I'm resurrecting this thread 6 months later. I finally got off my duff this weekend and did a little more work on the cookstove.
Talk about inappropriate named titles for a thread, I finally settled and put a 6" core in this little thing. I stuck with the 1:2:3 J-tube ratio with an 8" feed, 16" burn tunnel, and 24" riser. (sorry for the blurry pics, talk to the guys running Apple now about that).
I started by just planning to start plastering the outside of it to get a feel for how the plaster would work on the vertical walls and how my soil would be. It's just 3 parts sand to 1 part soil. There's no fiber or anything in it, and it seems to have worked ok. I'm not sure what will happen with heat though.
My original plan was to have two openings (one on either side of the riser) towards the bottom, open to a second bell in back, and then up out of the top.
Then I decided to just cast right over these and cut that divider out all the way in the back.
So once I started working on plastering it, I was like, what the heck, it's time to build this thing. I wasn't planning on it, per se, so I was just dug up what I had around the house and went with it. If it doesn't work I'll redo it. It's pretty much just fireclay and zonolite, with a couple handfuls of ash mixed in and a splash of sodium silicate.
So here it sits once again, not sure when I'll get back to working on it. Maybe next month after I finish a couple other things. Or when it rains, whichever comes first.
I realized when I was casting this thing that it's gonna pretty much be built in place. It better work! It's too dang heavy to move outside to test fire it and try moving back in. Not like breaking the floorboards heavy, but more like breaking my back heavy. I'm also considering hijacking that back hole in the top where the exhaust is supposed to exit and making a little 14" "toaster oven" right there and cutting a hole in the side behind the riser towards the bottom and running the exhaust out of there. Definitely open to some input on all that.
"Knowledge is power. Arm yourself."