Zero Cost Cookset - Making a windscreen

Fritz Krueger is a bicycle tourist who also has a passion for researching, designing and building homemade camp stoves. He has contributed several articles about Camp Stoves to Bicycle Touring 101. This particular article is part of his Zero Cost Cookset series.

Regardless of how any stove was originally made, whether it was purchased in a store or made at home from plans and ideas seen elsewhere please always remember to use caution! Flames burn and a bad burn could go a long way towards ending a bicycle touring adventure far too early!

This article contains instructions to build a fully functional windscreen. A windscreen will make your stove much more efficient at cooking food and allow you to have much greater success even when the wind is blowing strongly.

Step One:

Cut the tops and bottoms off of 3 or 4 pop cans. Cut the center sections into rectangles 3-1/4" x 7-3/4". Round off the corners and lightly sand the edges so that they are not sharp. Refer to the left picture.

Step Two:

Trace a circle around your pot onto a sheet of paper. The circle should be 1/4" wider than your pot in each direction. Refer to the picture to the right.

Step Three:

Stand the rectangles up on the circle. Overlap them and staple them together. Fasten the final overlap with 2 paperclips instead of stapling. Use a hole-punch to punch holes along the bottom edge. Refer to the picture to the left.

At this point you have a functional windscreen. In the next article instructions are provided that will allow you to modify your windscreen so that it also becomes a pot holder as well.

Submitted by Fritz Krueger

This article is just one of a series of articles that Fritz has written for Bicycle Touring 101. I encourage you to check out his other articles in this section and his wonderful web site where he has more plans for stoves and accessories.

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