Windshield and Firepan Idea from the Army

One of the nice things about attending a Dutch oven convention or Dutch oven pot luck is the ideas that you get. This series of photographs is an example of such an idea.

One of my goals for Saturday was to walk the Taste of Dutch booths and gathering names, recipes and other information for the summer issue of the Dutch Oven News. It took me about 90 minutes to walk 19 booths and talk to the principal cook of each booth.

I ran into Kent and Nancy Rappleye of Layton, Utah about two-thirds into my marathon taste and fact gathering mission. Kent had found the bottom to an old Army-surplus wood-burning pot-bellied stove for sale at Smith and Edwards surplus store in Ogden, Utah.


This is the bottom half of an old Army-surplus stove. It makes a perfect windshield and firepan for a single 12-inch Dutch oven. Kent set the stove bottom on four bricks to elevate it off the floor.


Detail of the door to the old stove. The stove was Windshield and Firepan Idea from the Armyby Heeling in 1952. I have several Army surplus stainless steel cooking spoons in my chuckbox from the 1950s that work as well as the day the were sold to the Army.


A second, rusted stove bottom with a 12-inch Dutch oven.

A note: I took over 150 photographs at the spring convention. I'm only going to post a few on 'Round the Chuckbox in the coming month. I'm reserving most of my photographs and comments about the convention and Taste of Dutch for the summer issue of the Dutch Oven News, the official newsletter of the International Dutch Oven Society. The newsletter is a benefit of membership in IDOS. The website has membership information.