DIY alcohol burner for copper. DIY alcohol burner. Burner manufacturing technology

DIY alcohol burner for copper. DIY alcohol burner. Burner manufacturing technology

Now we’ll talk about how to make an alcohol burner at home. Used materials are enough for this. there is nothing to buy. The alcohol burner is very environmentally friendly and safe. And besides, a very indispensable thing in hunting and fishing. It can also be used in a tent.
So, let's start simple. You need to empty the first jar of its contents, rinse and dry thoroughly, and then cut off the bottom. You can immediately empty the second jar, but you can do this later.

Next step: Cutting it off bottom part banks. The cut off part will serve as the bottom of the future burner. We will further insert the top into this part. Based on this, we insert our second jar on top (still whole). In order for the upper part to fit easily, it needs to be stretched a little. We insert it very carefully so that in the future we can easily disassemble our structure. A sufficient depth of about seven millimeters.

After this, we begin to manufacture the future upper part. After emptying, drill holes around the entire perimeter. For greater effect, use a thinner drill bit.

After these steps, we proceed to the next ones. Remove the entire middle of the bottom and cut off the entire top of the can. This is what the design should look like.

From the remaining parts of the jars we make inner side. We will need to cut out a strip. To do this, we need a special formula for us. The length we need must correspond to the height of half the jar plus the height of the narrow part of the second half of the jar. Simply put, our resulting length should be much greater than the width of the board we use.

In the lower part we make several cutouts in the shape of triangles, the height of which should be approximately three millimeters. These cutouts are necessary so that our fuel flows into the inside of the burner.

To complete our equipment we will need several steps. To make the folding process even easier, we use the remains of the jar. We cut out a small mount from them. And on the top of the jar we make a small cut, about six millimeters.

Our alcohol lamp turned out great. The alcohol itself is poured into larger hole up. To boil 500 milliliters of water, we only need twenty-five grams of alcohol. Next, through the same larger hole, we ignite the alcohol. The combustion process begins, after a couple of minutes the alcohol begins to boil and alcohol vapor seeps through small holes and it is ignited from the central flame.

I want to show you a way to make a homemade alcohol lamp with your own hands. I believe that using this method it is possible to produce a full-fledged oil lamp. Empty glass perfume bottles are perfect for this purpose. For example, let's take a bottle of nail polish.

Depending on the diameter of the bottle neck, you can use anchor nails of different sizes or blind rivets as a cap and wick holder. You will also need a sealant in order to form a plug from it. As a wick, a spare wick is ideal for Zippo lighters. But a brush is also suitable for smoking pipe or any natural fiber cord. You can refill the alcohol lamp with alcohol, kerosene, or liquid for lighting a fire. But oil for oil lamps turned out to be the ideal fuel. It seems to be called oil arbitrarily. Composition: a mixture of liquid paraffins.

And so we take a bottle of nail polish.

Take out the tassel and cut it off. In the lid where the brush was, we enlarge the hole and push it back.

Separate the rivet from the rod.

Coat the rivet with sealant. It is better that the piece of iron does not touch the glass case.

Insert the wick. The homemade alcohol lamp is ready.

Before using a spirit lamp for a long time, it is a good idea to test it for about fifteen minutes. To do this, light our oil lamp and place it on a metal tray or baking sheet. If the glass doesn't crack, it will work.

You can make a simple light alcohol lamp with your own hands from ordinary beer cans. If you don't like beer, then Coca-Cola cans or any other cans are fine. The main thing is that they are aluminum!

To make such a burner you will need a couple of cans, a stationery needle, glass wool (ordinary wool is fine, but with glass wool it will last forever), scissors and a book. You can make a stand for a saucepan from wire or an old metal hanger, but on a hike it’s easier to use improvised objects - a couple of stones or just make a small trench for an alcohol lamp.

However, let's return to how to make a homemade alcohol burner.

After all the tools have been collected, you can begin the process of making a spirit lamp.

To begin with, mark a straight line around the circumference of the jar. The easiest way to do this is to place the marker on the book and press it with one hand, while rotating the jar with the other.

This is how we mark both banks.

Now carefully cut around the circumference. You can use ordinary stationery scissors; the sheet metal is soft and can be easily cut with any scissors.

The result is two bottoms.

The lower part can be processed using a multitool, this will allow you to easily insert the upper cover over the lower one.

We put glass wool in the lower part, place it with a small “slide”, so that it tightly fills the entire cavity of the homemade alcohol lamp. Glass wool is preferable because it is not subject to combustion and does not deteriorate from heat. Glass is very refractory, and glass wool is just a lump of thin glass threads.

We close our homemade alcohol lamp and use a needle to make holes.

The more holes and the wider the holes, the higher the combustion temperature will be. You can make 5 holes in the center for filling flammable liquid without disassembling the burner.

The entire process of making a homemade alcohol lamp can be seen in the video below.

In terms of “power,” a homemade alcohol burner is comparable to purchased multi-fuel burners.

Half a liter of water in the pot boils in 8 minutes. 40 ml of alcohol is enough for 25 minutes of burning. Half a liter of flammable liquid is enough for a week-long hike for 2 people, provided they have 3 meals a day.

Before starting, you don’t have to preheat the burner - just splash a little on the karaya and set it on fire, the alcohol burner will immediately warm up and the alcohol vapor will begin to actively evaporate and burn. Such a burner operates on the fact of expansion and evaporation of a flammable liquid at an elevated temperature.

As you can see, the burner turned out to be small and very efficient. It differs from purchased mixed fuel burners primarily in its small dimensions and, accordingly, light weight. In addition, it is easy to build from improvised means using only a multitool.

Tiger comments:

It turned out to be an interesting burner, small and light. It’s true that carrying denatured alcohol or white spirit with you in a bottle is inconvenient; it’s easier to just collect dry fuel.

Ivan comments:

Simple, cheap, practical... This burner will come in handy when fishing. Lightweight, doesn't take up a lot of space.

GOLDEN EAGLE comments: Vitaly

An integral part of a camping trip, winter fishing or hunting is cooking or heating food. For many objective reasons, sometimes it is not possible to make a fire. They have proven themselves well in this case gas-burners, but, with all the advantages, they have disadvantages: throughout the entire trip you need to carry a burner weighing about a kilogram, and at least two cylinders, the weight of which is on average 250 grams. If the hike is long, you will need more cylinders. In addition, such travel devices are not cheap. A camping alcohol burner is a good replacement for a gas burner: it weighs very little, the amount of alcohol required for its operation can even be transported on an airplane, and you can make it yourself. In addition, a homemade alcohol burner will always come in handy at home.

The principle of operation of an alcohol burner is the combustion of fuel mixture vapors.

An alcohol burner from a can is made as follows:

  1. You will need two cans of canned food, coffee, etc., a piece of glass wool and fuel. Tin cans need to be washed well and dried. Then they need to be cut in half, a piece of glass wool should be placed on the bottom of one of them. You need to make a plug so that the cotton wool does not fall out, place it on top of it.
  2. Holes are made in the bottom of the second can and placed on top of the first. They should fit snugly against each other and there should be no gaps at the edges.
  3. Using an awl, you need to make holes with a diameter of 2 mm in the circle of the top can with a distance of 8 mm between them and 1.5 cm from the edge of the can. It is better to make the holes in such a shape that the metal is slightly bent upward. You should get from 16 to 26 such holes.
  4. Using a syringe and a tube placed on its spout, alcohol is poured inside so that the glass wool or other material is saturated with it (you can put regular pumice).
  5. Ignition is carried out as follows: with your own hands, an alcohol burner heats up from below, where the fuel is located, so that it begins to evaporate. After this, a lighter is brought to the holes from above, the alcohol vapor begins to burn.

Alcohol of at least 96% must be used as fuel; it can be replaced with salicylic acid or streptocide. As practice shows, the intensity and duration of burning of an alcohol lamp depends on the type of fuel. The most intense combustion is shown by fuel made from alcohol, while streptocide and salicylic acid are less intense, but their combustion duration is longer than that of alcohol. Gasoline cannot be used as fuel due to the risk of explosion. Kerosene is also not suitable due to the lack of a wick. It is better to use materials made from natural fibers as a material for alcohol impregnation.

Alcohol burner made from beer cans

Numerous videos contain detailed instructions How to make a spirit burner from aluminum beer or soda cans.


Alcohol burner from a beer can

To make an alcohol burner from beer cans, you need to do the following:

  • Take two aluminum cans, mark them with a marker and wooden block cut line (about 3-4 cm from the bottom), cut.
  • Insert one cut part tightly into the other.
  • Make a hole in the center of the top jar with an awl for filling. Close the filler hole with the bolt. You can use a coin instead. This item is even better: when overheated and under high pressure, it will simply jump, releasing the excess so that the can does not explode.
  • Around the entire circle of the jar, approximately 16 pieces are pierced with holes with an equal distance between each other.
  • Alcohol with a volume of 25-50 ml is poured into the filler hole and the hole is closed. You can put cotton wool on the bottom, as described in the case of tin cans.
  • The alcohol lamp is placed on a metal base (you can use a metal lid), onto which a certain amount of alcohol is poured and set on fire.
  • After 20-40 seconds, the burner will warm up and flames will begin to emerge from the holes.

Homemade alcohol burner: features


There are two types of DIY alcohol burner: open and closed. The manufacturing methods of the second type are described above. The open one differs from the closed one in that it does not have a top cover, and the fuel is ignited without preheating. Disadvantage of an open alcohol lamp: high consumption fuel. Disadvantages of a closed burner: slow heating, side flames can be blown away by the wind, care is required when handling to avoid tipping over.


To use it for its intended purpose, you will need to make a stand for dishes. This can be easily done using ordinary wire. A stand for the boiler and other utensils is necessary in winter time years when cold dishes can extinguish the burner. If the burner without a stand is made of aluminum, it will only effectively heat aluminum cookware.


In European countries, they have been using such an alcohol lamp for a long time, replacing a conventional burner with it. We can find and take note of many advantages of this device. For example, in a type of transport such as, say, an airplane, you can easily carry alcohol. Containers for alcohol weigh much less than a gas cylinder, etc. And there’s no need to talk about the importance of such a spirit lamp for winter fishing. Therefore, we suggest making such a spirit lamp with your own hands; it will be very useful in everyday life.

Buying an alcohol lamp is also a piece of cake. But, if you take all the advantages and characteristics, it will be better to make it yourself at home. In order to make an alcohol lamp, containers from tin cans are usually used. Such cans can be, for example, cans of canned food or beer. In order to make an alcohol lamp, you only need a couple of drink cans. The design itself is not complicated at all. And it is made quite quickly and simply.

So, let's start simple. You need to empty the first jar of its contents, rinse and dry thoroughly, and then cut off the bottom. You can immediately empty the second jar, but you can do this later. It's not so important here. Next, we will need a board of a certain thickness in order to cut the jars. It is best if the height the desired board it will be twenty-five millimeters.


The next move is this: we take the jar, put it on the table, and then press it tightly against the blade and twist it. It will be enough to make no more than fifteen revolutions. After this, the bottom can be easily separated from the top of the jar. The cut off part will serve as the bottom of the future burner. We will further insert the top into this part. Based on this, we insert our second jar on top (still whole). In order for the upper part to fit easily, it needs to be stretched a little. We insert it very carefully so that in the future we can easily disassemble our structure. A sufficient depth of about seven millimeters.


Having completed all these steps, we begin to manufacture the future upper part. If you did not release it earlier, now release the contents of the second jar. After emptying, drill holes around the entire perimeter. For greater effect, use a thinner drill bit.


After the completed manipulations, we proceed to the next ones. Remove the entire middle of the bottom and cut off the entire top of the can. This is what the design should look like.


From the remaining parts of the jars we make the inner side. We will need to cut out a strip. To do this, we need a special formula for us. The length we need must correspond to the height of half the jar plus the height of the narrow part of the second half of the jar. Simply put, our resulting length should be much greater than the width of the board we use.


In the lower part we make several cutouts in the shape of triangles, the height of which should be approximately three millimeters. These cutouts are necessary so that our fuel flows into the inside of the burner.


To complete our equipment we will need several steps. To make the folding process even easier, we use the remains of the jar. We cut out a small mount from them. And on the top of the jar we make a small cut, about six millimeters.


Our alcohol lamp turned out great. The alcohol itself is poured into the largest hole at the top. To boil 500 milliliters of water, we only need twenty-five grams of alcohol. Next, through the same larger hole, we ignite the alcohol. The combustion process begins, after a couple of minutes the alcohol begins to boil and alcohol vapor seeps through small holes and it is ignited from the central flame.



Our alcohol burner is working.