I tackled a dilemma today:

How to make a stove board that can prevent melting down into the snow for winter use that can accommodate one large snow melting pot under two burners or two separate pots under two separate burners. At just a hair over 6 oz, I think it turned out pretty well. I'm planning to test it out live this weekend and will report back. In the meantime, I'm interested in any feedback anyone has, positive or negative, especially if you've made something similar before.

Originally I was planning to use plywood, but even with circles cut out to reduce weight, it weighed over a pound. With the reflective tape, I figured that a thin flexible plastic cutting board should work fine. Flexible to fit in the pack better, but a carefully prepared flat surface of snow should give it plenty of rigidity.

The only potential drawback I can think of is that in extreme cold (think -40-ish), the plastic might become brittle and crack. I've got it in the freezer right now to test how it does at around -6F.

Per a hand held digital laser temperature sensor, some things in my freezer were as low as -18F, and the plastic cutting board was as flexible as could be. No sign of being brittle. I'm hopeful.

Still open to hearing from anyone with experience. Or with any thoughts to share.

My concern would be overheating the fuel bottles due the way they are situated next to the burners. I think a foil wind screen would help mitigate that, but that is my concern.

Not a practical solution but the space shuttle heat shield tiles would solve the problem beautifully. A quarter inch thickness plywood is pretty light.
Good point by EB though.

Marcsoltan wrote:Not a practical solution but the space shuttle heat shield tiles would solve the problem beautifully. A quarter inch thickness plywood is pretty light.
Good point by EB though.

I used a piece of 1/8" thick Luan (Philippine mahogany) plywood typically used as a floor over layment. It broke in half when I sat on it. It was light though.

I just use a piece of cheap kitchen wall paneling. It's much lighter than plywood and works fine. It doesn't weigh much at all. I have been using the same piece for more than 20 years.

We used it this weekend on an overnight. With a flat platform of snow underneath, it worked beautifully.

I checked the heat underneath without the reflector and wind screen in place and even after the burner was going for awhile with a pot full of water on it, I could easily hold my hand under the burner on top of the fuel bottle. I was concerned about that at first too, but after checking, this out, I'm not concerned at all.

True that 1/4" plywood isn't "very" heavy, but it is nearly a full pound heavier than the plastic. If the plastic works well, that's a pound that I don't have to carry.

In hindsight, the plastic turned out to be a not-so-very-good idea. I guess we just didn't test it in close enough to "live" conditions. I was not using a heat exchanger on the test runs, so even though we had the stove going for a long time to melt snow, more of the heat was escaping off the bottom/sides of the pot. As soon as I threw the heat exchanger on the pot on the mountain, more of the heat was being contained under the pot. That heat transferred to the stove legs, which then melted through the plastic (as well as the foam underneath).

If I still have the pieces, I'll post a picture, but if you use a heat exchanger on your pots, I wouldn't recommend using a plastic stove board. Fortunately, we had a smaller backup stove board made from plywood with holes cut out. That ended up working for the rest of the trip.

(Unfortunately, my summit bid ended pretty early on as I re-aggravated an ankle injury from skiing a few weeks prior. I could go up, but down was tough. Determined it wasn't worth it. We had just finished carrying our cache up Ski Hill, so we ended up being close enough to Kahiltna base camp that they were able to hike me out and continue up. They made it to within 300 feet of the summit when late hour, wind and incoming weather prompted them to start descending. Bummers all around, but still a fantastic experience!)