Thanks for spurring me on etiger!
I bought a lil ole Vogelzang Defender 1.2 CF stove back in the fall. I was fairly happy with it other than the short burn times (4 hrs) but I figured that is the nature of the beast on a baby stove, and that's all I really need anyways, just a lil something to take the chill off in the spring and fall.
Well, over time I noticed that even when I cut the primary air back all the way, the fire was still kicking pretty good! Not the lazy rolling secondary flames that everybody talks about, it was more like a midnight run across a desert highway than a leisurely vacation drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway that most people seem to get once in cruise mode. So I checked for leaks, nada.
I had been thinking 'bout this... there seems to be alot of air available to this stove, for a small firebox anyways. There a (2) 1" x 3/4" holes for the secondary air, there is (1) 1/4" hole for the "doghouse" air at the bottom, (2) 3/8" holes and (1) 1" hole that are the always open primary "air wash" supply holes. That is at the minimum, opening the slide control exposes more openings! Like I said, seemed like a lot.
So I had been kicking around the idea of cuttin some of the air back a bit. After reading about your experiment, I decided to try it. Took me a bit to get to it cause we heat with our Yukon multifuel furnace most of the time, so the lil stove is often cold. Well I fired up the stove this morning, got 'er going good, turned 'er down after the firebox came up to temp. The stovetop temp settled in about 525*, a pretty typical "cruise" temp on this stove.
I was sitting there watching the flames wrap around the front of the baffle, I decided, that's it, now's the time! So I took the cover off the air control slide, and put a piece of high temp foil tape over the bottom half of the 1" hole in the center. SHAZAM! I mean freaking SHAZAM! Almost instantly the flames slowed down down to that lazy roll, and over a 10 minute period or so, the stovetop temp went up to 675*! I sat there for at least an hour watching, and I am here to tell you, this lil ole mod TRANSFORMED this little stove! I used to get 4 hrs out of a load before the stovetop temp was down to 200*, today it went 5 hrs. before 200* and then it held the coals much longer to boot.
That is another thing that I didn't like from before, this thing did not hold coals, at all! But it seems a lot better now, at least a couple hours more of hot coals anyways. Heck, the stovetop is still 100* or better right now, 8 hrs later, she'd a been stone cold at 8 hrs before. I'm just completely amazed...
I know, I know, y'all prolly don't wanna here it, kinda like someone coming on a Corvette forum, braggin 'bout his hotrod Pinto, but hey, after Menards givin these things away a couple months back, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of these lil stoves around. Maybe I'll start a thread 'bout it, just for visibility for anybody who comes lookin...
Thanks again e, hope yours is working well for you too! Stay warm