Sheepherder Stoves

[Camp CFL 10]

I am looking for information on Sheepherder Stoves that the Council can purchase for our Summer Camp. The stoves need to be of good quality as our existing Sheepherder Stoves are 25 plus years old and just now starting to require replacement.

 

 

[dan 10]

Camp Freeland Leslie?

TFC?

 

 

If not I have never heard of sheepherder stoves.

 

 

[le Voyageur 72]

 

 

Cabella's carries them...cost will be around about a 100 yankee dollars.

[dan 10]

My post made it sound like if you where not from CFL I did not know anything about them and if you are I did. That is not what I meant!

[Overtrained 10]

I know Dsteel's camp used to have them. He might have a source.

[Proud Eagle 13]

Well I really do learn something new every day. I had never heard of such a thing before. Now I know that they are.

 

Here is a question-

What in the world do you need those for at a summer camp? I can't imagine wanting MORE heat during summer camp.

[dsteele 20]

Cooking, my Proud Eagle Kentucky friend! They're a great way to get charcoal going without resorting to chemical fuels.

 

I'll look around in our camp catalog to see if they're still available.

 

Overtrained -- how about the Yardarm B&G either next Friday evening or Saturday afternoon?

 

DS

[Proud Eagle 13]

OK. Cooking makes sense. Do you cook by troops at your camp or does the dining hall use them to start charcoal and what not?

[dsteele 20]

Our camp is a patrol cooking camp. This year, for the first time, we are offering prepared breakfast and lunch as an option. All troops will cook dinner in their sites and most troops are choosing to cook all meals in their sites.

 

DS

[willysjeep 10]

Most of our sheep herders are built from scratch I think now. If you have a steel dealer by you chances are they can cut the plates you need. If you can locate somebody (volunteer) who can arc weld you are all set. PS, don't use aluminum pipe for stovepipe. My camp got this 3" aluminum conduit to use for stovepipe. Unfortunately our sheephearders burned hot enough to melt the aluminum pipe at the base. The heat also caused air bubbles and cold shuts in the pipe to expand, and when they pop the liquid aluminum flys everywhere. Only stovepipe from now on. If you can, get the top plate a little thicker than the sides so the top won't buckle when a half chord of dry oak gets shoved in it by some new scout.

[frank10 12]

W.J. (or any one else)

 

Do you have a set of plans to make one? Basic layout, steel gadge and best leg design?

[Twocubdad 665]

I ran a Google search on Sheepherder Stoves just to see what you guys were talking about. Hundreds of his, many for sale. Didn't see much in the way of plans.

[willysjeep 10]

At our camp we have permanent frames for the patrol flys, so we have just a piece of 1.5" pipe cemented into the ground. There's a slightly larger diameter short pipe welded to the bottom of the stove that drops over the cemented in pipe. We also have temporary setups with a pipe cemented into a large bucket. Helps reduce any chance of the stove getting moved too close to something like a tent or picnic table.

 

Basically, our stoves are a rectangular cube about 10 inches tall, 24 inches deep and mabey 18 inches wide. The sides are of I believe sheet metal of about 18 gauge, mabey a little thicker, and the top I think is 1/4" plate. We also have some that were all made from 1/4" plate, but that's just what they had at the time. We weld a ring made of large steel pipe on the top of the stovetop near a one corner so a 3" stove pipe can be installed. Our doors are hinged at the top, so gravity keeps them shut. They have a 1X4" opening with a sliding cover to ajust the draft. I think somebody took 1X1 square tubing pieces about 1" long and welded them to the sides so we could use these heavy wire mesh warming racks that dropped on.

 

They also have a short chain with a large ring welded to the door so the door can be opened with a stick or with a leather glove.

 

 

I almost think the first batch of sheep hearders we got were commercially made ones. I seem to remember some having a cast iron top with some reenforcement ribs on the inside and the sides being screwed to the top. All of our new ones now are built from scratch by a few retired metalworkers in the council.

 

Even when they get left out all summer they last a long time. If you wanted them to last even longer you might want to consider painting them with high temperature stove paint every year or two, that might help keep them from rusting out so soon.