Oil Drum Handicraft

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The most pleasurable use I've found for a drum heater is as the heart of a sauna. After sealing a small shed as best you can, construct a barrel stove in the middle of the building. Set that heat source in a bed of sand enclosed in a frame (I used 10-foot lengths of two- by four-inch wood) covered with chicken wire, and then fill the fenced space with rocks . . . but make sure the stones are hard, unstratified and thoroughly dried so they won't explode when heated.

Get a brisk fire going in the stove and in about 30 minutes you'll have one very hot sauna. Pour small amounts of water over the rocks to steam up the chamber. A Blazo can with the top cut out and the sharp edges hammered down does very well to hold the liquid, and the same container's shipping crates make fine stools to sit on while you work up a sweat. For a real treat, build the Finnish bath next to a river or lake so you can rush out of the hot shed and jump into the cold water (or into the snow, as we do in Alaska).

DRUM WATER HEATER

One luxury I often miss when living in the "bush" is plenty of hot water for bathing, cooking and washing. It's a constant battle to keep enough on hand. One remedy for that shortage is to couple your drum stove with a hot water heater made of a fuel barrel and some used one-inch copper tubing.

Cut the top out of the drum with a cold chisel and hammer down the sharp edges. Now you need to make a heating unit from a length of coiled copper pipe attached at both ends to the outside of the tank. This arrangement must stand out far enough from the container's wall to be pushed into the front of a stove or fireplace. (If your heat source is a homemade Yukon model, you can of course build the tubing into the firebox during construction.)

Bend the central portion of your length of pipe around some object about 12 inches in diameter, leaving straight sections at the ends long enough to fasten to the drum as shown. Now drill two holes in the container—one near the bottom and one halfway up—just big enough to receive the tips of the tubing and braze the joints so they won't leak.

A sturdy base should be built to support the drum at a height that will allow the bottom pipe to pass straight into the source of heat. The device works very simply: The hot water rises and causes the liquid to circulate, so you have a constant supply for household use. Just pour in cold water and let the stove-heater combination do the rest.

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