinal slot in the middle third or so of the wick tubes so that the wick height can be adjusted with a pick. This is how oil light wicks were adjusted before the invention of the thumbwheel mechanism we are familiar with today.

Your enthusiasm with these videos is just amazing, Thank you Robert!

Drilling terracotta and suspending it on a steel threaded rod with too many tea lights was a disaster waiting to happen. The photo of the contraption was an eye opener.

I was taught by my father how to build a fire when I was seven, and from 8yoa I was to set the fire in the home each morning before the paper round so we could have hot water. He also taught me how to build fires outside and my responsibilities when looking after the fire. By the time I was 10yo I was going camping with friends of the same age, when camping we had to cook our own meals. We were all taught to have a good respect for fire, not to mess around with it or set needless or dangerous fires. I have made many types of small cooking stoves made from soda cans and such which I can put in my pack, being able to heat water quickly can be a life saver. I love the burner you made with the safety grill and have made one of these, just wonderful and thank you for your common sense which I find severely lacking in a lot of people these days.

I am currently attempting to make an externally fired hot water heating system, using a Gas Water heater, a car radiator with a 12V fan, and a 12V pump. Solar Panel and battery for power. The gas water heater will be revamped for wood.

God bless you & your family Robert, for sharing this (and all other) information with us, with the current situation and what is on the way this will prove to be worth its weight in gold.

The smoke from that will give the local atmosphere absolutely huge amounts of particulates - I wouldn't recommend that for anyone's home.

Beware that burning open flame inside your house, may cause CO intoxication. Do never use any open flame burner while your sleeping! Even if it is enclosed!

As I recall the issue with the one that burnt down the house is the pots cracked from the thermal cycling/ differential. This is when the fuel was tossed & ignited as I understand it.

I remember my father making a smaller METHS burner of a similar design to power a model steam engine. Unfortunately the lid was leaky and when the burner was moved blazing meths spilled out onto the lino floor. Fortunately disaster was averted. Don't use this design for a spirit burner folks.

I could watch this a million times and still smile. I love you. I love your fabulous sense of humor and wit. Fabulous videos. Thanks mate!

I found a 101 uses for DIY waterproof sheeting. Just thin down the cheapest plumbers silicone and drench a bedsheet in a bucket for about an hour, or two. Hang to dry on the clothesline, and ta da!! Better than the store bought tarpaulins!!!

Great safety ideas, you hit the nail on the head with the tea lights. They melt to form a pot of liquid with a wick held up by a little metal disk. The liquid can get up to its flash point and start to burn on its own, which in a way a kind of thermal runaway. The heat output then shots up. There has been cases in the past where somebody put them directly on top of a TV, which when the wax melted and the oil got heated up to past the plastic temperature of the TV case. They just melted their way through and then set the inside of the TV on fire.

Still got a double wick paraffin heater which had 1/2 pound weight on the extinguisher plate, only allows the plate to be open if vertical. As soon as tipped to 35' angle the very strong spring is activated by the weight and slams shut the extinguisher plate.

In lieu of the copper tubing, get compression fittings from the big box store or auto parts store. Compression fittings have a threaded cap on both ends. Drill your hole and screw the compression fitting into the hole and then screw it's cap onto it on the inside. Add an appropriate size washer and solder it to the outside of the lid if you want the lid to be a bit thicker.

I saw somewhere that the dangers of these plant pot heaters is the flashpoint of the fuel used. The flashpoint of vegetable oil is 400F

I can see this being also a basis for a camp stove, but for a heater, take a big terra cotta pot, some venting drilled about 3/4 of the way up, and some 1-2 inch stand off supports for the edge, maybe a bit of frame to hold the burner and frame in relative position. Gives chimney effect, radiative heat distribution, and spacing to keep from touching the flame. Will get much hotter than those candle things tho.

When watching this multi wick burner lit, I feel the urge to sing Happy Birthday to Robert. ; )

Every time I watch a video you shared I keep watching it but then I realize it's a 'short' video. I would really love to see a video of around 30-45 minutes (a school class hour) Your teaching is so entertaining and I learn so much of it, I just can't wait to see the next video the other day, but by then I sort of forgot the part of yesterday, I need to watch previous parts again to get into it.

Love it! Think i'm going to make one and mount it to the ceiling... Cheers 👍

Wish someone would smile at me the way this man smiles at fire

This is a prefect place to upcycle an old metal toaster as an enclosure. Do it right and still be able to make toast. Cheers.

This is a great creation. Thankyou.😊

I predict a large number of similar incidents this winter.

I put mine in the oven which acts as the enclosure. But then I could not see if it had run out or was getting low. So I bought an oven with a glass door which worked well but the whole exercise was rather expensive.

This can happen to home made candles too if you aren't careful with the design. I had a purchased product tea light lantern that went wild and boiled the wax. I had to smother it with a pair of nearby jeans, it would have burned my house down. I think the best rule is no unattended flame. Sleeping isn't attending either.

I do like your olive crimping idea that’s superb I’ve logged that in my tiny brain thanks !

How weird, I've literally just been thinking of something similar myself then this popped up. I came up with a plan to mount the bean tin carbon felt and mantle heater to a stainless steel lunch box giving you a much bigger resovoir using fire cement. Of cause you'd have to cut off the base of the wick can and use longer carbon felt that reaches the bottom can.

Great stuff Mr Murray-Smith, it's like watching Blue Peter, if it was filmed in a workshop, and aimed at adults

Great idea ! Thank you.

Excellent job rob.. Cheers from London 👍😎🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

Allot of soot coming from it especially for indoor use (as demonstrated). Fumes and soot would quickly reach eye-watering levels.

31 seconds before end Slipping the careless the 🐦 was priceless. Big Love from Alabama.

Love your videos! Very fun to watch! :-)

The Roman lamp gets an upgrade

I love and enjoy your enthusiasm and joy so much. BTW....I posted links to some of your stoves on several Ukrainian streams. God knows they are going to need it. Hope you don't mind.

Sad for that guy, be careful people!

A pound of butter, screw up some kitchen paper to make some wicks and drive the wicks into the bar of butter with a chopstick. Makes a surprisingly good and cheap candle or heater

Takes me way back to the boot-polish tin and washing line wick in our den. BTW I built the second iteration of your food-tin/mesh heater, using carbon felt and methanol. It works but the CO monitor in our utility room complained (back door was ajar). It also smells funny (even after all the other new-device burny smells, etc, dissipated.) I presume this is the smell of a methanol heater. So I've now got a useful greenhouse heater, and I'm trying ways to obtain more efficient/effective burn. Thanks for that. PS: this is not a complaint; just some feedback.

That's a pretty cool idea, I'll make a few and try them with my fireplace heat exchanger..

I like how in these videos, how you are doing the most practicable thing and wearing lots of layers

I made the "safety burner" you showed. its really good

i love the idea of using 'olives' as a rivet.. awesome

Catch it before it’s completely out , leaf blower gets it going again right away , but smoke detectors keep going off , and the house seems foggy !

Break out the marsh-mellows!! lol Nicely done .. there are lots of round metal containers like that!

The flaring trick was awesome ty

this would work great with used olive oil as the wicks are short. maybe put a small hole in the top to put oil or fuel in using a funnel as to not disturb the wicks

Pretty awesome idea, but amazed you still have to deal with folks blowing themselves up, no offense to anyone, but damn it... Just seeing you come up with something pretty amazing and is what this channel is all about. @Rob, I appreciate extra instructions always, but maybe just always include a disclaimer might be good moving forward.

We've finally built our first one, the tin cans, cake tins for bottom and lid. It works a charm. The carbon fibre mesh took a bit too come! I did try and message you on your website but doesn't seem to let me do it. Used methanol in the end. 17 quid for 5L. Going to calculated price per hour with my certain room size. Going to try this one too, just get the enclosure spot on next :)>

Robert just watched video 1765 on Nano Carbon in stead of the flame heating 🔥like 1702 and others why not wrap the carbon around a fire brick or make your own with portland cement and perlite with a plug in power 240v to 10amp with small fan at the back of the reflector good heat cheap and safe 👍

Another way you can make a burner safer especially those alcohol burners based on soda cans is to use the rack for "beer can chicken" to hold the can upright

How is this a safer burner ? This is still a naked open flame (in fact four open flames) and I can see ill-informed people (some with poor understanding of English) and who don't know better putting this type of burner near curtains or other flammable materials. As part of the total design you should be showing how these MUST be put inside a safe enclosure to lessen the risk of potential accidents and show how to make the enclosure to achieve that. I really was waiting for you to show the enclosure you had designed to put it in. Both you and your Subscribers are well aware of the dangers of fire and how quickly a flame can cause a tragedy. You showed this being built in a nice, safe workshop setup with no doubt a fire extinguisher, fire blanket and other safety precautions at hand. What about in a real battler's living room where there are adjacent flammable materials, little kids running around and playing nearby, boisterous pets or a senile grandparent who can't be properly trusted to boil an electric kettle ? Now that power prices are skyrocketing people are going to be looking at these types of designs on KZfaq and implementing them in homes to save money so I really feel you should be considering the lowest common denominator when it comes to practical heating and safety design. I love the show but with segments like this I think it is all too easy to overlook that whilst you are mostly preaching to the educated there will be a lot of newcomers who don't appreciate the potential risks and danger (just like the flowerpot man you described at the beginning !).

Oh, I like that flaring trick! In HVAC, we use a flaring tool because it is very concise but, that trick with the lathe is really awesome.

Safety is not just about the fire, but also the toxic fumes, that's why an airtight enclosure design is critical. Most enclosures have terrible exhausts that leak many of the combustion calories outside. Even without the energy crisis, we should really aim for smarter and more efficient designs that transfer most of that heat from the exhaust pipe to the room(s) being warmed or a thermal mass like a wall, or to inject outside fresh and cold air that's pre-heated to room temperature before reaching inside the house, like a double flow CMV. The idea is that the exhaust gases are expelled outside at less than room temperature. This is especially important for rocket stoves where temperatures can reach 800°C or more. Now, of course, burning stuff is a bit Neanderthal, not 2022-smart, but it's also a great way to recycle used frying oil directly or indirectly (biodiesel). Next, capture the carbon and nitrous gases from that exhaust! This is where 3D-printing or molding shines, building an aluminium exhaust pipe that includes a radiator or fins or/and a heat exchanger for air, because replicating it manually would not be as efficient. The molded burner and radiator on the Chinese diesel air warmers for cars you can find on Amazon or AliBaba are the most efficient air heat exchangers I've seen so far. But it burns diesel. Even if you can get biodiesel from vegetable oil or cheap agricultural diesel, it's still not great for the planet...

This would be nice to add to a convection heater. Would be super cool if you made a video doing that 🙌🏼

i did that and put a terracotta pot on it and then a 10 inch copper pipe on top of the terracotta pot. Got busy with the internet and after an hour looked up and my room was full of black smoke......soot; white curtains are grey and i'm still blowing soot out of my nose; wonder what my lungs look like.

Next step - a cleaner and more complete burn? Maybe a type of flue to capture the heat & unburned fire gases and entraining air into the mix to fuel more complete combustion?

Well, I have never seen anyone flatten out their flange, so eloquently ! wtg I'd have thought you'd need a tiny hole for air to get in

It like the copper tubes but what did you call the crush ferrals ! I have a couple multi wick oil lamps made from recycled jars with just holes in the lid for wicks but I may need to try one with this mod

Respect love and gratitude

Would be nice if the fuel didn't generate so much gunk, would also be nice to have something to capture that heat and release it more evenly and doesn't go to the ceiling alone. However i don't really trust heating any metal like that, might even connect it to a copper pipe, warm water up and get an actual radiator.

Look at all the soot coming off that thing! You'll need a new house after heating it with that.

This using bioethanol and doing what the outsider did with a pipe and small computer fan I think is worth a go and if one burner and pipe/ fan is not enough then 2 or 3.

Every video involving a burner, you should link that video to it. Neat idea again

Beautiful! :)

the picture they showed of the heater they made had like 14 candles on think that may have been part of the issue

Robert. I built the very same design myself last week. I was worried about the back heat causing a vacuum in the tin, so I actually drilled a small hole in the lid, to try and eliminate that. However, first test burn went OK for 45 mins. Second test burn exploded in my face. Burning off half my eyebrows. And obviously got a bit of a fright. Think I'd be wary of this design....

You sound a little like Sir Antony Hopkins. Great video thank you

Hi, some great and informative videos. Have you done a review of these cheap Chinese Diesel heaters. They appear to be very economical to run, with a good heat output. I have bought one for my workshop but have yet to set it up. Your views would be very useful.

Good one.

You can use a Mason Jar (8 ounce works well). Buy some compression inserts (size of insert determines wick size) and a ball of butcher twine for the wick. Punch two holes in the lid of the jar, just large enough to fit your inserts in. Cut the butcher twine in 12 inch sections. You will need enough sections of the twine to fill the diameter of your insert. Twist the strands of twine together and feed them through the insert. Fill the jar with Canola or some cheap cooking oil. Normally I make a pin hole away from the wicks for air. But this is as safe as any candle. No flash point for fuel. Can add multiple wicks. Jars can be cleaned and the lids & rings are sold without the jar.

Now I know what to do with the heart-shaped tin of chocolates I got for St. Valentines day! Cheers mate

Imagine tuning in at 3.30 and seeing rob making what looks like home made bullets 😆

You're the lad what mangled your Nana's biscuit tin to make a camp stove didn't you mate 😉. I love how that sits and the fact that the fuel is inclosed does add stability and a hue of safety to what you have clearly pointed out in several videos is a dangerous open flame that deserves due diligence and caution. Had to tease you about Nana's biscuit tin mate lol

Many may already know this but if you have an electric clothes dryer you can remove the exhaust vent and replace it with lady's nylon stockings so you do waste the heat when you dry your clothes

Ever since I heard the serious mention of permanent settlement on the moon, I've been thinking, how would we live if we were all personaly responsible for the oxygen we use? How many square miles of plants does it take to support each individual? If they used solar to smelt aluminum on the moon to collect the oxygen, what would we do with all those tons of extra waste aluminum?

Paraffin lamps ate so much more elegant and controllable

Ive got a nice blue flame paraffin heater from car boot sale for £5, kicks the heat out .

Thank you for the videos; can't find carbon felt in stores; only online (?).

I know theres all these vids all over the place about making stuff with cooking oils and wicks and all kinds of flammables and combustibles and I can just imagine all the "half a shillings" that might be mekkin 'em and merrily getting on their way to houses burning down or dying from carbon monoxide...

Robert or anyone please advise...I hope to make a sand battery to sit on top of multi burner stove in my little caravan studio....I thought maybe tall old fashioned white enamelled bread bin with a layer of kiln dried sand In the bottom also bury a few jam jars filled with same sand and lids on and top up with more sand and replace bread box lid. Would it be a safe experiment as I don't like leaving stove on when I have to stay overnight?? Passive heating or would it blow up my little caravan to smithereens?? And female oap artist to the big studio in the sky?? 🤔🤗

Nice thing is that you don't have to burn all the wicks when you might only need 1 or two.

I have seen other videos that also use ceramic wool which works out cheaper that carbon felt, have you try ceramic wool?

FYI, if you sold the carbon felt or had an affiliate link to some in a reasonable amount I would buy it from you

What about fumes in the home? Burning these flammables/fuels give off fumes that are higher volume than a candle...just curious as I want to make one but not gas the household! It seems opening a window would negate the heater being lit in the first place though?

To avoid spillage, I've used similar approaches where the inside of the tin is lined with carbon felt, perlite, any wick type material. It absorbs a lot of fuel and eliminates sloshing involved with moving a flat tin with very thin flammable liquid. Just top up when dry. Another bonus is that it eliminates any potential vapor cavity air space that could blast flaming liquid about if it ever caught a spark. Everyone says it, I will too..... Carbon monoxide poisoning is a fast moving thing and bear in mind even if your alcohol stove burns a clean blue....it still consumes oxygen from a room. Ventilation is crucial. Thanks for your videos sir, always interesting.👏

I enjoy your videos and post them on my bitchute channel. Thank you for making these videos so enjoyable with your infectious laugh and delivery!

Love your videos!! What if you put a few magnets inside the tin and kept it steady that way🤔

hi, thanks... what fuel are you using please?...

Looks like a burner for a flower pot heater.

Looks like a lot of smoke coming from it - not burning cleanly.

Can you add a gravity feed from a remote reservoir perhaps?

I am really wanting to use vegetable oil in this but I can't get it to stay lit. Does anyone have any ideas?

I reckon the person who burnt their house down may come into the category of ' ... a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing ...'