After a bit of hinting, my brother got me the 8g stove and DIY windshield for Christmas :)

I've got the 8g Stove Shield Template where you cut the slits in the top and bottom and fold over sections to create air vents.

Now I'd be quite happy following that if I was reusing a thick bit of foil from a turkey tray or similar, but it seems a shame to use the nice sheet of Ali for something that will look a bit 'homemade' even after making a neat job of it.

Lots of photos I see are using windshields with drilled holes, they look smarter and presumably have the advantage that there are a lot less edges and corners to pick up dirt, scratch mugs and get bent. Has anyone worked out the ideal size and number of holes needed to get optimum performance for the 8g stove and a 400ml ti mug?

Has anyone worked out the ideal size and number of holes needed to get optimum performance for the 8g stove and a 400ml ti mug?

Yep

If you stick with the overall size / shape and ideally punch not drill (it'll be much neater depending on the material used) a line of 10mm holes around the bottom edge and the same again around the top edge about 6mm in from the edges and spaced at 6mm - 8mm, you'll be good to go.

This obviously has 2 rows of 'exhaust holes' as it's for a different stove but you get the idea about size / spacing.

Wow, that was a quick reply from the man himself, thanks for the tips, I will now retire to the garage.

The material is the ali you are currently bundling with the 8g stove so I'l chop out the template and then use the scrap left over to test out the best way to make the holes :)

It's .2mm so fairly soft. If you go down the drill route make sure you support it well underneath or sandwich it between to pieces of ply or similar

Meant to say - for neat cuts / edges scribe 3 or 4 times with a sharp stanley knife. A quick flex to separate the two and you'll have a perfect edge.

Also, if you find that you can't produce holes that you're happy with, you could use something to scribe round and produce semi-circles. These would be too big (they're air intakes for a gas stove) but you'll see what I mean.

The best solution to obtaining a perfect fit windstove for the 8g stove is to plead technical incompetence and hope that a nice person takes pity on you. Worked for me

I used a single hole punch (the kind one uses for paper filing).

Same here 'slide, that's what I did - and then you also have lots of nice little round bits of metal, which are fun to, well, er, fun to, erm.... look at . <finishes post lamely>

Well, as you suggested, cutting thin material like that with a drill, step drill etc is pretty much impossible. I tried my largest drift but the edge is not sharp enough to cut through, so started experimenting with a hole punch. I don't think you can get enough of the smaller hole punch holes before running out of space so the total area punched is about a 3rd less than 10mm holes.

The main issue is its difficult to get the holes spaced evenly if I want two rows of holes, so my next idea is to grab a couple of sim cutters from the office (nano and micro) and then give them a go to see if they make nice holes :) I've used about half of the scrap practising hole punching so there is still some left to attach with the sim cutter.

(I also tried overlapping the hole punch to make oval slits but it left jagged edges that were difficult to clean up)

You can buy a cheap (£5ish) set of gasket punches which go from 2mm upto 10mm and they will make a nice neat job ,at .2mm sheet it's no tougher to get through than old type gasket paper or cork gasket

I would have had chop the SIM cutter up so much it would no longer cut, so I spared it and got a cheap set of leather punches as I need to fit some eyelets to my winter boots anyway.

Turned out pretty good as long as you use a nice big hammer :) I should have left the tabs longer as they fold over and hook together nicely which removes the need for a paperclip.

Put the kettle on spooky

Is there a pdf of the template around?

My old wind shield is ready for renewing

ianfitz wrote:Is there a pdf of the template around?

My old wind shield is ready for renewing

Don’t worry I seem to have one

If you're stuck Ian, give me a shout.

I've never actually been sent a template with the stoves wot I purchased . Hence my setups always look like what the losing team of scrapyard challenge would come up with. Admittedly the stoves work fine and I haven't starved yet so I guess it's not a problem. For intellectual purposes I'd be interested to know what I'm "supposed" to be doing though . Not convinced a fully conical will fit in my russian-doll mug though with the rest of the kitchen in there. Do you just email a template or summat? Pretty-please.... eg 400 mug and Hyperstove(TM).

I'll email you a template Reg ... although did I not once make you a tapered shield?

Thanks .

Oh, lordy, yes you did didn't you, forgotten about that one . I'll have to go and rootle now, and try it out again. I remember it was a lot more "conical" than your examples above though?

I remember it was a lot more "conical" than your examples above though?

Could have been. Maybe it was for a larger pot? Anyway, I'll email you a pdf Reg.