Weldon Carter

Finally here are some pictures of my garage rocket turned outdoor party rocket heater.
We are having a halloween party Friday and it's supposed to be colder than hell so we'll get it stoked up really good and have the fam let me know if it's a keeper.
I am thinking that I am going to cut barrel in half at the bottom and redo the crappy insulation job and go woth a 6" duct lined with vermiculite or perlite or something to get the most bang for the buck.

I fired it Saturday night (no camera though) to show a friend how it works. The wind was gusting 25+ and the temp was 80+ or so with 85% humiditity. I didn't figure it would even get up too temps since it was so warm outside. It quickly got up and rolling, zero smoke and good sideways fire in the feed tube. While it had been running for 15 minutes or so unattended we whent outside to check it out, the rh side of the burn tube was glowing red, I had never seen it do that yet and the radiating heat from the exposed portion of the burn tube was tremendous.
The heat from the bell was good too but I still wonder what it would be like with the correct gauge. I am going to build a 6" or 8" brick unit for my shop with the correct barrel, it is going to take quite a bit more output I think to warm it.

I will try and get some pix tonight of mine, I have been working out of town.

I have been using a map gas torch to light the kindling, the instant shot of heat really gets things going and as long as you have some smaller twigs in there they will light off pretty quick.

I can't believe the other stove shown above cratered like that. I built a fireplace grate out of the same tubing to use a blower on and fired it all last winter in the coals of a masonry fire place and it hasn't physically changed like that bell did.

I also am not sure it's going to matter much to me as I am only using this on weekends some and far less than the average RMH in a house.

I just built this exact heater Saturday from the same pieces you have. I used a 28" riser wrapped in insulation. I stuck a 5" exhaust stack inverted from the bottom of the bell.
My feed tube is only 10" tall or so.

First impressions are this thing rules for efficency, I have just burned twigs etc and it gets the upper 1/3 of the bell to 300+ in 60F ambient. the exposed portion of the burn chamber was at 900F on a infared temp gun.
Its a novelty at this point but I am going to build a 8" version for my shop (30X40).

The heater seems to want a 1/3 of the feed tube covered and burns with very low flow out the flue, the flue also stays under "skin burn" temperature which I like.

I will try and get some pix.