It all started with a plan on paper which would make the wood burner a reality from a single 4’x8′ sheet of Aluminum.
I had seen many of these wood heaters and figured I could just build one myself. Then I talked to a friend at work who used to be a welder. I could have set up my MIG for stainless but really wanted it to be Aluminum. The gun for Aluminum just could not be justified, I do not see myself welding enough Aluminum material for it to pay over the coming years.
This comes back to letting a professional do certain jobs sometimes. It was more cost efficient to have this made by someone who knows what they are doing.
So the plan was drawn up and I want to a welding shop to talk to them and arrange to get it done. There us another whole story about the construction of the firebox but I will save that for another time.
The one thing which was left up in the air was the draft tube to get Oxygen down into the fire. I had two totally different ideas and the guy who ended up building this went off on his own and nailed it I think. The moment of truth for the firebox will be discovered once it is sunk into water and the first fire is lit.
The plan is, and always has been to use 2″X 6″ for the floor and 2″x4″ for the Staves.
The bits for the Router to make the Staves were not easy to come by at all, I talked to many people at hardware stores, Lee Valley and searched the Internet numerous times before actually finding them. I bought 2 of each over a year ago because they had to be shipped to me, it was not a local purchase.
I hope that the knots in the wood I have are small enough to not be an issue, we will find this out soon enough.
Clear Cedar was not in the budget and I am not sure how this is going to work with the Cedar that I have. I went with dimensional lumber and never thought of milling the boards myself.
My milling endeavor will all be bigger timbers because it’s all being done with a chainsaw mill. If I had a bandsaw mill I would have done everything from scratch.