A DIY pot support for the MSR Windburner stove

I was recently asked about the DIY pot support I made for our MSR Windburner stove a number of years ago and decided to write up a description and instructions. 

Before we bought our MSR Windburner stove, my wife Genny, who is the cook in our family, wanted to be able to also use non-Windburner pots with it when not heating water, but MSR don't offer a pot support for the Windburner.  I figured that I could find or make something, so we bought the stove anyway.  Genny really likes our MSR Windburner stove, it is very fast, very fuel efficient, simmers, is virtually wind proof when using the Windburner pots, and is still a very nice stove when used with a pot support and non-Windburner pots. It is perfect for kayak tripping.  The only real cons we see are that it may be a bit large and heavy for lightweight backpacking, but Genny is addicted to its speed and fuel efficiency and is happy to carry it, so we use it anyway.

As far as I know, this pot support is an original idea of mine, I haven’t seen or read of anything else like it. I made the pot support a number of years ago when we first got the stove, so the method is from my memory, hopefully I haven’t forgotten anything significant. 

The Windburner has a very sturdy steel rim around the burner that the Windburner pots lock onto. If a non-Windburner (flat bottomed) pot is set directly on this rim, it will smother the burner as no airflow can occur, so the pot needs to be spaced some distance above this rim for the burner to function. My idea was that instead of making a single piece pot support, all that was necessary were 3 or 4 slotted spacers that would slide onto the burner rim and hold a pot a suitable distance from it so that air could flow, allowing the burner to burn and to heat a pot. Having several small spacers also is lighter than other possibilities and fits easily into the Windburner pot for storage. The disadvantages are that instead of just putting a single pot support in place, there are 3 or 4 small spacers that must be set on the burner rim individually, so it is not as easy to quickly switch between a Windburner pot and a plain pot, and there are smaller bits to drop or lose (so making some spares is probably a good idea). Using 4 pot supports is more stable, but 3 also works fine, is a bit lighter, and is a good backup if you lose one of the 4 (we have never lost any, but they are small and brown, once oxidized by getting hot, so it could happen). The pot support pieces are pretty lightweight, less than 3g each, a set of 4 weighs about 11g. I think something similar could likely be made from some stiff stainless steel wire or rod, which should make them even lighter and also easier to make as it would just require wire cutters and bending, I might give it a try sometime.

I made the pot supports from a 4” stainless steel gear|hose|band clamp which has a large section of unperforated 9/16” wide band. Do not use a galvanized steel clamp as the coating gives off toxic fumes when very hot. This clamp should be readily available at hardware and building supplies stores.  Required tools are a bench vise, hammer, vice-grips, file, hack saw, fine marker and ruler. 

Instructions for making the pot supports

1. Open the band clamp entirely, removing the band from the clamp screw.
2. Bend the unperforated section flat. 
3. Cut off the perforated end of the band, 
4. Cut at least four 1 3/4” long pieces from the unperforated section of the band (if there's enough band, cut some more for spares). For each piece, I used the vice and hammer to bend a 90° angle at 1 3/4”, then bent it back and forth a few times until it broke off as this was easier than using a hack saw for this. 
   The stainless band is quite stiff, don't bend it sharply, or unbend a sharp bend, any more than you must to make the pot support as this will weaken or break the metal.
5. Stack and align the cut pieces and clamp the aligned stack of pieces vertically in the vice.
6. File the end of the stack level and smooth with the corners rounded a bit so there are no sharp edges.
7. Flip the stack in the vice and file the other end.
   Use the vice-grips to clamp the stack together in alignment whenever moving it from the vice. 
8. Use a fine permanent marker to draw a guide line all the way around the stack at the middle, at 3/8” from each end, and around the center widthwise. 
9. Use the hacksaw to cut a 3/8” deep slot in the center of each end of the stack following the guide line drawn on the stack. When done, you will have four (or more) 1 3/4” long x 9/16” wide pieces of stainless steel with a 3/8” deep hacksaw blade width slot in each end.
10. Use the file to smooth off any sharp edges or corners on each piece.
11. Use the vice, hammer and guide lines to separately bend a 90° angle in the center of each piece and to bend or start bending a 45° angle 3/8” from each end. Depending on the shape of your vice jaws, the vice-grips may be required to finish bending the 45° angles against a solid surface like a workbench. 

When finished, each piece will have an open bottom and vertical slotted sides below an inverted V shape and the slots should fit snugly over the Windburner burner rim. Each piece can be spread apart or squeezed together to fine adjust its height.  All the pieces made should be adjusted to be the same height, otherwise, when 4 are used, a pot may not sit solidly on all 4 (this isn’t an issue if using only 3).

 

Some other Windburner pot supports we use or have explored

We have a triangular stainless trivet sort of thingy, about 4” in diameter, that I found at a campsite while backpacking last year. I haven’t been able to identify it, but assume it came from some sort of camp stove. It isn’t quite as stable as my DIY pot support, but it works very well with the Windburner, normally with the points up, but for really small pots, with the points down.  At about 16g, it is a bit heavier, but is more convenient to use than my DIY support so Genny is mostly using it as our Windburner pot support these days. If anyone can identify this, please leave a comment letting me know what it is and/or what it's from. 

I saw the TOAKS Titanium Wood Stove Cross Bars on a web site a few years ago and thought they might work as a Windburner pot support, they aren't very expensive and I needed to increase my order to get free shipping on my Silky F180 saw (a great camping saw), so I bought a couple of pairs to try.  They can be used as a Windburner pot support, but if you only use one pair (a + shape), the center sits on the burner head which I don’t think is good. We use two pairs together to make a # shape, which works ok but is annoying as the bars tend to fall apart whenever they are moved, also I think they hold the pot higher than necessary off the burner and they partly block air flow to the center of the pot. We have better solutions so we don’t generally use them. The two pairs together weigh about 14g. 

I looked at using the Jetboil pot support with our Windburner and bought one, but returned it after seeing how it fit on the Windburner. The center hole of the Jetboil pot support is too small for the Windburner burner diameter, and I think it holds the pot too high off the burner.  Although I know some people are using it with the Windburner, I don’t think it's a good solution, at least not without modification to increase the size of the center hole.

My first idea for a DIY pot support when we first got the Windburner was to make crossbars from some small aluminum bar stock (similar to the TOAKS crossbars above), which worked OK for a small cast iron frying pan, but quickly overheated and melted onto the stove burner (a bit of a mess) when a thinner pot was used.  Following is a photo of the remains of the melted pot support.